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Sony Begins Selling HD Movies On Its PSN
itwbennett writes "Sony on Tuesday 'rolled out the ability to buy HD movies from the PlayStation Network,' writes blogger Peter Smith. Sony claims they're the first service to offer HD titles to own from all six major movie studios. Smith runs the numbers on 'standard' pricing for titles ($19.99 for new releases; $17.99 for older movies), file sizes (ranging from 4 GB for Zombieland to 7.5 GB for 2012), and resolution (720P as far as he can tell)."
Any title older than 6 months, can be had for $8 or less off Amazon Used. Sure that's the DVD and not Blu-ray, but you also have to factor in that a decent upsampling DVD player versus "blu-ray" isn't noticeably different on anything less than a 72" tv at couch distance.
But hey, Sony doesn't care I suppose. If you were dumb enough to shell out the cash for the PS3, you're probably dumb enough to pay those prices for movies you don't even get to really own.
Sigh.
Trying to convince yourself you didn't get ripped off? Don't let me stop you with those inconvenient facts.
Inverse Square Law applies.
A good upsampling DVD player - functionally, giving you 720p quality on a "50 1080p" screen - at a normal couch distance of 10 feet will be nearly indistinguishable from putting the blu-ray disc in. That's reality.
Add on to that the crappy "own but don't really own" DRM attached to this, and the fact that it will only play on your PS3 and can't be traded/gifted/loaned to anyone else? Fuck it, just buy the goddamn movie on a real disc.
Welcome to Xbox 360 circa 2006, at least MS realized that DRM'd movies in a box was more of a rental than a purchase, charged you adequately and let you have the movie for 7 days. I wasn't very excited about a $5 digital 7 day rental, but it looks like a blessing compared to Sony's $20 fee, heck this makes BlockBuster look like a good investment. Let's also not forget consoles have a shelf life of 5yrs, and the PS3 came out in 2006 so how much longer will the majority of people will have their PS3 before they sell it. How much you want to bet you can't re-download your movie to your PS4 without purchasing a $4.95 transport fee? If they even allow that, remember Sony's promise that you could "upgrade" your PSP discs to digital downloads for $5, and at the last minute they pulled that and told you to pay full price. Wake up people, Sony _LOVES_ the idea that you have to re-purchase things every 5yrs, or sooner. They love the idea that you buy a $1 song on iTunes for your MP3 player, you pay $3 for it as a ring tone on your cell, you pay $2 per month to use a song as a ring back for people who call you, you pay another $5 for the music video. Also don't forget Sony is the same company who didn't want you to rip your CD, they wanted you to buy the CD now, and in a couple years buy the songs again for your iPod. Sony is drunk off of the "CD revolution" that made everybody replace their cassettes and vinyl, it blew their profits sky high, good for them. But now Sony is trying to artificially recreate this scenario in the digital world out of pure greed.