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Blue-ray 'Not a Burden' For Sony
Via Opposable Thumbs, an article at GamePro in which Phil Harrison clarifies that Blue-ray on the PS3 is a 'game design' decision. From the article: "Once we had that storage capacity on Blu-ray Disc, adding the movie playback functionality was extremely cost-effective, [the cost] is actually non-existent. So games like Resistance which, as a launch title, is up to 20-something gigabytes already. And that's day one -- think about four years, six years from now. We'll be pushing the 50 gigabyte limit with dual-layer Blu-ray very quickly. So we absolutely need it as game designers, and in that regard, the consumer is getting the movie functionality effectively for free." I probably would have had a follow-up question there, but that's where the interview ends. So what do you think? Which came first for Sony: Blue-ray as new movie media, or Blu-ray as answer to design challenges?
Blu-Ray IS a burden... on the consumer. We're forced to pay an extra $300 so that game dev's can be lazy with their compression methods.
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The PS2 won wide acceptance in part because it was a very cheap (at the time) DVD player.
There's a few differences, though. DVD was already doing well on its own before the release of the PS2. Hollywood Video and Blockbuster already carried a good selection of DVD titles. DVD also didn't have any real competition from other formats, like Blu-Ray has now. HD-DVD players were out before Blu-Ray players, at half the cost. The fact that the Toshiba HD-DVD player costs $450 on Amazon vs. $700 for the Samsung Blu-Ray player vs. $1000 for the Sony Blu-Ray player makes you wonder who would be excited about Blu-Ray?
Also, DVD was following the same change that had already happened to music: going from cassette tapes to shiny discs, with all of the coolness of nice looking video, good sound, the convenience of being able to jump around to different tracks on the album/chapters of the movie. People had already seen the big change that going to a digital disc added to music, and were excited to see the same thing for movies. Plus, DVDs added the capability for extra features, extra languages/commentary tracks, subtitles in multiple languages, games, etc. The only real thing for the movie-watching population to get excited about with Blu-Ray is HD, with minor improvements in special features. The average home movie-viewer is not going to see a real paradigm shift, or an increase in convenience or features with Blu-Ray that they didn't already get with DVD. Now, music has gone to more media-agnostic formats. MP3's and other compresseed music formats can exist on your computer's hard drive and be transfered to a portable player through a USB connection, or they can be burned on a disc to play on an MP3 CD player. Media Center PCs and other more appliance-like media servers play MP3/wma/AAC music files. Many of the portable players use flash and thus have no moving parts. No skipping, no discs to scratch. It's all so convenient! Do that to the movie experience, but still manage to increase the video/audio quality, along with the features, and there you'll have a format people will be interested in.
Then build that into your gaming machine, and you'll have something people will buy in lieu of a stand alone player. Maybe the early rumors about the PS3 being a PVR/Media Center type of device would have been a better strategy than Blu-Ray.
If Sony had made a deal with the DVD coalition and accepted the HD-DVD standard I think they would be in a much better position right now. They would only take part of the HD-DVD licensing profits, but it would be cash in the bank. Business is about risk, but it's also about taking the easy profits when you can.
Imagine if you will, Sony including the only high definition format disc in their PS3. A dual layer HD-DVD has 30 gigs of storage, more than enough to hold the 22 gigs of Resistance: Fall of Man. Every single movie studio releasing their films on the only high definition format: HD-DVD. Sony would not be having the blue diode production problems that it is currently having. Because all of the manufacturers would be focusing on only one format, costs would come down even quicker. The high definition era would begin with the same unity as the DVD era. Sony would be guaranteed a huge quantity of money from licensing.
Instead, Sony decided that it had the Playstation brand as a magic bullet and gave the finger to the rest of the DVD coalition. I hope it works out for them.
Well, it's a good thing that Blu-Ray [1] isn't a burden for Sony, because it's going to be a huge burden for the PS3. Blu-Ray certainly doesn't have much momentum right now, and I doubt the PS3 will help matters much. I'm not saying it won't be the new high-def medium, because it might. But I think its success will be pretty much orthogonal to the success of the PS3.
On the other hand, let's see how the Blu-Ray has really hurt the PS3. Assume the PS3 had simply stayed with DVDs, like the xbox 360. They would've certainly released the PS3 much earlier, probably at the same time as the 360. The PS3 would've cost the expected $300 or $400, again remaining competitive.
Now, they've given Microsoft a year head-start. We all know in console time that's incredibly significant - in terms of market share, development time, allowing older title prices to come down. Giving Microsoft a lead will especially hurt Sony in terms of online games, where xbox Live was already moving to its next iteration. Also, I'd bet good money when the PS3 becomes available Microsoft will conveniently announce a $249/$349 price break on the the 360, further making the $600 PS3 sticker more unreasonable. Maybe even a Halo 3 for good measure?
Most big-name titles are going to be multi-platform, and without something truly innovative to set it apart (like the Wii), the PS3 has really positioned itself for failure. And the fault is almost exclusively due to Sony betting the PS3 on Blu-Ray. Honestly, as much as I love my PS2 games, I hope it does fail. The last thing I want video game manufacturers thinking is that they can release crap late and exorbitantly priced and succeed.
[1] By the way, Slashdot, Blu-Ray is the correct spelling; I heard Sony didn't use "Blue" as they couldn't trademark it.
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I'd rather play games in HD as well, but unless every PS3 comes with a $1500+ in the box so that I (or most people for that matter) can buy an HD TV to play the games on, SD is more than satisfactory for now, and will continue to be so until HDTV is the de facto standard in every household.