Blu-ray's Hardware Woes Stacking Up

An anonymous reader writes "The bad news just keeps on coming for Blu-ray. First, Sony halved its U.S./Japanese launch shipments of its Blu-ray powered PlayStation 3, blaming a shortage of blue lasers. Then, in the last two weeks, both Sony and Pioneer delayed the releases of their new Blu-ray players, refusing to cite reasons. And this week, at Blu-ray backer LG's annual dealer show, a previously announced LG Blu-ray player was nowhere to be found. LG product development director Tim Alessi had this to say: 'We will provide an announcement when the time is right.'"

Comments

the short of it

[Anonymous Coward]

It don't work...

no no no..

[Anonymous Coward]

When will these guys learn..

your supposed to rush it to market all busted ass, for twice the price, and then make it up on rev.2 equipment at the normal price..

buggy hardware.. pfft.. buggy hardware is just a cost savings measure to promote the next release which is "better in everyway"..

damned if they do.. damnned if they don't..

perhaps sony is LEARNING..

bring busted ass crap to the market and you'll be reamed for it.. wait a bit, take some flack, but deliver a good product.. and well.. lose the consumer market to VHS.. (that's ok.. studios pay more for beta anyway..)

Re:no no no..

[bigman2003]

Better yet, don't announce it until you can really make it.

Sony hasn't learned anything. They are not using a "it won't get to market until it is done" approach here because they are gentlemen.

What is happening, is that Sony is suffering from their long-time habit of announcing products that are FAR from being complete. In the past they have been able to produce the product (with features removed) for th launch date. But this time they've finally been bitten in the butt, and they just can't do it.

In my mind, Sony is the WORST of the 'announce it just to hurt your competitor' companies out there. Maybe this fiasco will get them to change their ways.

Re:no no no..

[Wornstrom]

I think the manufacturers are all using the upcoming holiday shopping season as leverage to jack up the prices of the few 'precious' blu-ray players that will be 'available'. Reminds me of that retarded Elmo toy craze that went on a few years ago. I expect ebay to be ball-deep in $1000+ blu-ray players, etc. and then they will announce the new technology they developed that will obsolete the blu-ray in 6 months.

Re:no no no..

[ehrichweiss]

What do you mean "retarded Elmo toy craze that went on a few years ago"?!?!? Didn't you hear that one started all over again? I forget what this new Elmo is(ElmoTX or something like that?) but Elmo's back and he's taking Cambodia by storm...no wait..that's Rambo IV...well Elmo *is* back even if I can't remember what it's about.

Re:no no no..

[nametaken]

From what I hear, the lesson is to run your format and cost projections past the porn industry... then go with what they decide.

Re:no no no..

[drinkypoo]

Better yet, don't announce it until you can really make it. Sony hasn't learned anything. They are not using a "it won't get to market until it is done" approach here because they are gentlemen. What is happening, is that Sony is suffering from their long-time habit of announcing products that are FAR from being complete.

I don't think you know what you're talking about. I mean, your description of what sony is doing is correct but I think your analysis of why they are doing it is way off.

You say "Sony hasn't learned anything". I say you're insane. They learned a lot. They learned that when they announced the PS2 over a year in advance with completely bullshit specs, two things happened. One, their most important competition was destroyed, their wells poisoned, and their ground sown with salt. Two, shitloads of people bought the PS2 anyway even though it was maybe 10% as powerful as they claimed it would be.

Sony knows exactly what they are doing. The sad thing is that consumers are such sheep that it will probably work again, simply because they're doing it in a slightly different space in the market.

Re:no no no..

[bigman2003]

You're right. That is exactly why they do what they have been doing all along. It destroyed the Dreamcast, and they are hoping to do the same to the Xbox and Wii.

But this time it may have backfired. Or at least I hope it did.

Re:no no no..

[jridley]

hmmm, 1080p 72" porn....

Re:no no no..

[MrDoh1]

As someone that went out and bought one the very first day (I have the original from years back) I can tell you it's worth every penny. I've never seen so many adults laugh so hard at something inanimate.

Oh, by the way, it's TMX, which stands for Tickle Me 10 as it has been 10 yrs since the original was launched.

Re:no no no..

[joe_n_bloe]

Honestly there's only so much detail that intrigues me. There is a point of diminishing returns ....

Re:no no no..

[drakaan]

...just to be clear, you went out and bought a Blu-ray player or a tickle-me-elmo? I haven't heard of any TMX-enabled blu-ray players...

PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[HappySqurriel]

The difference between the PS2's DVD drive and the PS3's Blu-Ray drive is that when the PS2 was released DVD players had been on the market for a full 3 years.

I could be wrong, but it seems like including Blu-Ray may be the biggest mistake that Sony made on the PS3; it will increase the cost of the PS3, reduce the supply, and has so little content for it that it probably will not increase sales. If the PS3 was to be released in Q4 of 2008 Blu-Ray would have probably been an amazing addition, but in Q4 of 2006 it seems like a massive disaster.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[hjf]

sony always does that (they did it with the DAT, the UMD, the BETAMAX, etc). they are always trying to force their standard, but in the end nobody buys it.

I don't blame them. I would also like to create some sort of software or hardware and then live the rest of my life off the royalties.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[aadvancedGIR]

You are right, but forgot to say that the DVD was already one of the most successful technology introduction in history, whereas blue ray still has 50% chances of being only one more of the long list of Sony failures.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[elrous0]

Blu-Ray may be the biggest mistake that Sony made on the PS3

I'm a big supporter of the 360, but I have to admit that the Blu-ray drive might actually prove to be a big advantage to Sony in the long run. It makes the PS3 much more future-proof than the 360, which is already hitting the wall on game storage space. Along with the decision to include a hard drive STANDARD (MS's biggest bonehead move with the 360 was actually taking a step BACKWARDS with the tard box), this could prove to ultimately be a very smart move.

-Eric

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Rob T Firefly]

And DVD was already the consortium-maintained standard, and not just something proprietary that Sony really really wants to make the standard.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

But how else would sony force its buggy, problematic, overly optimistic format on the world?

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[fitten]

The old rumor is that Sony originally intended for a Q4'2007 release but Microsoft forced their hand by aggressively (and purposefully) releasing the XBox360 in 2005. Sony felt they had to move it up a year in order to remain relevant and this is what is causing all the problems... blue-ray availability problems (supply, actually working)... cell processor availibility problems (working to the desired spec, not on the originally spec'd/desired process), etc.

On the other side of the coin, Sony has a large religious following so it doesn't matter what they do (up to and including comments that they could sell their customer base crap in a box and they'd buy it), it'll still sell well.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Xymor]

What's the difference between the DVD consortium and the Blu-ray one?

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Abcd1234]

There wasn't another consortium competing with the DVDCA?

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[aplusjimages]

Eric, as in Eric Nylund? I Totally agree. Then 360 says, hey we have an HD-DVD player for the 360. It isn't used for games, just movies. What happens with HDMI?

If Sony can actually produce the system they claim, then it will be so much better than the 360. I'm keeping my 360 though for when Halo 3 comes out. Boo yaka.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

PS3 with blu ray will be the biggest failure of sony's history, bigger than betamax.

http://ce.seekingalpha.com/article/17605

I don't agree that it will take the company down with it, but sony will be hurting...

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Fozzyuw]

I could be wrong, but it seems like including Blu-Ray may be the biggest mistake that Sony made on the PS3;

Sony is either smart or very dumb. The jury is still out (despite what most /. members think, like myself).

However, we need to look at it like this... what would have happened if Sony did NOT put blu-ray in their PS3? HD-DVD would have garnered a large early lead against Sony and probably would have killed of Blu-Ray. It's just one big obvious strategy. Sure, the gamers are largely unhappy about it, due to the increase in cost, but if they have a Blu-Ray on their game system (whether they want it or not), and they start to build a Blu-Ray DVD collection, they're more likely to purchase a Blu-Ray stand-alone since they already started a Blu-Ray collection.

It was more of a do or die strategy. The PS3 was the only thing they could guarantee that their technology would get penetration. Lets face it, when it comes to spending money, it's only gamers who would justify $600 for a video game system, just like they spend $400 for the latest video card for their PC or buy/build a $4,000 gaming rig. That doesn't mean YOU (or more appropriately MYSELF) would spend that much on a brand new system, but that's not to say there isn't people out there that would.

I just talked to a friend of mine who waited in line at Toy-R-Us for their PS3 system. While doing so, he found a famous Green Bay Packers Wide Receiver (American Football) trying to buy their PS3 system off them for $100 extra. He ran into the same guy later at the Casino and found out he bribed a Circuit City employee to put his name at the top of the Pre-order list.

This same friend, who purchased 2 PS3 (he went with his cousin), are doing the whole E-Bay thing, where the pre-orders are selling for upwards of $3,000 now. So, the point is, Sony will sell their PS3's. Did they hurt their PlayStation franchise to push their Blu-Ray player? Absolutely. Will their PS3 survive? Without a doubt. Will it loose market share? No question about it, at least for the short term. Does this put Sony's Blu-Ray in a competitive position to become the 'next' format. Yes, without doing this, it would not have been as likely to succeed. In this way, they didn't have much choice. If Blu-Ray succeeds, that means Sony will be making enormous profits for decades. If the PS3 loose a large market share, it will still retain some and it can still gain ground in the future with huge price drops. This isn't a PS3 strategy. This is a Blu-Ray strategy.

I'm not planning on buying one, at least not for probably 3-4 years. I only bought a PS2 a month ago. =P

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[JFMulder]

I think the reason for going with a hard drive has part to do with the fact that the transfer rates for Blu-ray drives at the moment have slower transfer rate than the current crop of DVD drives (Sorry, I couldn't find the original article that mentionned this. The third comment sums the issue nicely). Basically, the 360 has a 12x DVD drive that runs at 11mbps x 12 and PS3 has a 2X BD-ROM drive that runs at 36mbps x 2. So the 360 has faster transfer from the game disk.

Also according to this, you will be able to install PS3 on the hard drive to reduce load times. For example, Genji does it, and it's 4 gig to install. Suddenly that 20 gig HD in the PS3 doesn't seem that big. If people have to install their games to get any decent load times, then the 500$ PS3 might well as bad as a 360 with a memory card. I mean, install 4 games on your console and you're almost out of storage. At least with the 360 it's almost transparent when you have an HD that you are caching stuff to it (that's why you only have 13 gigs instead of 20 when you format it, about 7 gigs are kept for game caches). And I've yet to see horrible load times on the 360, except for Oblivion.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Sinbios]

And Blu-Ray has been on the market since 2003. Do the math.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[(A)*(B)!0_-]

"On the other side of the coin, Sony has a large religious following so it doesn't matter what they do (up to and including comments that they could sell their customer base crap in a box and they'd buy it), it'll still sell well."

What are you basing that on? I haven't thought of Sony as producing quality products since the late 80s. They've been burning through customer goodwill.

Gauging support for Sony based on all the rumblings I've seen on the Internet (an admittedly unscientific way of determining who likes Sony), it appears to me that they have a very small group of people who are really behind them 100%. How have you determined that there's this large group of followers?

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Randall311]

Mod parent up. This is very true. If you'd asked me a year ago which format was going to win this "format war" I would have said Blu-ray. But now today, once again, somehow Sony has not learned from their mistakes. It is truly mind boggling! Here we have Sony with what is once again the technically superior format (Betamax anyone?), it's ridden with DRM just like the movie industry wants. Anybody on the outside looking in at this a year ago would say that it's probably a lock and that Sony finally got it right.

Take a step back and look at what's happened in the last year. It's become apparent that Sony got it's priorities wrong. In trying desperately to recreate what was a coincidental success with the PS2's DVD player, they have focused all of their energy on trying to force a Blu-ray success story with the PS3. The problem is that Sony focused on Blu-ray so much that it seems the PS3's gaming aspects have been pulled out of the spotlight and Blu-ray shoehorned into it's place. The PS3 is suffering because of it.

The fact is that Blu-ray production is being rushed (lack of blue lasers available, diode failure problems, etc.) and people themselves are either not ready for it, or don't see the benefits of it over DVD as being a "must have" right now. I think the HD media will have it's place in the future, but forcing it down the throats of consumers to try and insure marketplace success is turning people off of the PS3 and Sony in general. Blu-ray drives the price of the PS3 up dramatically, and to what purpose or benefit of the consumers? The only benefits of this can go to Sony, who is looking more and more like they don't give a damn about their customers, only their precious Blu-ray.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Control Group]

While doing so, he found a famous Green Bay Packers Wide Receiver (American Football) trying to buy their PS3 system off them for $100 extra. He ran into the same guy later at the Casino and found out he bribed a Circuit City employee to put his name at the top of the Pre-order list.

As a Wisconsinite and a Packers fan, I have to ask - who was it? We're sort of short on famous wide outs, right now, so am I safe in assuming it's #80? Or are we not talking about a current player?

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Control Group]

And I've yet to see horrible load times on the 360, except for Oblivion

You obviously haven't played PGR3. Oblivion's got nothing on the load screen bonanza that is PGR3.

Anyway, interesting take on the PS3 HDD; I hadn't put 2 and 2 together on that one yet.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[HappySqurriel]

"The Blu-ray Disc Association unveiled their plans for a May 23, 2006 release date at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2006. Since then, Blu-ray Disc was delayed, but eventually shipped in the U.S. on June 20, 2006"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-Ray_Disc

The Blu-Ray specifications were not finalized in 2003 so how could they have released a Blu-Ray recorder?

My point was that the first DVD movie player (that played movies) was released in March 1997 with the PS3 being released in Q4 2000, the first Blu-Ray movie player was released in June 2007 with the PS3 being released in Q4 2007.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[blugu64]

You'll take my Betamax when you pry it from my cold dead hands!!

(personally I love seeing people reaction when I pop in an old recording of Wargames, or Blade Runner on Beta)

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Sinbios]

The first Blu-ray Disc recorder was unveiled by Sony on March 3, 2003, and was introduced to the Japanese market in April that year.

I'm sorry, but you must realize that a) Sony is a Japan-based company and b) the U.S. does not constitute the entirety of "the market". Also, nowhere within your quote did it mention that the Blu-Ray specs were not finalized in 2003.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Blu-Ray is technically a better technology than HD-DVD.

2. The market is different than it was back in the Betamax/VHS days.

3. Including Blu-Ray in the PS3 (let's just call it the PS123 while we're at it since it plays games from all three platforms) is one of the BEST decisions Sony could have made.
It sets them apart from the XBOX that has no HD style player at $400. For just $100 more you get a HUGE catalog of games, 1080p HD games (something the 360 will never have), and a DVD/blu-ray player for around $300 LESS than what's for sell in the market for stand-alone players...

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[HappySqurriel]

The specifications for the single layer (25 GB) and dual layer (50 GB) Blu-ray discs were approved by the BDA on January 2, 2006

http://www.blureporter.com/blu-ray/news/117

How can you have a Blu-Ray drive before you have a finalized Blu-Ray disc spec?

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Wiz]

Which games are running out of storage space? Even Oblivion's ISO image is only 7GB in size, so there is a couple of GB still available there. That hard disk could be used to buffer some data also if a 2nd disc is required.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Petersko]

"I could be wrong, but it seems like including Blu-Ray may be the biggest mistake that Sony made on the PS3; it will increase the cost of the PS3, reduce the supply, and has so little content for it that it probably will not increase sales."

I doubt Sony is hoping that the content available for on Blu-Ray will increase PS3 sales. It's more likely they're hoping that a few million Blu-Ray-capable PS3's will increase content sales, and allow them to win this format war.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Fozzyuw]

...so am I safe in assuming it's #80?

That would be a safe assumption. =D

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[badasscat]

And DVD was already the consortium-maintained standard, and not just something proprietary that Sony really really wants to make the standard.

There's no practical difference between the DVD Consortium/Forum and the Blu-Ray Disc Association. This is the DVD Consortium founding member list:

# Hitachi, Ltd.
# Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.
# Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
# Pioneer Electronic Corporation
# Royal Philips Electronics N.V.
# Sony Corporation
# Thomson
# Time Warner Inc.
# Toshiba Corporation
# Victor Company of Japan,

The equivalent list for the BDA:

Apple Computer, Inc.
Dell Inc.
Hewlett Packard Company
Hitachi, Ltd.
LG Electronics Inc.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
TDK Corporation
Thomson Multimedia
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney Pictures
Warner Bros. Entertainment

The only really notable difference is the omission of Toshiba from the BDA list - they are the ones that initiated the push for HD-DVD. In fact, you can see that BDA has more industry support at launch than DVD did, and the only two major DVD Forum members not on the BDA are Toshiba and JVC.

The long and the short of it being that Blu-Ray is no more or less "proprietary" than DVD was. In fact, DVD was promoted most heavily by Philips, Sony and Toshiba, who are now ripping each other's throats apart as enemies on Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD. But they are two competing standards developed through consortiums, just as DVD was; it is not the case that one is proprietary and the other is not.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[drinkypoo]

I have a Sony Super-Beta deck I got at the flea market for $10. It does PCM audio if you want, that's what makes it super. I have one tape; someone recorded charlie and the chocolate factory from abc or something, and it was in the deck when I bought it. It sits right on top of my laserdisc player...

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Rob T Firefly]

Color me corrected. Thanks!

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[gfxguy]

That's what Sega used to say.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[@madeus]

You obviously haven't played PGR3. Oblivion's got nothing on the load screen bonanza that is PGR3.

I completely agree, PGR is a bit of a mess. When you try and restart a race on the same course it still takes ages to 'reload' it, and there isn't even any dynamic movable scenery to re-position (other than maybe the odd scripted plane that flys overhead)! It's much worse than the origional MSR on the Dreamcast or PGR on the X-Box, as much as I like the Live stuff the progression system is not as good either, in fact I've hardly played the game despite prefering it's handling to any other 360 racing title. I'll probably get Ridge Racer 7 on the way home tonight.

Microsoft definitely dropped the ball by not including an HD on every system, it was one of the outstanding features of the origional console. I can't see many developers bothering to optimise for Hard Disk loading if they think they might have to come up with another loading system for those that don't have a Hard Disk (certainly, no one seems to have bothered so far).

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[HappySqurriel]

1. Blu-Ray is technically a better technology than HD-DVD.

How do you define a "better" technology? It can be argued that the lower costs of the discs and players of HD-DVD make it a "better" technology. Regardless, I don't see the relevance of this point in what I said because it would have been a mistake to include HD-DVD on the PS3 as well; it would have increased the cost (to a lesser extent), reduced supply and provided little content which would sell more PS3s.

2. The market is different than it was back in the Betamax/VHS days.

How do you mean that? Do you mean that both DVD formats will survive? Do you mean that people will now pay extra for a format? Or do you mean that Sony now has the power to force a format on us?

3. Including Blu-Ray in the PS3 (let's just call it the PS123 while we're at it since it plays games from all three platforms) is one of the BEST decisions Sony could have made.
It sets them apart from the XBOX that has no HD style player at $400. For just $100 more you get a HUGE catalog of games, 1080p HD games (something the 360 will never have), and a DVD/blu-ray player for around $300 LESS than what's for sell in the market for stand-alone players...

For people who have a 1080p HDTV, want a Next-Generation gaming system, desire a Next-Generation Movie Format, believe that Blu-Ray will be successful over HD-DVD, and can justify $500/$600 on a glorified toy Blu-Ray movie playback was a great decision; for the other 99% of the population it is questionable.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[drinkypoo]

This is all anecdotal but any time I say to someone something like "Sony is coasting on their good name - they used to make great stuff way way way back in the day but they've been putting out junk for a long time" the person I'm talking to agrees. WITHOUT EXCEPTION. I have an old-school sony bookshelf stereo from the 1970s, it's got KLH speakers and a walnut case. I opened up the volume pot and cleaned it, and now it works flawlessly - got the whole thing for $40. Beautiful little stereo. But I'm done buying Sony. I give up. They're just too fucked in the head. Beta, NET-MD, rootkit, a total lack of decent driver support on the Vaios, $600 PS3 that's "too cheap"... I'm done until they get a clue, and I go about telling anyone that will listen about why. Double-digit numbers of people take cues from me on their purchases because I'm their alpha nerd, so I am making a difference, and you can too.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[ShadowsHawk]

When will people learn that facts are not good for a Fanboy's diet? Rumors, wild theories and outright lies are the best way to go if you want to keep the rabid and kicking.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[drinkypoo]

And Blu-Ray has been on the market since 2003. Do the math.

The very first paragraph after your link:

The first Blu-ray Disc recorder was unveiled by Sony on March 3, 2003, and was introduced to the Japanese market in April that year. On September 1, 2003, JVC and Samsung Electronics announced Blu-ray Disc-based products at IFA in Berlin, Germany. Both indicated that their products would be on the market in 2005.

They SHOWED a DEMO in 2003, but even then they said they would not have any products until 2005, and the article goes on (as the sibling comment says) to say that no products were released until 2006.

I believe the word for your current condition is OWNED.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[@madeus]

I'll probably get Ridge Racer 7 on the way home tonight.

Or 6, or twelvtey, or whatever it's up to now, I should say.

I liked the origional TOCA game, until it stopped being about racing touring cars and started forcing you to play through all the stages with eveything from karts to grand prix cars to old muscle cars (which all handle widly differently, and you can't just pick and choose which style to play a series of races in, you have to play them all in order).

Oh and PGR3 is way too stingy on the cars now, again previously in the series it was easy to unlock cars and the progression is slow and natural. Now, you have to do some races on 'Easy' mode at first, then when you get a car that is fast enough to be able to meet the time restrictions to do it at Normal and Hard you have do them again. Oh yes, and the tracks are *much* smaller than in previous versions, less than half the size in fact.

I'm wonder if it was just too time consuming to do all the artwork for the size of area covered in the origional games, and that's why the latest version has the new less favourable career progression mode that's padded with all the more abstract speed/cone/timed lap challange stuff (because the wide range of courses possible in previous versions simply can't be done when you are racing over a much smaller map area).

Test Drive, despite it's not always completely smooth frame rate (which seems to be mostly due to all the flora it's rendering), seems to cope with loading scenery on the fly very well though. It's just occured to me I've never noticed it in fact.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[default luser]

Exactly, there was no other consortum competing with DVD.

There was competition from DIVX. However, once people realized that you could only buy DIVX players and movies at Circuit City, and that you had to pay every time you wanted to watch one, and that you couldn't play your "gold" unlocked discs in any other player except your own, and that DIVX movies didn't come with extra features, etc - people caught on quick.

The problem with HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray is two-fold:

The first issue is that both standards are equally compelling. Each have major studio support, and each can use modern codecs and sizeable capacity to deliver much improved image quality. On the other hand, both standards are plagued by a lack of platforms - while the $500-1000 introduction DVD players looked incredible even on regular TVs of the time, $500-1000 introduction HD disc players only look "better" on HDTVs (%20 or market), and they really only look "incredible" by comparison on 1080p screens (less than %1 of market).

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason they made a 360 without a hard drive is because if they sell tons they will eventually be able to get the cost of the core system down to below $150, maybe even $100, and become a mass-market purchase.
A system with a hard drive simply can't ever be that cheap.

As a gamer who doesn't mind spending a little more for a large benefit I wish they hadn't made that decision, but I would probably have made the same call in their position.

It also has the side benefit that when the HD craps out in 5 years (they always do) you can still play games.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[14CharUsername]

Yeah, the jury is still out. They are looking more long term with the PS3. MS is going to hit a wall with the 360 soon, with not have a hard drive come standard and soon games devs will need more space than a standard DVD can hold. This will mean that MS will have to release yet another X-Box within two years. By then the PS3 will be at a reasonable price level and have a huge selection of games. Even the Xbox fanboys will be irratated after having to buy a new system every two or three years. When you can choose between a PS3 with a huge library of games and an Xbox720 with only a couple of games, and you know that its going to last as long as the Xbox720, and the PS3 is much cheaper than the 720... well the Xbox720 isn't going to sell that well is it?

I think Sony's strategy with the PS3 isn't to compete with the 360, they are going to try to kill whatever MS comes out with next.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[prockcore]

The difference between the PS2's DVD drive and the PS3's Blu-Ray drive is that when the PS2 was released DVD players had been on the market for a full 3 years.

Another difference is that when the PS2 came out, there were *tons* of multi-disc PS1 games. FFVIII was 3 CDs. The CD format was already insufficient when the PS2 came out.

I have never seen a PS2 game that required 2 DVDs... let alone 3.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Sinbios]

Read your own quote. What exactly does "introduced to the Japanese market in April that year" mean to you? Sony put the product on the market in April, 2003. Samsung and JVC are the ones that didn't get to the market until 2005.

I believe the word for your condition in general is FLAMING IDIOT. Literally an idiot who flames.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Vitriol Angst]

Sony is either smart or very dumb. The jury is still out (despite what most /. members think, like myself).

However, we need to look at it like this... what would have happened if Sony did NOT put blu-ray in their PS3? HD-DVD would have garnered a large early lead against Sony and probably would have killed of Blu-Ray. ... now if Sony were as smart and sneaky as Microsoft, they would never have bothered with Blue-Ray beyond the product announcement. They would then negotiate with HD-DVD and offered to licence their technology in a gesture of open standards -- but of course at a discount, because they could burry them with this Blue-Ray thing, and that would just confuse the market-place.

So, armed with a discount on HD-DVD licensing, they could start selling them into the market. Only they would quickly offer an "enhanced" HD-DVD, perhaps with a 1gig Flash drive to record position and settings and a list of all DVDs played. They could quickly extend the HD-DVD and make sure that some Sony products didn't work as well with other non-Sony HD-DVD players. Before the dust settled, Sony would have both the cheapest and the most preferred HD-DVD on the market. They could then slowly introduce standards drift while still playing other HD-DVDs from other vendors.

And who would want to buy a vanilla HD-DVD when you could have an HD-DVD + Plays-Sony-For-Sure + the way kewl DVD-Explorer?

Embrace and Extend.

Sony just took the old Apple position of trying to create their own technology, and then to launch a brand-new platform based on that unfinished technology, for no discernible profit motive.

Sony's game system needs to run with the best, most proven technology -- as if the rest of Sony doesn't exist. This was the same issue they had with an MP3 player that couldn't play MP3s and then insisted on the home-built and horrible A-Track compression that nobody else used.

Using their own platform to make Blue-Ray a standard was a big risk. I don't know what the profits for the BlueRay were going to be when you look at licensing, but they sure are risking a big cash cow to make it happen.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[drinkypoo]

Read your own quote. What exactly does "introduced to the Japanese market in April that year" mean to you? Sony put the product on the market in April, 2003. Samsung and JVC are the ones that didn't get to the market until 2005.

Unfortunately "introduced" does not mean that it was placed on the market in this context. Unfortunately whoever used that word in the wikipedia article did not know what it means. As the sibling said, the standard had not even been formalized in 2003. It was literally impossible to sell a Blu-Ray player because Blu-Ray didn't mean anything. In particular they were still fighting over which codecs would be supported in both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray at that time.

Your own link contradicts itself and you did not take this as a reason to go do some additional research? here is an article (in macworld of all places) about how Japan and the US will share a region code when they come out "later this year" - it was from August 17, 2006. Here is an article from Japan today on August 30, 2006 about how Blu-Ray Discs and Players are to go on sale "from November" and also that "Nishitani said Sony plans to release Blu-ray players in the United States around October, but a launch date for Japan has not yet been decided."

YOU CANNOT TRUST WIKIPEDIA AS YOUR ONLY REFERENCE. I sometimes do refer to Wikipedia, and even cite it as a sole reference, but I either know what it is saying is true, or I tend to doublecheck somewhere else to make sure it is not full of shit.

In other words, you are a dumbfuck. Please go away and do not return. Thank you. BTW I may flame, but I'm correct, which puts me ahead of your sorry ass.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[rancher dan 3]

Not to mention Sony's decision to include Blu-Ray means that it is the gaming public that pays the high early adopter hardware costs. Stand alone consumer units will be a *lot* cheaper to produce because of the suckers ^H^H^H^H^H noble gaming public.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[crcurran]

Wrong! The xbox360 "core" doesnt come with a harddrive but it does allow you to add one for a little less than $100. An xbox360 core is completely upgradeable to a xbox360 premium system.

I'm note sure about the PS3 lite versus the full PS3 because Sony keeps lying about the specs to steal the attention from Microsoft. Ido know they cut features and processing power every few months. I think the PS3 lite ($499 model) didnt have an HDMI port until last month when Sony declared there would be (unconfirmed). This is the first time I heard of Sony upping the spec on one of the models, if it's true.

Sony better be worrying about the xbox720 because once the PS3 gets up to speed late next year it will probably only have a couple of years before it hits and I bet the 720 (call it what you like) will have near 100% backwards compatibility with the xbox360 and be absolutuely stunning. Directx10 games coming out next year look better than anything on the xbox360 or PS3 BY A LONG SHOT.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[kakalaky]

There was an "almost Blu-Ray" player avaible in Japan in 2003. It used the same disc technology but can not handle all of the codecs or the same encryption as the finalized spec.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Zantetsuken]

Basically, the 360 has a 12x DVD drive that runs at 11mbps x 12 and PS3 has a 2X BD-ROM drive that runs at 36mbps x 2

Huh? I think you got the #x speed and #mbps mixed up. The #x speed is what data rate the first generation of that drive runs at, and the #mbps is how much data the drive is actually moving, so a 2x drive is 2x the original data rate, and 4x and etc - second off, to make sure of this, I just waded through the wikipedia article on bd-roms (couldn't find it looking through dvd), and your speed quote for BD-rom is wrong anyway:

Originally, Blu-ray Disc drives in production could only transfer approximately 36 Mbit/s (54 Mbit/s required for BD-ROM), but 2x speed drives with a 72 Mbit/s transfer rate are now available. Rates of 8x (288 Mbit/s) or more are planned for the future.

It applies from all the way back from the 90's when CD-roms were first coming to major use in PC's, to when DVD players first came out, to HD-DVD and BD-ROM... I'm not really trying to piss anybody off here (hopefully I'm not), just the facts you started with were wrong (mixup of mbps and 2x, and the actual mbps rate for BD-ROM)/p>

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, we need to look at it like this... what would have happened if Sony did NOT put blu-ray in their PS3? HD-DVD would have garnered a large early lead against Sony and probably would have killed of Blu-Ray"

Hmmm, if Sony didn't push BluRay, HDDVD may have not been on Microsoft's plan for 2006.

Basically, this whole mess of expensive players was pushed by MS for Vista with its original release of this year, so all the manufactures were pushed to support it (HDDVD) and the content vendors followed suit. And since Vista is delayed until '07, that really screwed things up--this technology peaked too early and now only MS has a change to make any immediate profit (with Vista that is...)

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[14CharUsername]

Tell me, what does MS pay for astroturf these days?

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your analysis is flawed. Maybe if Sony didn't have to keep all of the blue diodes for their precious PS3, there could actually be a decent amount of players on the market for the holiday season. That is how they would have the penetration you speak of. The gamers are not going to drive the initial adoption of Blue-Ray as a movie format. The PS3 could be out already and have a Blu-Ray add-on by the time the gamers need it.

All of the mention of Ebay and the like means that the people who are reselling preorders are making a lot of money, not Sony. If they had a large number of non-Blu-Ray PS3s already on the market, then they would be making much larger profits.

I would have purchased a high definition player by now, but I will not put up with the format war. I don't care who wins because in the end, the capacity and cost differences will not be that significant and the movie quality will be in the codecs which are cross platform.

And to all the people who say things like, "Doesn't Sony remember Betamax. It was better than VHS like Blu-Ray is better than HD-DVD..." That is exactly why Sony went out and bought a bunch of movie studios. To ensure that they could hold out in a format war and not let the other side have all of the content.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Fozzyuw]

The gamers are not going to drive the initial adoption of Blue-Ray as a movie format.

No, they are not going to drive the market, but they are going to be part of the market. IF there are no problems with the PS3 Blu-Ray player, then you are going to convert gamers to Blu-Ray instead of HD-DVD, unless they own an HD-DVD setup before their PS3 purchase.

All of the mention of Ebay and the like means that the people who are reselling preorders are making a lot of money, not Sony.

The point about eBay is that people will buy a PS3, which is to counter-argue those who say no one will buy one due to it's cost, not about who's making the money.

If they had a large number of non-Blu-Ray PS3s already on the market, then they would be making much larger profits.

PS3's are sold at a loss for the sake of gaining market share to recoup costs in license-fees and accessory such as joysticks and memory cards. If they had more PS3's on the market, would mean they're making a profit on it. Only if they had developers cranking out games and paying their fees. Profits will take time to recoup when you sell a system for a loss.

That is exactly why Sony went out and bought a bunch of movie studios.

Indeed, this format war is significantly different that the first. It will be interesting to see what happens as the Betamax/VHS thing was *just* before my time.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[crcurran]

The same price they pay for tea in china

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[zeno_2]

You can buy 802.11n routers and network cards now and as far as I know the 802.11n spec wont be finalized until next year.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[lidocaineus]

Because God forbid a multi-disc game. Lord.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[norminator]

...you get a HUGE catalog of games, 1080p HD games (something the 360 will never have), and a DVD/blu-ray player for around $300 LESS than what's for sell in the market for stand-alone players...

Nevermind that the Toshiba HD-DVD player sells for $500... Sure the Blu-Ray players are more expensive, but it makes more sense to compare a product with a competing product than to compare it against itself. That said, the Sony BR player can be pre-ordered for $999... Why in the world would a player built into a game console cost half of a stand-alone player?? I think you have to ask yourself, what corners are they cutting on the BR in the PS3 to make it fit into a next-gen super-rad console at half the price of the stand-alone? Not to mention, they are cannibalizing their blue laser supplies for their own stand-alone player to get them into the PS3.

Also, when you say "technically a better technology", what makes it better? Higher density? Is that it? I happen to like the technology of HD-DVD that lets them put a DVD and an HD-DVD on opposite sides of the same disc. That makes me want to go out and buy HD-DVD content right now, because even if HD-DVD sinks, I can still play my discs on just about any DVD-compatible player. Also, Blu-Ray requires a lot of new equipment for the disc stampers, whereas HD-DVD discs can be mass produced with existing equipment, with a just few changes.

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[geminidomino]

Nitpick: FFVIII (PSX) was four CDs. ;)

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[blugu64]

Mine is just a Beta III or something like that. I've got a ton of old recordings from when HBO first started and they were giving away access. I'm pretty sure I've got almost every bond film, and the original Star Wars taped. Eitherway Viva la Beta, no?

Re:PS2 DVD vs PS3 Blu-Ray

[Cardcaptor_RLH85]

Actually, Xenosaga 3 on the PS2 is a 2 DVD game ^_^ There are a couple of others but I haven't played them so I'm not sure.

Really?

[mgblst]

I hardly think that a few delayed drives are much of a woe for Blu-Ray. And the fact that the Playstation won't be arriving initially in as many units isn't too much of a problem.

HDDVD has had delayed drives as well.

I mean, I hate Sony as much as the next person, but this is really a non-story. I really hope Blu-Ray fails, but I not running around making up shit to help it on its way, and if I did, it would be better than this.

Re:Really?

[ronanbear]

The delays in Blu-Ray players probably aren't that big a deal in the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray war. Getting players out for a few early adopters willing to pay huge money won't make a difference in the end.

The PS3 though is in a much more precarious position. Timing is critical in the console industry right now. Sony are doing everything they can do ease supply shortages. That's what this story is about, Blu-Ray players have been delayed indefinitely (probably a few months) so that there's less of a shortage of PS3s.

The PS3 is important for Blu-Ray because it will account for a large proportion of the short and medium term installed base. If the PS3 fails to sell well then HD-DVD players will probably start to outsell Blu-Ray players.

I can imagine that companies like LG are really pissed right now. They're not saying much in public and that's probably because Sony are leaning on them and they know that criticising Sony is counterproductive (for them).

Re:Really?

[nutshell42]

HDDVD has had delayed drives as well.

Did it? AFAIK they use the same laser diodes so it should have similar problems but I get my news only from the zonked news dept. (I'm not really in the market for a player so I just read what's posted on /.) and it definitely sounds like Blu-Ray has more problems.

Is this just a wave of attack-/vertisments payed by MS/Toshiba? Is it just Sony that has problems with the diodes? Is it some other problem and they just say it's the diodes for some reason? Is it the necessary number of diodes for the PS3 which probably surpasses the production runs of dedicated players this early in the lifecycle? Anybody got some facts?

Re:Really?

[tuffy]

The PS3 is important for Blu-Ray because it will account for a large proportion of the short and medium term installed base. If the PS3 fails to sell well then HD-DVD players will probably start to outsell Blu-Ray players.

The PS3 might get Blu-Ray into a lot of homes, but it's going to fail as a video format if that's the dominant disc player. The non-gamer crowd isn't going to buy or use a PS3 purely to play Blu-Ray discs; they want a dedicated set-top Blu-Ray player that isn't overly complicated. Without that large installed base of movie customers, Blu-Ray will quickly turn into the next UMD.

Re:Really?

[drinkypoo]

The non-gamer crowd isn't going to buy or use a PS3 purely to play Blu-Ray discs; they want a dedicated set-top Blu-Ray player that isn't overly complicated. Without that large installed base of movie customers, Blu-Ray will quickly turn into the next UMD.

But if Sony is successful at positioning it as a media hub, then many more people might buy it. At $600 it's a steal if it lets you play your various media files on machines on your network (this is getting more and more common as households get multiple computers and one broadband connection - suddenly LANs are cropping up all across residential america) and plays Blu-Ray and plays internet radio and lets you read email or websurf from your TV if you don't want to get up and go to your PC. since it will run Linux, it's a triviality to get it up and doing all that - the software exists already.

I don't think that's enough to save the PS3 or Sony but I do think that it will be a factor.

Simple reason

[PsyQo]

The United States Navy is upgrading their sharks.

Re:Simple reason

[Anonymous Coward]

And I hope frickin' Sony will try to jump them!

And I saw my first HD-DVDR on the shelf ....

[joe_n_bloe]

At Office Depot, or was that OfficeMax, of all places. I still haven't seen a retail BD-R or HD-DVDR drive in the flesh though.

Re:And I saw my first HD-DVDR on the shelf ....

[dwlovell]

Fry's has some blue ray drives on the shelf.

-David

Re:And I saw my first HD-DVDR on the shelf ....

[chasingporsches]

CompUSA has BD-R and BD-RE discs (~ $25 each), and the sony PC blu-ray burner drive ($800 i think). and yeah, it was very weird seeing them on the shelf!

Re:And I saw my first HD-DVDR on the shelf ....

[ShadowsHawk]

BD-R. He's looking for a burner.

hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[Bender Unit 22]

like the xbox 360. The fan noise from CPU/GPU cooling are nothing compared to the DVD drive. Whenever I put in a game, the spinning noise of the disc is unbearable. It doesn't even spin down but keeps on running at full speed until i exit the game. Only when the drive stops, can I hear the fan "noise".
So, if the PS3 (the versions that hit the stores, not the showroom ones) makes less noise than the xbox, I will be throwing that in the trash.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[Control Group]

...the xbox, I will be throwing that in the trash.

Tell you what. When you decide to throw your xbox in the trash, let me know. I'll gladly pay shipping for you to send it to me, instead.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, are you even serious? the 360 only makes alot of noise during intial startup from the drive, after that its relitively quiet. As for the ps3, what else can u really say?
Ill never support sony again after that rootkit =X

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[FatherOfONe]

The PS3 is near silent.

Are you serious about not supporting Sony and then turn around and support Microsoft?

Lets see now.

The PS3 will not only run but have a company support Linux on it.
It will run a subset of OpenGL and thus offer better migration to OSX and Linux for games.
It will offer an open solution to Internet.

But, if you want to support Microsoft then that is your option. I mean they have never done anything unethical.

Then again you could just go to Nintento. They would never do anything unethical... just ask Atari and Sega....

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"The PS3 will not only run but have a company support Linux on it."

*Fap* *Fap* *Fap*

"It will run a subset of OpenGL and thus offer better migration to OSX and Linux for games."

That ain't the problem to getting games to OSX and Linux. The problem is that in the case of Linux, for example, a Linux game was considered 'successful' if it sold 10k copies. The audience is that small. The most successful game, so far, sold a whopping 40,000 copies.

"It will offer an open solution to Internet."

Free, not open.

"But, if you want to support Microsoft then that is your option. I mean they have never done anything unethical."

Rootkits and Lik-sang.

"Then again you could just go to Nintento. They would never do anything unethical... just ask Atari and Sega...."

It's hard to compare Nintendo's legal entanglements with root kits and OS monopolies.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[drinkypoo]

Uh, Sega got killed by Sony, who released totally bullshit inflated specifications on the PS2 a year in advance, thus destroying all interest in the Dreamcast, which was already out and which has graphics almost as good as the PS2 at its best - which requires true wizard programmers to actually achieve, because it's such a wonky architecture.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[zerocommazero]

Uh... Sega killed themselves. They shot themselves in the foot with their flood of gaming systems after the genesis (megadrive,32x). Too many peope were shellshocked to purchese the Saturn and by this point, their 3rd party support was dismal. Dreamcast was their last desperate attempt to get back in the ring and not go the way of the dodos (or jaguars). That was doomed because of the downward spiral they couldn't pull out of during the Saturn lifecycle.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[drinkypoo]

Dreamcast was actually selling pretty well before Sony released their bullshit specs, so I disagree. They DID contribute to the demise of the Dreamcast themselves, though; it was too easy to copy games, and I DO think copyright infringement harmed game sales and thus licensing revenue. Regardless, while Sega did do plenty of damage to themselves with their wonky consoles and addons (btw Mega Drive is the name of the Genesis in Japan - it helps to know what you're talking about before you comment) what with the Sega CD, 32X, and then the Saturn. Of course if they had just priced the Saturn down it would have been competitive with the PS1. It's actually a much more powerful system (Except for the lack of hardware 3d transparency) and that power is displayed quite well in some of the games, like Nights into Dreams... But regardless, Sega did do damage to themselves but Sony delivered the coup de grace.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[FatherOfONe]

You must have a selective memory.

Here is a short summary.
Nintendo and Sega had a war going on for many years, and Nintendo went to Sony to produce a CD add on to their current console. They did this because Sega released a CD version of a console and they needed to show their customers that Nintendo could do the same thing. There were a ton of pictures of the device and then they even said it would improve the graphics of the Nintendo. So a lot of customers bought in to the fact that Nintendo was "just about ready" to release a add on to their console and Sega sales started to tank. Sega then rushed to market another console and that pissed off the current Sega fans and the damage was done. Nintendo then realized that they didn't need to release the CD add on and dropped their relations with Sony.

Ah, but that is where the history gets interesting. Sony decided that since they produced a machine with better graphics and a CD player that it wouldn't be that hard to produce the rest of the unit. Heck they really didn't need the connector to the superN anyway. The problem was that nobody within Sony would sponsor the system. luckily for Sony one division did and thus the PS1 was born. It must be noted that Nintendo NEVER had any intention of releasing the CD add on, but wanted the consumers to not purchase a Sega system.

Nintendo awoke a sleeping giant in Sony and it never would have happened without Nintendo trying to screw Sega.

I could also go on about Nintendo's anti-violence game strategy that they use to have. Well they had it until Mortal Kombat came out and their sales started to suffer.

I realize that there are a ton of Nintendo fanboys out there, that don't believe Nintendo would ever do anything evil, but they are one of the most evil companies around. It is absolutely funny to see Sony killing them now after all the crap they have done.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[drinkypoo]

I realize that there are a ton of Nintendo fanboys out there, that don't believe Nintendo would ever do anything evil, but they are one of the most evil companies around. It is absolutely funny to see Sony killing them now after all the crap they have done.

Sony isn't killing anyone. Nintendo is ticking along nicely. Their consoles cost a lot less to make and tend to actually make them money at launch time. Nintendo might sell less units - but they're going to be WAY out ahead of Sony in this war because Sony can't get their consoles out the door for whatever reason.

Sure, Nintendo is evil. I mean, they're all evil. The difference is that Sony takes evil to who new heights (lows?) Nintendo sues Lik-Sang; Sony sues Lik-Sang in like 40 countries :P

Anyway the simple fact is that Sega had a winner with the dreamcast and could have made a comeback, but Sony outright lied about their hardware specifications deliberately in order to destroy sales of the dreamcast. Sony should get nailed for fraud on that one.

It will be interesting to see if the alpha geeks can steer enough people away from Sony that we can actually harm them. Then again, Sony's price might do that all by itself, especially if they don't announce a US price break. The low-end JDM PS3 gets HDMI and a ~$100 price drop but AFAIK neither one has been announced for the USDM PS3.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[Anonymous Coward]

"*Fap* *Fap* *Fap*"
"Rootkits and Lik-sang."

Wow... good thing all you anti Sony boys dont have such crappy come back arguments. Stuff like this makes me want a PS3 even more now.

Oh... and before you say anything back, let me just say this:
Fap Fap Fap. There, now your really owned

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[catprog]

Why did they drop the relationship with Sony. Sony wanted complete creative control over every game and the majority of the market. Nintendo then went to some one else and then released a cd-add on. And Nintendo's censorship is nothing like Sony's decision to not allow ANY 2d games (http://games.slashdot.org/~sesshomaru/journal/141 144)

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Wow... good thing all you anti Sony boys dont have such crappy come back arguments."

Wow... good thing all you pro Sony boys don't have crappy lubricant.

"Stuff like this makes me want a PS3 even more now."

The idea of Fapping over Linux on the PS3 makes you want one even more?

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[HAKdragon]

The low-end JDM PS3 gets HDMI and a ~$100 price drop but AFAIK neither one has been announced for the USDM PS3.

While the prices in the US are still $500/$600, all models include HDMI output now.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[FatherOfONe]

Sony wanted complete control over every game? You must be living in a fantasy world. All Sony wanted to do was produce a CD/Graphics adapter for the Super Nintendo. It took an act of God for them to actually produce a machine. They didn't want anything to do with content or game control.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[FatherOfONe]

"Anyway the simple fact is that Sega had a winner with the dreamcast and could have made a comeback, but Sony outright lied about their hardware specifications deliberately in order to destroy sales of the dreamcast. Sony should get nailed for fraud on that one."

come on guy. Just rewind time a bit and you can replace Sony with Nintendo.

Nintendo showed EVERYONE the CD/Graphics update for the Super Nintendo for YEARS! They had all these specs that showed it was 32bit and it would crush Sega. The difference was that Sony actually delivered a product and Nintendo lied to it's customers. The other HUGE difference that you seem to be missing is that the Sega unit was great a moving pixles around put lacked any 3d support. Thus it was very good at 2d based games but wasn't in the same league as the PS1 for 3d. This was a mistake that Sega admitted and they didn't think the world was going 3d at a time when everyone else was still thinking about moving pixles around a 2d space. Does this sound familiar? Kind of sounds like people that say HD and extra disk capacity don't matter.

So all these guys that are now jumping on the Nintendo isn't that bad bandwagon just seem to HATE Sony and they are too young to remember what Nintendo did to Sega and Atari.

As far as Sony killing Nintendo, remember that Nintendo controlled around 90% of the console market for years and then Sega made a small dent, but Sony came in to the market and took control.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[Bender Unit 22]

hehe. ;)
Well I might not be throwing it in the trash. I have someone who wants to buy it from me in case I decide to get rid of it.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[Bender Unit 22]

Yes, I am, the noise are constant. It sounds interesting if yours does that. because that must mean that they are using different drives. Perhaps mine is faulty but I don't think so, although it never spins down while a game is playing. It is way louder than the fans.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[catprog]

All was looking just fine for Nintendo until it found that the deal they had struck with Sony way back in 1988 granted Sony the right to control and license all the CD-based games for the "Super Disc". Nintendo was now to be at the mercy of Sony and its "Super Disc", which could play SNES carts and Sony-manufactured CDs. Nintendo, understandably, began to get worried.

(http://www.n-sider.com/articleview.php?articleid= 279)

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[drinkypoo]

Nintendo showed EVERYONE the CD/Graphics update for the Super Nintendo for YEARS! They had all these specs that showed it was 32bit and it would crush Sega.

Everyone? Anyone I know that even knows that they were working on one only knows because it's part of the history of the Playstation and they found out about it long after they bought a PS1 and they were looking at some FAQ. Or because I told them :P

By contrast, far more gamers seem to know about the 64DD. And I'm not talking about DOA beach volleyball.

The other HUGE difference that you seem to be missing is that the Sega unit was great a moving pixles around put lacked any 3d support.

You have no fucking idea what you're talking about. None. Whatsoever.

Sega's competition for the PS1 was the Sega Saturn. It was a 3D-accelerated console that utilized a pair of Hitachi SuperH processors (SH2 I think), each nearly as powerful as the single R3000 in the PS1. It had a great set of 3D graphics hardware and had a total of 4MB RAM instead of the ~2.5MB of the PS1. The one thing the PS1 had that the Saturn didn't was hardware-accelerated 3D transparency effects; the Saturn had a serial interface, an internal expansion bus (unlike the external connector on the PS1) and a faster optical drive, too. It also has a cartridge port instead of memory card slots; this cartridge could be used to load code, so the game shark went here. The internal port was used mostly for an MPEG-1/VCD playing module.

Anyway, you don't know what you're talking about, and I hope people will treat you accordingly. The Saturn was actually a much more powerful system than the PS1 in all but one aspect of 3D. If you wanted transparency you had to calculate it yourself and several games did just that, basically dedicating the second CPU to graphics effect. In fact the Saturn predates the PS1 by several months so it is clear that you are just full of shit.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[FatherOfONe]

"You have no fucking idea what you're talking about. None. Whatsoever."

Really! You are now down to name calling. That says a lot about you.

I am glad you at least admitted about the PS1 having some better 3d support. For a system that was around 1/4 less expensive at launch, that says a lot.

Also, I know remember why most people didn't like Sega fans.

Re:hoping to avoid unbearable noise

[drinkypoo]

"You have no fucking idea what you're talking about. None. Whatsoever."

Really! You are now down to name calling. That says a lot about you.

No, name calling is when I call you a fucking idiot, because that's what you are. Telling you that you have no idea what you're talking about is simply a factual statement.

I am glad you at least admitted about the PS1 having some better 3d support. For a system that was around 1/4 less expensive at launch, that says a lot.

Yes, it had one feature that the Saturn lacked. The Saturn, however, could push more polys. I call it a wash. Transparency was mostly overused on the PS1 and it looked like crap - but as I said, it DID actually HAVE the feature, which is a win.

Unlike you, I do not need to make shit up to justify my opinions. Your defense when I called you on the fact that you totally ignored systems and got key facts completely wrong was to complain about my name-calling. If you actually had a leg to stand on you could just refute my points. You don't, so fall down and fuck off already.

Sounds familiar...

[ExE122]

First, Sony halved its U.S./Japanese launch shipments of its Blu-ray powered PlayStation 3, blaming a shortage of blue lasers.

Didn't Pink Floyd once cancel one of their shows for the same reason?

Re:Sounds familiar...

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no . . . you got the order all wrong:

1. Roger Waters reunites for one show with Pink Floyd.
2. Wishful rumors fly around about a reunion tour
3. Sony announces a mysterous lack of blue lasers.

sony stock price.

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet SONY's stock price to earnings is 39.12.

Who wants to short it? They should have folded and either sold out to MS or made a stragegic deal, they do the HW and let MS wrangle the software side of things.

Re:$ony can suffer

[Nanpa]

How can sony ever succeed when some witty chap replaces the 's' with '$'?

I'm surprised

[yellowcord]

I'm surprised that there doesn't seem to be any shark jokes... So...

Those fricken blue sharks must be more tough to breed than Sony anticipated.

I finaly got the ???

[aadvancedGIR]

1- buy a PS3 and tear it appart
2- sell the blue laser to Sony
3- profit

I, for one

[rudeboy1]

Hope this is the beginning of the end for Blu-Ray. Not that I wish Sony any malice, (despite all their bad press, I still like most of their products) I just want there to be a single HD standard. If one of them has to die a cruel death, well, that's the industry. Let's hope it is a quick death spasm.

Re:I, for one

[DrXym]

Which format do you think most likely to win? Pragmatism suggests Blu-Ray will win simply because 500,000 players will enter the market within two weeks and millions more shortly after.

I'm not sure what reason people have for rooting for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. The standards are virtually identical in most respects (including their reliance on blue laser diodes meaning each are equally affected by shortages). Neither is an industry standard, and neither does either have a compelling reason you should use it over the other. They are practically twins in most respects aside from the physical storage medium. Sooner or later we'll see players that cope with both standards. At that point the dominant one will win simply based on its market share.

Re:I, for one

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluray has 75% of movie studios support, has the most storage and will be the only HD disk format used for games within the near future. Game, set and match. Best the 360 can access is 9.5gigs, PS3 has access to all 50+ gigs of Dual layer bluray. Where the whole VHS/Betamax thing was prices were radicaly bias to VHS, but in this case you can get a PS3 game on bluray for the same price as a 360 game on DLDVD.

Re:I, for one

[MeanderingMind]

75% movie company support is meaningless when there is 0% consumer report. I'm not saying that's the case, but it's important to remember.

The whole HD-DVD vs Blu-ray war may be irrelevant for years to come. I think the last number I heard for what portion of the US had an HDTV was 1 in 6 households, though I have no citation. Even if one wins decisively over the other, it won't be a big deal until we're at least at a 50/50 market split for HDTV vs SDTV.

In the end, Sony may have sacrificed their Playstation brand to claim victory with Blu-ray. It may be well worth it, but it's something to consider.

Re:I, for one

[lowe0]

Yeah, but what benefit does Blu-ray provide for games? All that storage space is wasted if your textures are too high-res to be used with the graphics memory available. If you use the space for more content instead of higher-res content, then you need more artists to make it.

Re:I, for one

[dank zappingly]

I don't know too much about this stuff, but if I was making a system that I wanted to last a while, I would err on the side of more storage. Whenever a new format comes out, there are always a group of people who say that it's too big and no one will ever use it. I think there are tons of cool things that the extra space could be used for. I'm sure Square will use it to make tons of really nice HD videos for the new final fantasy. I don't know that requiring more artists is necessarily a bad thing. For example, a game could have 500 tracks of high definition audio. Musicians would kill to get their tracks bundled with games. These retro game anthologies have also been very popular lately. With the storage of Blu Ray, for example, Lucasarts could release every graphic adventure they ever produced on a single disc. This specific example might never happen, but now that developers have all this extra space to deal with, they might just start throwing in large amounts of bonus content. Think about the 100 dollar loser fanboy version of Halo 3 that comes on 4 discs. With a Blu Ray it could come on one disc. Also you might see more movie/game combinations in the future. I think sony did this on the PSP with Wipeout and that Jamie Foxx movie stealth. Just the other day I read about the guys from Oddworld doing a game and a movie at the same time. It seemed like a pretty cool idea. You might not see developers filling the space with new content right away, but they will have the freedom to include anything they want, and I don't think this is a bad thing.

Re:I, for one

[lazyl]

The format that will win will be the one that the movie studios throw their support behind. And thier decision will be based primarially on the politicking of all the big companies involved. The PS3 will be largely irrelevent, except as a way for Sony to prove to the movie publishers that this technology is viable and that they are committed to it. The opinion of the customers on this issue is worth far less then most of us believe. And the 'market penetration' of the ps3 is not significant enough to be relevant.

Re:I, for one

[TheDormouse]

I'm hoping HD-DVD wins--on the name alone. Blu-ray is such an idiotic name. HD-DVD stands for what it is: High-Definition Digital Video Disc.

Re:I, for one

[DrXym]

Except HD-DVD doesn't just store videos so the word Video is meaningless. They could fudge it so the V meant Versatile, but really they should have called it HDD or something.

Blu-Ray is meaningless too and I hate typing it. I'd abbreviate it to BD if anyone knew what I was talking about. Perhaps in a few years they might.

Re:I, for one

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want one standard then make it Blu-Ray. It is a much better technology. IMHO.

More memory capability (better for the backup and publication worlds) is on big reason. Another, open vs. closed standard. HMMMM - and do you support open source or not?.....

Re:I, for one

[businessnerd]

This whole battle really pisses me off because the whole reason we have 2 "standards" is because Sony and their opponents want to control the "standard" and thus control how we watch movies. I really wish some people would come in as a third independent party with a high definition digital video OPEN standard. If an open standard were to hit the streets, barring any corporate strongarming, all manufacturers other than those that own the proprietary standards would drop blue-ray and HD-DVD immediately for the cheaper open standard. Sony would of course try to keep pushing blue ray, but other electronics manufacturers would gladly go with an open standard if that means there is no licensing costs creating barriers to entry. Furthermore, the consumer would benefit because there would be no DRM restricting the use of the media and most importantly, we would have one standard for all to use. Maybe it's just a pipe dream, but does open source have the time, energy, know-how, funding for this kind of R&D? If so (and I really hope so) I would gladly donate to such a project and support it in any ways I can. Is there anybody out there that thinks they can do this?

Re:I, for one

[Anonymous Coward]

"Think about the 100 dollar loser fanboy version of Halo 3 that comes on 4 discs. With a Blu Ray it could come on one disc. Also you might see more movie/game combinations in the future. I think sony did this on the PSP with Wipeout and that Jamie Foxx movie stealth. Just the other day I read about the guys from Oddworld doing a game and a movie at the same time. It seemed like a pretty cool idea. You might not see developers filling the space with new content right away, but they will have the freedom to include anything they want, and I don't think this is a bad thing"

The only fanboi is you, you pro-Sony troll. Fuck off.

Re:I, for one

[DrXym]

This whole battle really pisses me off because the whole reason we have 2 "standards" is because Sony and their opponents want to control the "standard" and thus control how we watch movies. I really wish some people would come in as a third independent party with a high definition digital video OPEN standard.

The chances of a DRM-less open standard are zero. Look at every music format going all the way back to the wax cylinder. They were all proprietary in their day and often there were competing standards. Given that climate all you can hope is that one format will swiftly prevail and everybody gets on with life.

Even if an open standard were to appear, such as with Ogg, the industry would simply ignore it. The best you can hope for is that there are enough gaps in the standard and enough rights in common law that you can rip a pretty good backup for your own purposes using whatever unencumbered mode are still supported.

Re:I, for one

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sooner or later we'll see players that cope with both standards. At that point the dominant one will win simply based on its market share."

Actually, a drive that reads both formats was already developed by Ricoh. Apparently, Sony then said they wouldn't allow anyone to license BR for a device that read both types of drive.

Although, according to this article, there seems to be some hope after all...
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/pioneer-plannin g-hd-dvd-blu-ray-combo-drive-the-bdr-103/

Re:I, for one

[lowe0]

All that stuff costs money to produce. HD video's certainly a cheap(er) way of filling a disc, but it's just that - filler - and if it doesn't add value for a significant segment of the market, then one starts to wonder whether the extra storage is worth the increased cost and reduced supply.

Any hope for a combo player?

[jmagar.com]

Is there any chance that a combo player may emerge? Something that plays HD-DVD, and Blu Ray?

Until they sort this thing our, I'm going to sit on the sidelines waiting for a format to emerge as the real winner.

Re:Any hope for a combo player?

[twistedsymphony]

yeah there are some companies working on that, but I would imagine they'd be be expensive considering they'd be paying royalties to both camps. as well as having some redundant hardware.

IMO this is probably the quickest and safest solution if you really want to get into HD movies. I anticipate this "war" will end up more like the DVD-R vs DVD+R war then it will like the VHS vs Betamax.

Re:Any hope for a combo player?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.

Sony's license for blu-ray has an anti-compete clause. LG, Samsung, and Pioneer all have combo players that they have shown, but nothing retail until they get around the license.

No Wonder They're Low on Blue Lasers...

[Tickenest]

The Cheat Commandos have it covered.

Read Between the Lines

[rudeboy1]

I think the most ominous part of the article is the last part, where LG will "be making a statement when the time is right." I'm not a gambling man, but a statement like that would make me bet that LG is about to pull its support for Blu-Ray. That could be a HUGE blow to the movement.

Flaw in your business plan

[ronanbear]

Step 1 doesn't work. Where are you going to get a PS3?

Re:Flaw in your business plan

[aadvancedGIR]

Yes, of course...
Plan B would be to stand outside the shop with a baseball bat.

Re:Flaw in your business plan

[ronanbear]

But then you may as well just take his wallet, sell the PS3, his iPod and his shoes. Crafty Sony, they've thought of everything.

Re:Flaw in your business plan

[steveo777]

I'd be carefull. Anyone with a pre-order is likely to be packing heat. Or a gen-1 PS2 to bash you on the head with.

Re:Flaw in your business plan

[drinkypoo]

I'd be carefull. Anyone with a pre-order is likely to be packing heat. Or a gen-1 PS2 to bash you on the head with.

That's okay, I'll hit them with my Xbox, which is much much bigger. Military superiority! My backup weapon is an original Xbox controller.

Don't believe it when you see it.

[whatrevolution]

The delay is likely related to their impending announcement of the new Cash-Ray, using a green laser. I hear that green is a more useful color as a backdrop for creating imaginary realities...

Hmmm

[Anon-Admin]

First, this article was released in September! This is not new.

I would lean to them thinning the market, for Christmas. It makes the demand go up and causes a frenzy of buyers looking for it. As well as news about how the hot Christmas item, the PS3, is in short supply. Many reviews from writers wanting to cover the new items and not look like they are behind, etc.

It is a marketing ploy and old news.

Re:Hmmm

[Anon-Admin]

I think I need more coffee, I should have read a little closer.

Oh well, Sorry. :)

Re:Hmmm

[Hieronymus Howard]

"I would lean to them thinning the market, for Christmas. It makes the demand go up and causes a frenzy of buyers looking for it. As well as news about how the hot Christmas item, the PS3, is in short supply."

Like this? http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212

Re:Hmmm

[rpguy]

The problem with the strategy of "thinning the market", as you call it, is that the logic itself is flawed. Deliberately under-shipping a product in the face of demand ONLY works if there is no viable alternative. otherwise, people are more than happy to substitute. With Wii hitting stores two days later and the 360 already in the retail stream, any intentional under-shipments will only serve to hurt Sony more than it helps them.

Dual layer problems with Blu-ray...

[Hamster Lover]

I read sometime around June that Sony et al were having problems with dual layer discs, in that they couldn't get any of the production model Blu-ray players to read dual layer discs.

Has that been solved? Is that the reason for the delay? I am not trying to spread FUD, but other than a quick blurb four months ago I've heard nothing else about the problem.

Re:Dual layer problems with Blu-ray...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems the dual-layer issue have been solved.
The latest release by Columbia Pictures are dual-layer BD disk,
and it seems the picture quality is finally on par with HD-DVD...

HD-DVD, PS3, Xbox360...oh my!

[hipsterdufus]

The Toshiba HD-DVD player works today at 1/3rd the price of the Samsung unit. Initial picture quality of early releases makes evident the better quality of the BluRay titles. BluRay rushed their product to market in order to cling to market share; in doing so, they used the old MPEG2 codec, which compresses images horribly. The primary reason for this: they did not have dual-layer capability working at time of release, so they needed to compress the image to fit on their single-layer releases. They apparently have dual layer working and have switched to the Microsoft codec. Reviewes of these discs have been far more favorable.

You still have to wonder about the cost. The Samsung player is $1K, you can get the Toshiba unit for $399. Soon, the Xbox 360 drive will be available at $200 for those that have a 360.

The only thing Sony has going for it: PS3 launch and the fact they are a movie distribution company. Sony has been pretty big-headed lately thinking that of course consumers will pay for a mere $600 for a game console, of course they will use our BluRay format, of course we can put a "rootkit" on a PC. We are Sony, why can't we do it?

Re:HD-DVD, PS3, Xbox360...oh my!

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone look at this fucking retard. This is what Slashdot gaming has turned into. Nothing but the same handful of pathetic Xbox fans posting the same tired shit day after day.

Pathetic little shits.

Re:HD-DVD, PS3, Xbox360...oh my!

[BoberFett]

Seeing how angry that makes you, I'm pretty sure you've just dumped yourself in the "pathetic little Sony fanboy shits" category.

I think I'll pass

[Anonymous Coward]

I can replace my DVD player for $40. There's, like, a billion DVDs that are easily copyable. What's my motivation to go HD again? Better picture? Nope. Sorry. Doesn't make my nipples hard. Does anyone really care all that much other than the people who buy things like the $20,000 subwoofer I saw in Sound & Vision magazine?

Re:$ony can suffer

[Quiet_Desperation]

$ony

Uh oh. Meme alert.

That tickles

[germansausage]

At the Elmo factory every Elmo gets tickled as a final test before shipping. Girl Elmos get tickled once and the boy Elmos get two test tickles.

Re:That tickles

[Monchanger]

ROFLMAO. Well done!

Come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just more info to stir up the Xbox fan boy base. This won't affect the PS3, as it already has in that the number being shipped at launch is lower. Oh well.

People really need to stop complaining about the cost. It is a next gen console which are getting closer and closer to PC specs. This also means the costs are going to inevitably rise. The only reason the 360 was much cheaper at launch was that it didn't include a HD-DVD drive. Now the word comes out that the drive will cost anywhere from $149.99 to $199.99. Add that cost and it becomes just as expensive or more expensive than the PS3. So really that is a moot point.

If you don't like the PS3 that is fine and dandy, but don't try to push your beliefs of not buying the damn thing because you have a vendetta against Sony or the PS3. I could care less which one is better than the other. I may end up with both in the end depending what games come out for either system. I never ended up with an Xbox, because the games I did want to play came out for the PC, the rest just sucked imo...but I'm a biased computer gamer.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray...

[msauve]

both use 405 nm lasers, and the shortage of blue lasers means production is affected for both camps. The article certainly seems to be an attempt to spin this shortage in HD-DVD's favor, no mention of delays in those devices.

Much of the delay for Blu-Ray players is because Sony, one of the few manufacturers of these lasers, is keeping production for the PS3. Other Blu-Ray manufacturers are stuck without lasers.

I don't see anything to indicate that this will benefit the HD-DVD camp - they've got laser shortages, too. It's only a matter of Blu-ray player availability being heavily weighted toward the PS3.

If anything, this may favor the Blu-ray camp - HD-DVD players are priced around US$500, and you'll be able to get a Blu-ray player (the PS3) for about the same price, and get an advanced game system as a free part of the deal.

Re:HD-DVD and Blu-Ray...

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason they have delayed the launch is that they're still having trouble getting the lasers to last more than ~8 months.
I would wait for this technology to mature before buying it.

actually, its one day old

[matthewcharles2006]

The first articles (the older ones) were linked to in order to show a history of problems. The last link, and the subject of the post, goes to a story posted Nov. 2, a.k.a., yesterday.

a bumray?

[MicrosoftRepresentit]

Does that use light focused from an arsecandle?

Um...?

[Doomstalk]

Check the date stamp on that article. It's from September. This is not relevant to currently announced launch numbers.

Still hoping both the current "HD DVD" formats die

[Chas]

Personally, I'm hoping that both HD-DVD and BluRay have absoloute ABYSMAL distribution and customer acceptance.

Then, maybe, these companies can go back and design a more consumer-friendly medium that people can actually buy and use without worrying that they're going to get their legs busted because they didn't pay their protection money to the various **AA for the right to look and listen THIS week. Oh, and for the tech geek in me, one that really DOES offer significantly better image quality.

Right now, the VQ difference between DVD of, say, SuperBit quality, and an HD-DVD is negligible on a completely HD-ready/compliant/functioning system, and completely NOT worth the price premium.

OR...

[brunes69]

OR Sony could have just not tried to rape the general public for once with a proprietary Sony standard, and supported HD-DVD, thus having all the major players backing one media.

It would have been better for the consumers, better for the 3rd party manufacturers. We have yet to see if it would have been better for Sony ornot, but I firmly believe they are going to regret the whole Blu-ray fiasco.

Re:OR...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Blu-Ray is not Sony-proprietary. It's developed by a consortium, and is on the same level of proprietariness as DVD.

2) If you still call that proprietary, then HD-DVD is just as proprietary, and is backed primarily by Toshiba.

Re:OR...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, did referring to Sony doing stuff you don't like as "rape" give you a hard-on?

Re:OR...

[AvitarX]

I will buy a blu-ray for my computer as soon as they are under $200.00 (with burning). HD-DVD is just not too much bigger. I wish everyone went with blu-ray so it would get bigger economies of scale quicker. I will not buy a PS3 though, but I may buy a PS2 this holiday season, there are a few exclusives I really want to play (also a Wii if they arn't sold out).

Hilarious!

[DeadCatX2]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHgaaaaaaspHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHA

Well executed.

Makes sense to me

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

If you've got product shortages, it makes a lot more sense to reserve as many units as you can for the PS3 (a device that will sell well) at the expense of stand-alone players, which aren't selling well at all.

Book reccommendation for you...

[Jinky Williams]

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Defending the world against the evil forces...

[Millennium]

First, Sony halved its U.S./Japanese launch shipments of its Blu-ray powered PlayStation 3, blaming a shortage of blue lasers.

Curse those Cheat Commandos...

Oh look at you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations. You can be condescending. What an amazing talent you have.

I wonder if that's how you fucked your karma.

You forgot a call to toupper(char)

[DeadCatX2]

Technically, he replaced 'S' with '$'.

Re:Still hoping both the current "HD DVD" formats

[jandrese]

I wouldn't be so keen on hoping for failure. That's what happened to SVHS and look what it got us: Stuck with inferior VHS tapes for years longer than we should have while the industry cooked up something that they thought was even more restrictive (we got lucky with DVDs having lousy encryption).

Sinking ship

[zcubed]

I am going to watch this unfold with distanced curiosity. I wouldn't pay $600 for a console system, but I really wouldn't buy one from Sony. Sony keeps shooting holes in their ship and they don't even realize it. They lost sight of what is really important a long time ago, the customer. I don't want Sony to go out of business, but I do think they are circling the drain with poor decisions followed by poor choices.

Dual Layer and Codec

[Nazmun]

Your statement makes no sense at all. The dual layer'd disc would hold more data then a single layer. The new codec based on MPEG 4 (VC4? used in hd-dvd's) requires less capacity then mpeg2 which was used in blu-ray discs.

people don't seem to realize

[Leviance]

Sony is staking everything on the Blu-ray. If the format doesn't take off through means other than just video games, it will fail. Movie companies will stop producing Blu-Ray movies, and game manufacturers will opt for the cheaper formats on the Wii and 360 to increase their profit margins.

Blu-ray has increased the cost of the PS3. If PS3 game sales don't make enough money soon enough, Blu-Ray will fail. The dominoes will continue to fall, as game manufacturers will stop producing for Sony. Finally, the PS3 will implode and be this generation's Sega or Atari.

So yeah, Sony better hope that Blu-ray works...

Mod parent up!

[mjhacker]

The AC has a good point. More anti-$ony, anti-Blu-ray fanboys need to hear this, before they go spouting off about stuff they didn't do any research on.

This is Brand New Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the thing that nobody seems to realize, Blue-Ray technology is very new, back 3 years ago, Blue Laser diodes did not exist, ok, lets get that straight, so what you have is you have a completely new technology finally to comming to market, I am not at all surprised by these considering the fact creating blue laser diode is considerably harder than creating a red or green laser diode, because the science behind the blue laser is very new. I would wager that Zonk doesn't even know how a blue laser is made nor the reason why the laser works. So cut Sony the manufactures slack because they are creating a completly laser technology. Stop, bashing Sony and any manufacture of these devices because this technology is new and cutting edge.

Re:Still hoping both the current "HD DVD" formats

[Chas]

Notice the part where I said "consumer friendly".

I figure, if TPTB continue making stuff that isn't really consumer friendly, the consumer really should stop consuming the crap they're being shoveled.

Re:Still hoping both the current "HD DVD" formats

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is negligible? Calibrate your TV, please. Watching a movie on a HDTV broadcast gives much better quality than the same offering on DVD through my upscaling progressive DVD player (51" RP HDTV). HD-DVD and BR will offer higher bit rate than HDTV broadcasts. I already own a Xbox 360, so picking up a HD_DVD player for $200 CAD is a no brainer. Too bad it won't upscale DVD via component, guess I have to keep my current DVD player in my component rack :(

Early adopters always pay a premium for the new tech. Others will just complain that something will come along in XX years and surpass that and never be truly happy.

Either Crazy or Crazy Like A Fox

[EXTomar]

This is all a calculated risk. If they are "too early" it falls flat and the only thing out on the market that is really a Bluray player is the PS3. If they aren't, then they make out bandits being the top of the new wave of "next generation" of home media. It shouldn't surprise *anyone* that a buisness is taking on risks in the hopes of future profits because this is what buisness and entrepreneurish is about.

Beyond all of this, Sony has a history of doing this in their engineering. They come up with a new product where they can't find the technology needed to complete the product so they invent it. Sony thinks there is a need for a "next gen disk" system and once again to no one's surprise they create a system themselves. If something was established they would have gone with it but history has shown time and time again that if their isn't Sony is far more likely to create something from scratch. The trick is that although it gets the product out the door but doesn't mean anyone else will use it.

In other words, is it a problem that Sony takes a huge risk introducing what could be a next gen format? Heck no. In fact I wouldn't have it any other way because this is how market capitalism works. I'm pretty cool to supporting Sony but this is one facet of Sony I do give props too.

Re:Still hoping both the current "HD DVD" formats

[pctech3]

I'm not only hoping that, I also believe that will be the case. The current DVD format is all I need, and if it wasn't for the MPAA imposed restrictions, they would be doing 720P instead of 480. Both new formats were concocted mainly to introduce new copy protections that they could not re-engineer into the existing DVD format, both of which will DISABLE the device if it THINKS the disk is not a real original. This will require an expensive repair to re-enable the device! And every time they manage to 'upgrade' the protection scheme, the disks released with that scheme enabled will flash your device with new firmware to enable that scheme on your device. That may also crash or disable some devices if it misreads your old firmware, or if you turn it off during the flash not aware of what is happening. We may buy a PS3 for the gaming aspect, but we will NOT be buying an HD standalone of either type, or any movie disks of either type. Ron ------------------- Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES! I didn't steal YOUR sig, I borrowed EVERYONE'S!

Sorry for the format error, here is correction!

[pctech3]

I'm not only hoping that, I also believe that will be the case.

The current DVD format is all I need, and if it wasn't for the MPAA imposed restrictions, they would be doing 720P instead of 480.

Both new formats were concocted mainly to introduce new copy protections that they could not re-engineer into the existing DVD format, both of which will DISABLE the device if it THINKS the disk is not a real original. This will require an expensive repair to re-enable the device! And every time they manage to 'upgrade' the protection scheme, the disks released with that scheme enabled will flash your device with new firmware to enable that scheme on your device. That may also crash or disable some devices if it misreads your old firmware, or if you turn it off during the flash not aware of what is happening.

We may buy a PS3 for the gaming aspect, but we will NOT be buying an HD standalone of either type, or any movie disks of either type.

Ron

*********

Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!

I didn't steal YOUR sig, I borrowed EVERYONE'S!

It's the software, stupid

[heroine]

Software is killing the release dates on this. Has anyone who said "shortage of blue lasers" actually seen the BD spec? All 4000 pages of it? BD-J is the single biggest thorn in this project. The maze of extensions and native interfaces required to make that work continue to plague engineers.

Everything the HDMV runtime does has to be replicated by the BD-J runtime, like 2 products in one. Furthermore, you just can't do everything BD-J needs to do in pure Java. As they learned more about the BD-J spec and what the 300Mhz CPU could do, it's become more like a trans-gaming emulator with most functions done natively. Now every memory allocation, graphics blit, networking function has to be done once in Java and again natively.

Studio executives tell us consumers are going to put down their Wii's, XBox 360's, and PS3's to play games in BD-J instead. They won't release BD titles unless the BD-J runtime is able to run their titles perfectly, and that means missed deadlines.

BD hardware, Home Networking, HDMV, DVD: DONE
BD-J: good luck

Re:$ony can suffer

[ESqVIP]

How can sony ever succeed when some witty chap replaces the 's' with '$'?

So, let's see:

• Micro$oft: Xbox 360
• $ony: P$3
• Nintendo: Wii

We have an obvious winner!

BetaRay

[HunterZ]

I think we should start calling it BetaRay, as it looks like Sony is fumbling yet another proprietary audio/video storage medium.

Yeah I am with you... GO MICROSOFT!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... Wait a minute, that isn't good....

Blu-ray is the way to go...

[gamer4Life]

The benefit of having a high capacity drive is a smart decision from a technological perspective. With more powerful systems and more information required for games, having a high capacity format makes absolute sense.

First of all, the extra capacity allows for more textures, more information, cutscenes, ...just more information for next-generation games.

Second, the drive speed can be relatively low and still be able to read more information than a normal DVD. This is the reason why the Xbox 360's DVD drive is so loud - it's because it's spinning so fast. The reason it spins so fast is because it has to read so much information from the DVD. Also since it spins so fast, the disc gets scratched if tilted while running. The PS3 on the other hand, can get away with a lower drive speed and still read as much information as the XBox 360.

If Microsoft included HDDVD and Linux capability on the XBox 360 like Sony did for the PS3, I'd already have an XBox 360 by now.

Re:Blu-ray is the way to go...

[Anonymous Coward]

The technology is good, but unfortunately the upper-level management at Sony seems to be... lacking something.

No Blue Lasers?

[KDR_11k]

I tell you, it's those damn Cheat Commandos, they keep foiling our plans!

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously very few people have seen the BD spec. It's not like you can download it. Thanks for some insight ... please give us more information.

Re:$ony can suffer

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe App£€ should do a console.

Gaming news??

[Anonymous Coward]

This is gaming news? Really? This is for a movieplayer.

Zonk'd

BDA support vs. BDA oppostion

[norminator]

I don't think the issue is so much about how much support they have as it is about how much opposition they have:

HD-DVD support:
Canon Inc.
Digital Theater Systems
Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
Kenwood Corporation
Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd.
NEC Corporation
Onkyo Corporation
Paramount Home Entertainment
Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
Teac Corporation
Toshiba Corporation
Universal Pictures
Warner Home Video Inc.
The Weinstein Company

Warner Bros. and the Warner Music Group are associated with both Blur-Ray (that was a typo, but I think I'll leave it) and HD-DVD, as are Paramount, New Line, HBO, Dreamworks, and several other studios. DVD didn't have opposition like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have with each other, making the future of either less certain than that of DVD. Also, as has been mentioned above, DVD was already quite successful before the PS2 came out. Another thing Blu-Ray has against it is HD-DVD's association (in the minds of potential customers) with DVD, which people already like now. People in general will have to have Blu-Ray explained to them, but HD-DVD can easily be interpreted by anyone off the street as high-definition DVD.

HD Viewing Quality

[joe_n_bloe]

I don't know what kind of HD content you've been seeing, but high bitrate HD (not the "HD lite" you get from DirecTV and most cable and broadcast providers) on a good set or projector (especially one with a 1080p converter/doubler) is just stunning. There is no way you could possibly confuse it with 480 line material. If I could buy a player for $200 or maybe even $300 and get a decent selection of discs from NetFlix, sure, I'd go for it. I'd prefer to go the HD-DVD route just so I don't get stuck with some screwed up Sony format though.

Re:Still hoping both the current "HD DVD" formats

[joe_n_bloe]

You know, when you get down to it, the DRM and format issues are relevant to freakin' entertainment. It's not like they're being applied to your house.

I'd like to hack content as much as the next guy, and do sometimes, but at some point you're just listening to music or watching a movie. And frankly, if you're a naive consumer, it's fairly consumer-friendly.

DRM and format wars are onerous, but they don't affect our livelihoods or for the most part freedom of speech. It's fun to fight that battle, and it's probably a good battle to fight, but there are more important ones. I try to keep my outrage subdued nowadays.

Micro$oft can suffer

[Anonymous Coward]

I really find this very entertaining and just a joy to behold.

Media on a disc is old and outdated. HD-DVD is DOA.

Downloadable Media is the future.

Micro$oft, you have done too many bad things for me to care about your hapless media format. Burn Micro$oft Burn.

I call bullshit

[bitbucketeer]

I just bought the Panasonic DMP-BD10 from Crutchfield and got it two weeks ago. The single layer disc releases show the exact same artifacting as the 1080i broadcast versions do. It's clearly obvious that they're not re-encoding to use less compression and show off the format; rather, they're using the broadcast versions compressed to fit in a 6-MHz bandwidth, which look good if there's not too much motion (like a field of grass or leaves on a tree in the wind) and no sunsets (or other light-to-dark gradients). And although I've not done an HD-DVD/Blu-Ray side-by-side comparison, I'd guess they're using the same bit streams for both formats to save costs rather than spend money showing off how much better each format is than the other!