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Sony Pushes Back Release For Blu-Ray Players
Sony has announced that their first model of Blu-Ray player will release in August, not later this month as originally announced. The BDP-SP1, retailing for $1000, will now ship on or about August 15th. Bad news for fans of the new format, and even worse news for the PS3. Since Sony's lackluster E3 showing, a string of bad news has seemed to conspire against the company's next-gen console. From the Gamers with Jobs article: "With the PS3's high-end model coming it at a whopping $400.00 less than a stand-alone Blu-Ray player, Sony needs to release these players as soon as possible. If they wait too long, the PS3 will begin looming on the horizon, causing even devout early adopters to question the intelligence of buying a stand-alone Blu-Ray unit. Sony also needs the largest possible installed base, come launch-time for the PS3. For the Blu-Ray player to be the PS3's version of the PS2's DVD player, casual technophiles need to be able to see the virtues of the Blu-Ray format. If there are few players, and few titles, this might not happen."
My friend bought a first generation DVD player and it's still functioning to this day. I think it even has some of the codecs built into it (MP3, AVIs, etc.). His PS2's DVD functionality went out long ago. And that was after he participated in the first recall.
Buy a game console for its games. Buy a media player for its media playing abilities. Let's stop encouraging the console makers to bloat their consoles. Concentrate on one thing and--for the love of the game--get it right!
My work here is dung.
I love the smell of a corporate implosion in the morning.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
I won't be buying anymore Sony junk, period. I don't care if it is late or not.
Though Sony's stand-alone is being delayed until August, Samsung has a standalone Blu-Ray player coming out on June 25th.
Panasonic has one coming in September. Sony's lateness is not the sole barometer for the standard's success or failure.
So how is the delay of a Blu-Ray player bad for the PS3? It seems to me that the only effect would be to actually help the pS3 by having external Blu-Ray players still very expensive when they launch the PS3.
Now if Blu-Ray drives themselves cause the PS3 delivery date to be pushed back, that would actually be a problem. When we see that news the headlined may apply. Until then, this is just more sensationalist FUD about Sony who has become Zonk's favorite whipping boy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is it just me, or could this be a plausible marketing ploy? Sony wants the biggest install base of the PS3 as possible to make some money, and have better market penetration than the 360 or Wii. What if they're releasing a high priced player closer to the window of the launch of the PS3 on purpose? If you had your choice between a box that did Blu Ray for $1000, or a box that did Blu Ray + lots of other stuff, for $600, a lot of non-elitist consumers are going to go with the cheaper bargain. It's entirely possible that sony is releasing an over priced blu ray player now (btw, $1000? I can get a HD-DVD drive for under $200!), to increase adoption of the ps3 by the "I love HD, but my pocket book hates it" crowd.
Of course, as even the linked article admits, Samsung's blu-ray player is still due out at the end of this month, at the same time the first round of blu-ray discs are.
Since unlike UMDs and other failed "Sony" formats of the past, Blu-Ray is not propreitary, it doesn't matter when Sony gets their player out. The Blu-Ray does not succeed or fall based on Sony alone; Sony delaying their personal player for six months makes no difference. While surely having two blu-ray players out at format launch would have been better than one from a consumer perspective, Sony's delay means effectively nothing except that early adopters interested in blu-ray will be buying a Samsung instead.
But hey, Zonk's never let little things like facts get in the way of his constant proclamations of doom and death for Sony and everything connected to them. So whatever. Rootkit rootkit rootkit $599 lol.
Sony shouldn't have any problem recovering from a delay. The XBox 360 has already been out for 6 months, and by the time the PS3 comes out, the XBox 360 will have been out for at least a year. The buzz around the XBox system itself will have fizzled out, as the "new" novelty of the system will be gone. Nintendo has long been 3rd in the console rankings, and that probably won't change here. It has gotten a lot of buzz coming out of E3, and critics seem to love the system. It will come out around the same time as the Playstation 3, so Sony won't be hurt too bad from that standpoint. More importantly though, the name "Playstation" carries more weight than arguably any other system out there. Game consoles are not necessarily for the tech-minded. As cool as the Wii seems right now, little kids do not care about the blu-ray vs. HD debate, or how fun it would be to use a remote control to play games. These kids, the ones that drive the console industry, will be the ones who determine which console takes off. And they have the name "Playstation" engraved in their heads. It has long been at the top of the class, and reputation alone should be able to get it through these rough patches.
I think Sony's biggest problem with getting widespread adoption of Blu-Ray is that the vast majority of users are happy with the current DVD format. The improvement from VHS to DVD was obvious. Replacing your DVD collection with an expensive Blu-Ray collection that may never catch on with most people seems ludicrous. People might find Blu-Ray equipment in the closet with their Betamax VCRs and their old minidisc players.
I was offended by Sony's horrible DRM/rootkit situation, not because they tried to install rootkits (although that was bad enough) but because of their response when caught: "So what? Consumers won't even comprehend your techno-babble complaints."
I was offended by Sony's horrible pricing for the PS3, not because the pricing was so high (although that was bad enough) but because of their response when people took issue: "So what? Sony fanboys are going to pay no matter what the price."
I was offended by Sony's blatant plagarism of the Wii controller, not because of the 2nd-rate implementation (although... you get the idea), but because of their flat-out lying about it: "We didn't copy Nintendo. We're the real innovators."
All of these situations have a common thread: arrogance. A cavalier disrespect for the customer. A lack of ethics. There are no laws that say companies must be ethical, or must respect the customer. So I guess we can write off Sony's behavior as "it's just business." But there are also no laws which say I have to buy into it. So I hope that what goes around, comes around.
-Tony
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Nintendo isn't thrid anywhere but the US. Its second everywhere else, with a higher profit than MS or Sony.
You put way too much value in the PS name. Nintendo made the same mistake with the N64, and look what happened. THe big dog can lose. Meanwhile, SOny is now putting out a $600 console. You're right- kids are one of the drivers for games. No parent is going to pay $600 for a gaming console. Even the 360 at $400 is high priced. At 1/3 the cost of the PS3, the Wii is going to wipe the floor with Sony.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
For $499 you get a PS3 from Sony that:
*Plays 1080p HD BluRay movies over component cables... Until they implement HDCP...
*Plays 1080p games (which has been possible on PC for years)
*All the same exclusive games that 103+ million people bought Playstation 2s for (so why not just play them on that)
*Complate backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation games (when it decideds to work properly)
*Complete backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation 2 games (see above)
*Free online play for all non-MMORPG games. Nothing new here
*Linux. To what end? I'm sure it will be just as huge a success as Linux on PS2 was.......
*Webbrowsing in 1080p on your HD TV monitor and other desktop apps that you run in 1600x1200+ (higher than 1080p) on your PC
*Tilt controller that they copied from Nintendo
Compared to the 200-250 Wii which looks to be fun at parties and can produce graphics that are more than adequate, all the while maintaining an aura of FUN vs just being eye-candy.
Or the XBox 360 which will end up costing you over 700 bucks for the non-worthless version over four to five years, vs a system that will cost you well over $2000 up front to use it to its full potential ($600 for a non-crippled PS3, $200 for a few games, $1200+ on the low end for a TV that supports HDMI so you don't lose 1080p playback when HDCP is implemented). And that doesn't include a keyboard or mouse to actually USE the "other desktop apps" properly. Or the overpriced accessories.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
> Why does anyone want Sony destroyed?
I don't want them destroyed. I want them humbled. I want them to learn their BetaMax/ATRAC/UMD lesson for good. I want this arrogant zaibatsu to know it's mortal.
I own a PS2, I like the PS2, but after the conduct of Sony these past couple years, with their new price tags adding even more insult, they've lost me as a customer. Not my devotion or fandom or loyalty -- no one has that, it's just consumer electronics after all -- but just me as a customer. Sony has become synonymous with screwing their own customers, and I don't feel like bending over for the PS3.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.