Slashdot Mirror
Xbox Head Proclaims Blu-ray Dead
Blacklaw writes "Microsoft has sided with Apple in a rare case of solidarity between the two companies, and declares that Blu-ray will be 'passed by' as a high-definition format. In many ways, it's hard to disagree. US markets have seen the demand for legal digital downloads of PC games exceed sales of the physical object for the first time, and Apple famously refuses to put a Blu-ray drive in its Macs, as Jobs prefers to send people towards iTunes to download their entertainment. That said, there's an argument for physical media, too. A recent survey suggested that the majority of gamers prefer physical discs, and digital downloads have the secondary effect of entirely cutting out the popular market for second-hand films and games — a plus for publishers, but a big negative for the consumer."
I never thought I would say it, but I can now quite easily envision a day very soon when all my new media (games, movies, music, TV shows, books, etc.) will belong to studios, software companies, publishers, etc.--with me just renting it. There will be no such thing as buying a used book, or a used videogame. I will never be able to resell any media that I "buy." If the studio decides to have a moritorium on a movie (like Disney so often does), they will just be able to flick a switch at any time and turn my copy of that movie off. Publishers will be able to edit all my books retroactively. When a director decides he doesn't like the ending of his movie, he can change it and force that change on everyone who owns it. If a studio goes bankrupt and takes down their servers, all my movies from them will turn to digital dust. If a judge issues a court order, all copies of a piece of media will evaporate with a single command from a media server somewhere. And when my internet goes down, so does every piece of media I own.
I will own nothing. The media companies will control how I watch or use my media, when I use it, where I use it, and how long I use it, and even *if* I can use it. I will either be completely at their mercy, or forced to resort to law-breaking to enjoy my own media as I wish.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If it was Sony and Microsoft, I'm sure /. would call it collusion - which it is.
Microsoft and Apple aren't just proclaiming the death of Blu-ray, but psychical media entirely.
They are just using Blu-Ray as a front for that, as it's the biggest consumer disc currently.
I don't see psychical media dieing anything soon though.
I don't mind digital downloads, I see a use for it.
But I also see a use for psychical media.
Get over it, they can both be here.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Eventually, yes...but I think optical media will still be around for a while.
Purely from a gaming perspective, it will be interesting to see if Microsoft includes Blu-Ray in its next Xbox. I doubt the next Xbox will be far enough in the future to support only digital downloads (due to ISP bandwith concerns), they won't be able to just stick with DVD9, and they would be pretty stupid to try to release their own optical format.
All that being said, I'll agree that Blu-Ray is likely the last (or the second to last) optical media standard that will ever hit mainstream status.
Living With a Nerd
It's one step closer to the pay per play model. If people can't sell or give away their old titles, everyone will have to cough up.
Jobs obviously has a shitty home theatre if he believes the "HD" crap in itunes is acceptable on anything other than little screens, with low-fi sound systems.
I believe it's the last spinning physical media device, it's not dead...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
they still lose.
I wonder, how much of the current position is "We want everything stored digitally, through us" (more Apple), and how much of it is "We're tired of having to constantly re-engineer large areas of the OS in order to meet the 'you must lock this down tight' requirements of the studios?" (more Microsoft?) ?
Only time will tell on that assertion. The publishers think eliminating the used market is a good idea, but good luck getting people to pay so much for a game if there's no resale possible. Also, they're working toward obsoleting themselves. When there's no physical medium to worry about, more studios can self-publish.
While Fry's is offering Civ5 for $39, I am still thinking of getting it off Stream for $49. Netflix is "good enough" and most of my other programs I get on the web (www.thedailyshow.com, southpark.com, etc.)
I mean DVDs are still being sold by the millions so why I believe BlueRay fills a needed market, that market is just shrinking like crazy.
Let me see if I can lay this out:
1) An Xbox exec claims that Blu-ray will be "passed over" as an HD format.
2) Author notes that Apple seems to agree, pushing consumers to use the iTunes store rather than make OEM Blu-ray drives available on Macs - even though the majority of iTunes-connected devices are not Macs, and most would agree Blu-ray for iPod Nano or even iPad would be odd.
3) ???
4) Argument in 1) is refuted by claims that gamers still like physical media, despite recent stats showing more PC gamers are buying downloads rather than physical copies of games.
What does the growth of downloaded games, games which are available only on CD / DVD in physical form, have to do with Blu-ray not succeeding as an HD format?
Not very surprising. Of course Microsoft would say Blu Ray is dead. They also thought their HD-DVD format would succeed. They can just continue their trend of being incorrect. The movie aisle in any major department store would support the everlasting life of hard copy media.
This is not the penguin you're looking for.
At first I disagreed because I use Blu-Ray discs all the time, but then I realized that the only reason I use Blu-Ray discs is because there is a lot more selection on Netflix for Blu-Ray compared to the available titles on demand from Nextflix. If the same movies were available for HD on demand I wouldn't be getting the discs either. It seems to me, though, that currently the publishers are doing a pretty good job of keeping Blu-Ray alive because of aforementioned availability compared to on-demand titles. However when it comes to games, while it is convenient I don't think I would ever want to shell out $50 for a "virtual license" that I can't resell. And then there are those rare things that you always want to have on hand (for me, it's the Planet Earth series on blu-ray...only Blu-Ray movie that I own).
The sales figures for blu-ray seem to indicate otherwise. Sales are up over 68% year over year, marketshare has nearly doubled year over year (2009 to 1020).
Of course there are dynamics at work outside of the straight consumer choice angle. There is the control afforded the media companies via downloadable media to consider as well. That may be what these guys are relying on for their opinion. The question then is whether the sheep are willing to follow where they are being led.
For movies anyways, some people can indeed tell the difference between streaming and proper blu-ray. Streaming just isn't going to be "good enough" for people that care about quality - or people that live where broadband is extremely expensive or unavailable.
Physical media will live much longer then it should especially for the rental market. The biggest competitor in rental is streaming, but for every stream the studio earns a royalty each time. For every disc they earn a royalty once, but this can be used hundreds of times. Studio greed dictate that they want a significant majority of the stream revenue and that stream cost the same as a rental. This only pushes the rental market to use physical media to be profitable.
for the publisher to remove parallel economy.
People get done with the game and move on, other people in a different economic demographic then got your game. It's good for your brand, and if they would focus more on DLC, you have another market that can't buy 40+ for a game, but can afford the 5 bucks for a DLC.
This isn't hard.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Now I can finally get of the fence and order my new HD DVD player! Awesome.
The point of HD is high quality, right?
So, in which fantasy land do these streamed or downloaded films match the 20-30Mb/s data rate of playing a film off Blu-Ray? Or have they managed to invent some magical new codec that's ~10x as efficient as what you find on disk without losing quality?
Enjoy downloading your high resolution but blocky and fuzzy mess. I'll stick to a high quality, sharp picture thanks.
You know the story of the frog in the cauldron, right? If you put a live one in a cauldron with boiling water, he will leap out as soon as he touches the water. But if you put it there and slowly heat up the water, he won't notice until it is too late. Guess what the content owners are doing to the consumers.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
OK, that explains the console market, but for PCs, most games on disc contain DRM. Given that fact, I'm going to look at my options for digital downloads first, starting with Steam.
If the game is on Steam, I'll check the game page and look to see if it includes Third-party DRM, which is noted on the right side of the game page for those that have it. Example: Batman: Arkham Asylum.
If it does contain Third-Party DRM, I'll skip the game entirely, as likely every version of the game for PC has some form of DRM.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Technically, the guy says that he predicts the format is dying (i.e. bluray is currently in use but he forsees the day that his approach, downloads, will overtake physical media). He doesn't actually say that it's dead (past tense) like the headline states.
I don't think "pure digital" is going to catch on for quite some time. While many people like to download their content. Some people are still going to want everything a Blu-Ray disk provides. The extras, the commentary, etc. Digital downloads, from what I have seen, don't do this.
While I do have the habit of ripping all of my DVDs and Blu-Rays, and storing them on my massive media server because hard drives are cheap, I still prefer to have a physical copy. With limited programs that can play back ripped Blu-Rays with full menu support, sometimes it's just easier to pop it in a Blu-Ray player and enjoy.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy tinkering, but when something goes wrong (it inevitably does), it's always when you're trying to play a movie for friends.
This is nothing but wishful thinking and total bullshit. This is just a story to try and create a self-fulfilling prophecy by pulling the wool over the eyes of uninformed and ignorant consumers. Thankfully the rest of us know better and will see to it that this nonsense just goes away quietly.
Here's the thing. If I get a movie on BluRay, or DVD or a physical game, etc, then I know that if my system gets whacked then I still have the movie or game. As long as the media companies can change their policy at will, or like Apple tell you that sorry, no you can't re-download all your music even though you already paid for it: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11654170
When we get into HD movies that I purchase (I will also rent, but there are a lot of movies and music that i want to own a copy of), I don't really want to have to backup multiple terabytes of information to ensure I don't lose something I bought, and I certainly don't want to rely on the media companies benevolence to let me get acces to something I already paid for, so for me, as much as I would prefer no media, I do not trust the media companies.
Personally I think I should have gotten some sort of discount for all the vinyl and VHS that I had when I re-purchased the same title on CD / DVD.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
I know you mean physical, but I couldn't help laughing at the thought of psychical media (as you spelled it). I could rent a movie and watch it in my head...
I'm thinking some serious infrastructure, download cap, net neutrality, and just plain money issues are going to need to be addressed before the masses can download all their HD content.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Just to add my personal perspective on the digital vs physical media thing:
Legal downloaded content wins in the convenience stakes (let's leave piracy out of this for the moment; I've not done it for products available in my region for over a decade anyway). I've got a reasonable connection, so it takes less time for me to download the average game (say... 6 gigs) or high definition movie than it does for me to go out to the shops and buy it. As far as games go, high street retailers have made things even worse for themselves here by making shopping there such a miserable experience. No, I don't want to buy pre-owned. No, I don't want to pre-order stuff. I want to be able to walk into the shop, having a reasonable expectation that a title released within the last 6 months will be available there, and buy it.
Online physical retail (eg. Amazon) has some advantages; pretty much anything I want will be available somewhere and in theory all I have to do is click to buy it and wait for the postman. Unfortunately, in the UK at least, there's a bit of a flaw in this plan; the Royal Mail. Service quality across the country is highly patchy. My parents get a great mail service, with a reliable daily delivery and a postman they've known for years who knows what to do with a parcel if they're not in when he calls. Me? If I'm lucky, I get three deliveries a week. If it's a parcel, the postman may put it through the letterbox, but more likely he'll take it back to the depot, which means taking a 45 minute round trip on Saturday morning (the only time opening hours allow me to get there) to collect it. So while in theory this is as simple as a digital purchase, in reality there are far more pitfalls.
So is it a clear-cut case of digital distribution always winning for me? Not quite. There are two factors that can still drive me towards a physical purchase.
The first is DRM. With PC gaming, this is largely becoming a moot issue; toxic DRM looks like it's here to stay, unfortunately, and going for a physical copy does not protect you from it. In fact, in a small number of cases, the Steam version of a game (and I think Steam more or less falls on the right side of the acceptability threshold; certainly it's the least worst plausible option around) means you actually get a version without the worst of the restrictions in the physical copy. For movies, I really don't like what some of the online distributors are doing to their files these days. Sure, I don't like a lot of the stuff that happens when I put a Blu-Ray in my drive, but at least you can put a Blu-Ray disc in any compatible system and it will play. I bought a couple of anime episodes on a download-to-own basis from Funimation early last year and basically found that despite what they advertised on their website, it was basically impossible to transfer them to my new PC without repurchasing (this may or may not have changed since; I didn't feel inclined to give them any repeat custom).
The DRM issue is also tied in with the second-hand issue. It's not as big an issue for me as for others. I strongly object to the rip-off manner in which high street game retailers treat second hand games (which strikes me as exploitation of the gullible given the margins involved), so I don't trade in games. However, when I run short of shelf-space, I do tend to give away old games to friends, family and colleagues. Now granted, with Steam I never run short of shelf-space, but I'd still like to know that the option is there.
The other reason why I might go for a physical copy is more positive (and, in my opinion, represents the best hope for the survival of physical media); added value in the packaging. Call me vapid, but I actually like some of the stuff you can get bundled with the special editions of games and movies these days. I like tin boxes, glossy art-books, coins, all that kind of thing. I'm not quite sure that I'm smitten enough to go for the $150 collector's edition of Gran Turismo 5, but I can't deny it's tempting. If I were in the physical dis
I loved DVD when it came out and "Collected" movies for a while but soon realized it wasn't "Dvd" i loved, but how accessible dvds made movies to me.
Sold off my collection and have never bought a DVD, or a CD or a bluray since. On the CD front for less than the price of a CD at bestbuy i get unlimited access to songs on zune.net and can keep 10 a month non DRM in mp3 format. With Xbox live I can stream 1080p 5.1 digital videos and enjoy a movie in hi-def on my tv or computer or zune or windows phone 7. With netflix i can watch a ton of stuff and use be done with it.
I'd say the "media" is the least important thing of the content I enjoy. Being able to enjoy it anywhere and everywhere is much better than anything bluray/dvd/cd can offer :)
Microsoft backed the piece of shit technologically inferior HD-DVD format and got destroyed by Sony in the market.
This is nothing but inane crybaby sour grapes.
You really have to wonder if there is anyone who is involved with the Xbox fiasco at Microsoft who isn't a complete idiot like this latest clown running his mouth off. When you get beaten so badly by a competitor like Microsoft was by Sony you keep your damn mouth shut and don't remind the who damn world about the subject. Especially when Blu-Ray sales continue to grow rapidly and outpace the VHS to DVD transition.
You really have to wonder how much longer Microsoft will keep the clusterfuck that is their E&D division around much longer:
The 8 billion dollar Xbox fiasco
The completely forgettable Zune
The dead on arrival Microsoft cellphone OS
With Microsoft's failed search efforts now blowing through Xbox sized billions in losses you have to wonder which of the two will be first to get the axe.
"A recent survey suggested that the majority of gamers prefer physical discs"
When I bought Starcraft 2 the digital download cost twice as much as the physical copy. Saying that gamers prefer physical discs is probably not correct when they set prices like they do.
I prefer digital download if you get the right to download it again, and the price is the same or cheaper.
While some of this may be true, I still believe that when businesses proclaim something as being "dead," they are trying to employ a psychological weapon on the consumer. That's not to say sales of Blu-rays is declining, or that the stats on digital copies are false, but rather this may be more so a method of making the consumer doubt the value of items sold by their competitors.
'Well, if Apple/Microsoft say it's dead, then it must be true! I'll put this BD back since they say that.'
"CD Quality" is dead, to be replaced by downsampled and compressed mp3s
"Bluray Quality" is dead, to be replaced by downsampled, compressed iTunes downloads, streamed netflix/comcast, Hulu etc..
Hell, even the stuff on TV that is claimed to be "HD" is compressed by your cable provider. It's a shame as a Bluray just provides that much more content than some compressed/re-encoded file. While it's not as easy to tell when watching "HDTV" on a iPhone or iPod. When you have a 50in TV and a 5.1 stereo, you can tell.
Steve Jobs' motto should be, "Compressed media, through earbuds, it's good enough."
I prefer physical copies of my games because I don't want to have to face the ordeal of having to download everything all over again if something happens to my system. But more importantly, I don't like being at the whim of an online retailer or publisher, worrying about my account expiring for whatever reason and no longer having access to something I've purchased. And I don't think broadband is still at the point for a lot of people where it's realistic downloading a game that would occupy the majority of a Blu-ray disc.
As for Blu-ray movies why the hell would I want compromised quality in the form of a download? It's one of the reasons why I prefer CDs over something like AAC format. I can tolerate it when I need the convenience of portability, but when I'm home why should I be subjected to poor quality audio or video? It would suck to end up in a situation where there were no options but downloading content online.
I have an installer, I have the game files
The installer requires a connection to a server that Activision Blizzard can shut down at any time.
If you so desire, you can burn everything that you "do not own" over to a disc and voila! you now have a physical representation of your ownership.
How does this store the state of Internet activation of the copies that you own?
The problem with BluRay specifically is that it eliminates most of the advantages of physical media. What's the point of having a physical disc if you still need to have internet access to play it? It's pretty much the same as PC games: why bother with the disc when you have to deal with the same DRM either way?
I worked as a consultant primarily with small and medium sized production houses who were transitioning from other editing platforms to Final Cut Pro and from SD to HD. They would ask, "Should I invest in Blu-ray or HD-DVD?" My answer would be neither. Those of us in the industry saw that by the time one format won out, it would remain dominate for 18 - 24 hours before everything went Digital Download anyway. And this was back in 2004. The only question would be the method of digital content delivery. Would it be a store like iTunes, would it be streaming through set top cable boxes (On Demand), or would it be some kind of web streaming service like Youtube or Hulu? Or would it be a combination of all? So far it's a combination of all.
I can't remember the last time I used my DVD player. I bought a Mac Mini in 2005 and hooked it up to my TV's DVI port and attached a 320 and now 1TB external harddrive to it. At the time, the apartment I lived in didn't have SciFi as part of the basic cable package. I purchased season 2 & 3 of Battlestar Galactica and quickly figured out for 2 months of the TV/Internet/Phone bundle I could buy all the TV programs I watched off iTunes and download them the next day . And the Quality of picture was good enough on my 32" TV.
That's what I did until Hulu came along. Then I just started watching the shows I wanted on it.
Most videographers I know are still creating regular DVD's and then if a client wants their movie in HD, they save it as an H.264 file onto a thumb drive or have the client provide an external HDD.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
In a world where more and more ISPs are moving away from unlimited bandwidth, downloading HD content becomes a crutch rather than the future. It's one thing to download a 4gig game on Steam every month or two, that hardly counts towards average caps, but when you're talking about 50gig BRD's for game rentals and movie rentals(ie short term), you're going to be advancing towards that cap much more quickly.
They think by turning all the market to digital downloads or, furthermore, all rented stuff that you don't really own and/or can be switched off is the answer to have total control and do as they please, well here's the news: Digital content is easily copied and distributed, and as we have seen to date, everything can be cracked / circumvented / ripped
I think this kind of move where you get pushed and forced to do the big companies bidding will only lead, as it always have, to increase piracy.
People is not going to let themselves be pushed around with unfair charges and conditions and countermeasures are more at hand than ever.
I buy the bluray and then rip it to a non DRM file format for use on my XBMC box.
Works great. 720p looks fantastic but I can always rip to 1080p if I ever desire to. AND they cant take the files away from me or invoke any control at all.
And I get that warm fuzzy feeling that I am violating a unjust law by doing it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I have already said "goodbye" to paying for TV.
Some people have reported success with replacing most TV watching with Netflix rentals and Netflix streaming. But this doesn't work so well for news or sports, which are worth much less if they are not live. And it doesn't work so well if the cable company's pricing structure is such that Internet-only subscribers could add basic TV for free.
Build things! Create things!
The incumbent publishers want national legislatures to make this illegal for indies to do. See Anonymous Coward's comment.
Or we will decide copyright is too much of a hassle
Which U.S. political party should voters elect to the Congress to make that happen? And how will this party keep the MPAA-controlled news media from burying it?
We've got three XBox 360s in the house, and we buy a lot more Bluray movies than we do XBox games. So much for how the physical media balance out. As for streaming, we only stream when we *can't* buy, because the quality is never even close to that of Bluray, and of course, if the connection goes down, as happens from time to time, you're screwed.
It seems to me that between the cost of the high speed connection, the cost of the rental, the fact that it's gone after you watch it, the quality is lower, you can't lend it, you can't significantly time-shift it, and the fact that it can and does fail... that if you do prefer streaming, you're simply not a very picky viewer.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Blue-ray will die, of course, no doubt about it.
Digital distribution will make the retail games obsolet?
lol, wake up guys, why do you think is winter the best selling time for video games, music, DVDs etc. ? Yes, because you give them away as present. Now try this with a digital coupon or via via steam. Imagine just for a second the face of a 14 years old boy when he gets a 50 Dollar coupon. And now imagine that he is not your child and the face of his parents when you do this.
People love things that they can touch, smell or whatever. Don't underestimate this fact.
Of course, the digital way will get stronger, but it will never replace the "real" stuff.
Just look what a failure the PSPgo was.
End of story.
Apple does not offer Bluray as an option on their computers I think because they don't see the overwhelming need of customers yet. Only now is Bluray starting to become prevalent for movies instead of DVDs. Even then most movies are released in both formats. They probably feel that if someone is watching Bluray movies, they are more likely to use their entertainment center. For those that want to watch on their computers, Apple offers them via iTunes (which they would prefer). The other use for Bluray would be as storage medium; however, few software titles (applications, games) are released on Bluray but instead on DVDs and even CD-ROM. They might add support later as Bluray replaces DVDs eventually.
For MS, it's a different story. It has been the desire of MS that the Xbox is the center of the entertainment. In fact, they have offered an optional HD-DVD drive. For them not to support Bluray is probably more having to do with licensing instead of demand. Licensing is not cheap. MS with their Xbox Live also offers a substitute for movies.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I think Blu-Ray will get passed by. Sony's crybaby bitchy attitude killed the last HD optical possibility. Their format war postponed the inception of HD optical media too long, and prices have been steadily too high for movies ever since because they are trying to make up the costs of this war (you don't think it really costs that much more to make a Blu-Ray vs DVD?). Now, hopefully we will move to solid state media storage, such as Secure digital ROM or some variant, where the physical media size is much smaller and more robust. I still think people want to own physical media, just not in $25-$30 optical formats.
As long as their are old fashioned dudes like me who buy houses based on the ease of setting up surround sound, AND on-demand services such as Netflix have lower quality (especially in the audio)than a Blu-ray disk, then physical media will reign.
Personally I wouldn't ever touch another disk again if I could just get an on-demand service that had full HD with full surround. Maybe there's a service out there, but it ain't Netflix (the streaming doesn't stream a surround signal, nor is the video anywhere near even 720p) and it ain't my cable-company (only have the last 6 episodes and $5.99 for one movie is not realistic, when I already have Netflix).
They'll push the idea to Joe Sixpack that HDDs are messy and prone to failure, he would be better off trusting his data to the cloud. Facebook and countless image hosting solutions now offer you free online photo album and video storage. Online data backup storage is sold for an annual fee. The lemmings have already begun to trust online storage. Cheap portable devices are another step down the road to consumers living in a thin client world.
If you can get people to surrender storing their own files you truly control their data. HDD storage will become an enterprise solution and demand higher prices. Law enforcement, MPAA, RIAA will have an easier time getting permission to search people's files.
(Joker Voice) It's all part of the plan...
The bandwidth isn't there yet. Physical media will not die until we have un-metered fibre to the home, and that is years off.
In the time it would take me to download 20-50gigs of content (i.e., 1 BD-ROM worth), i could easily get in my car, drive the 5km to the nearest store and buy SEVERAL TIMES that amount of content. I can also store it for offline viewing (e.g., whilst in transit while internet access is unavailable, like on a plane) without chewing hard drive storage.
Besides, physical media is also needed for transporting your own content, and optical disk, even blu-ray (and its successor) is far cheaper than flash - and always will be - to produce.
Streaming is an additional media delivery method - not a replacement.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Besides the massive power advantage the PS3's Cell+RSX has over the much weaker Xbox 360, the 25 or 50 gigabyte Blu-Ray format is why PS3 games look like they are a full generation ahead of anything on the Xbox 360: Killzone 2, Uncharted, Gran Turismo 5 etc.
Microsoft has to be kicking themselves for gimping the Xbox 360 with the sub-DVD sized disc format. Most likely why they have given up trying to compete with the PS3 and are now jumping on the motion control bandwagon with graphically simple casual games.
There never has a console that has gotten so utterly destroyed graphically by its competition like the Xbox 360 has this gen. There has to been a huge amount of anger over this up in Redmond and an uncontrollable desire to lash out at Blu-Ray.
The quality is far from a block mess.
Way too soon, I know alot of people that are still on dial-up, and` even broad-band is often 2mbits/s down; you ganna start downloading a movie on Monday, so you can watch it on Friday? And I see thus as a step towards "rent everything" and "cloud computing", I want to own and have MY data in my hands
...two companies that are becoming increasingly dependent on downloaded data as a profit vehicle deem a media format dead doesn't mean it is.
There are other uses for Blu-Ray. A major one comes to mind in backup solutions and data warehousing. I know a couple companies as well as military programs that keep extremely out-dated media formats in business (*cough* 9-track *cough*)just because they are still using technology in a production environment that is dependent upon that media.
Besides that, look at history for an idea on how accurate market and technology predictions from the likes of Microsoft and Apple have been. I mean, if Jobs honestly had a lockdown on what technology REALLY mattered instead of what the next toy people wanted was, I'd be posting from a iPhone right now instead of a Windows Mobile device. If Bill Gates was any kind of oracle, the laptop on my desk wouldn't need more than 64K of RAM and there would be no significant bugs in my OS that any significant number of users would want fixed.
in other news the sky is blue and water is wet.
What I don't is why don't publishers sell the digital-copy version of their games for a much cheaper price compared to the copy on a physical media?
That would make it an incentive for most games to buy it online and not have the option of reselling the game down the road.
Steam is a good example of this, but applying it to console game networks (Wii Channel, PSN, Xbox Live) can effectively hamper Gamestop's profit margins.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
Avatar sold 2.7 million blu-ray disks in four days.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Gosh, MS, which backed HD-DVD and didn't include a next generation disc format in its game console proclaims the next generation disc format of its major competitor is death... gee whiz. What a surprise!
And Apple also got clear reasons NOT to want blue-ray because physical media compete direct with its online media outlet... gosh... no conflict of intrest there either. 100% unbiased opinion, get it while it is hot!
Next up:
Shell doesn't think electrical cars will be it in 2011!
McDonalds thinks fastfood isn't a cancer in our society that needs to be routed out!
Pope does not think being a hitlerjugend or a pedo should be grounds for immediate dismissal in clergy!
Slashdotters think being a nerd should not turn women off!
Bears think the woods are there for shitting in!
Sky proclaims blue is the new black!
And tomorrow:
Sony declares Blue-Ray is booming!
Gosh, the death of physical media... how long have I heard this? It might become true one day. But then, vinyl still sells. Newspapers are death yet there are competing and viable free newspapers everywhere.
I will start believing the death of X stories when they deliver my flying car.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Blu-Ray players are just starting to fall below the $100 price point. That's when mass adoption takes place. By this holiday season, the combo Blu-Ray/DVD/CD player will be the standard retail offering, and in a year or so, almost all read-only drives will read all formats. Blu-Ray combo writer drives aren't that common yet, but they're only $110 even now.
On the other hand, bandwidth limits on DSL and cable are tightening down. It used to be that only the people doing torrent downloads sucked bandwith by the gigabyte. With video on demand, Joe Sixpack is doing it. The cable infrastructure can't handle that, and it's not cheap or fast to upgrade.
I think this is waaaaay overblown. Maybe some day physical media will really die - but today, right now it is seriously alive and well. I would wager that most slashdotters have (or at least have available in some way) a device that can be hooked up to their TV to watch downloaded media. Whether it's an Apple TV, Roku, HTPC, Boxee, or whatever. Your average consumer, however, does not - and many that do, have no idea what their device is actually capable of doing. I've had people over that have seen the way I have my PS3 set up and their minds are completely blown - and all I've done is hook up an external hard drive to it that's full of ripped DVDs. These are the same people that have their blu ray players hooked up to a 52 inch HDTV via component cables because they couldn't afford the HDMI cable (I know someone with this exact problem - I couldn't convince him that the $5 cable from monoprice would work fine). In the technology world the lowest common denominator where the consumer is concerned is MOST of the consumers. That majority of consumers are not capable of figuring out how to connect anything more complicated than a VCR to their TV. People with blu-ray players are quite happy with them - it's accessible in a way that is familiar because the functionality builds off the DVD paradigm - people are used to it. Blu-ray looks and acts much like a DVD just with better picture/sound quality and some cooler special features. Trying to instruct someone in how to set up some set top box that allows them to rent or view downloadable content is an exercise in futility. The new Apple TV may go a long way towards closing the stupidity gap (especially with the new price point) but it's still going to be a long time before the average non-techie consumer is capable of forgoing physical media. There's also still the problem of broadband speeds in the US. A lot of people simply do not have the bandwidth needed to stream high definition video. Downloads from stores like iTunes or Amazon are nice, but streaming full 1080p with little or no buffering to a simple to set up set top box AND have most of the country able to do this is what it will take before this conversation can even begin to be serious.
This space for rent...
A recent survey suggested that the majority of gamers prefer physical discs.
This survey is flawed on account of the fact that most games never make it to being a digital download on consoles. A lot of people would prefer not to have to get up and put in a new disc every time they want to swap out their media, but the consoles themselves are the limiting factor. It seems a game either needs to be indie, or 10 years old before that's an option.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
This Just In:
Xbox executives are still salty about not getting blu-ray on their consoles, Decide to make ridiculous claims that blu-ray is dying.
After having worked in the consumer software industry, I have seen sales and marketing depts. alike try and push their vision of what is happening, but this has to be an all time high for diluted morons.
It's easy to understand how, from a market share and revenue standpoint they want this to be true. But, I am getting so tired of them (yes, the proverbial they) dictating what is going to happen because it benefits them the most...
Well, Good luck Microsoft, hope it benefits you as much as Nintendo benefited from sticking with Carts, and from your backing for HD-DVDs...
You will be assimilated.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I love Blu-Ray. I love having a physical copy of my movies, that have a higher bitrate and quality than those sent via Net Flix and iTunes.
I will ALWAYS side with owning a copy on disc, as long as the disc contains a superior quality product, and I can own my disc.
Be it movie, or game.... I want a physical version that I can load or unload onto my own media server as I see fit, or sell to someone else on a whim etc.
Downloadable services have their place, but none of them include ownership of the films. Games yes, but games are a complex issue as many of them require online servers to play. Unfortunately many games do not provide you with the server code, or the match making applications used by the game companies networks. This hurts classic gaming.
This is a total nitpick, and it's more of a complaint about general usage than what you specifically said, since it's basically the commonly accepted way to talk about it, but I can't stand referring to downloaded media as "digital".
Ever since audio cassette tapes and VHS died out, we've pretty much been a society of exclusively digital media. CDs and Laserdiscs were "pure digital" long before we could download songs and movies from the internet.
I'm such a crotchety old man (at 32).
You imagine an unreasonable future. Computers won't be locked for the simple reason that they'd be unlocked and sold by whoever is the future Chinese.
Video game consoles have been locked down since 1985 when Nintendo put the lockout chip in the NES. Computers haven't been able to compete head-to-head with consoles since the mid-1980s, when the EGA/VGA era began and PCs traded TV output for higher resolution. There was a time when there were two kinds of monitors: "TVs" that were limited to a standard-definition signal, and "PC monitors" that were limited to 19 inches. Most PCs were incapable of outputting SDTV without an obscure and expensive scan converter box. So if you wanted to make and sell a fighting game or any other game that depends on multiple players looking at one screen, you had to make it for a console. And that meant being a sufficiently large company and working with console DRM. Even in the era of HDTV, where most new TVs can display video from a PC's VGA or DVI output, this tradition of releasing local multiplayer games only on consoles continues for some reason that I haven't figured out.
Almost all my friends own 360s. I know one guy with a PS3. Sales figures indicate this is the normal trend. PS3 may be prettier, but I'm pretty sure 360 is still the king of the hill on the current console market. I don't think Microsoft are really shaking in their boots and bitter over the PS3.
digital downloads have the secondary effect of entirely cutting out the popular market for second-hand films and games — a plus for publishers, but a big negative for the consumer
It's a negative for publishers, too. Just as with cars and many other products, a healthy used market supports high prices for new products. Buyers are more willing to pay full price for new when they know they can trade it in or resell it for a substantial portion of the purchase price. Eliminating the secondary market reduces the overall demand for new products, reducing prices, unit sales, or both.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
Given that last week the creator of Kinect said that PCs are a dead platform for first person shooters, I think it's pretty clear no one in the Xbox division of MS knows what the hell they're talking about.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Physical media won't go away as long as there are usage caps imposed by ISPs.
Online distribution sounds great in theory!
1) No manufacturing cost
2) No logistic cost
3) No retailer cost
4) No export taxes cost
5) Because of 1-4, lower costs means several potential new markets with devaluated currency (think Latin America)
6) Because of the lower final price, the product will undoubtly sell more, while costing the same to develop and advertise.
7) Because of the lower final price, second hand markets will not be missed much.
Why, if this sounds so good in theory, is not happening? Sony PSPGO online distribution games cost the same as a full retail game. This is ridiculous. One could argue that it is important for consumers to have the physical game, but if you offer the downloadable version at a reduced price (say, at $30), together with the retail boxed game (at $50).. would there be that many players that will prefer the retail boxed version? As soon as they know they can get it cheaper without even leaving their home they won't care. Why is iTunes so succesful otherwise?
So my guess is that retailers (who will lose billions from this move and still will have to sell the console) will do like they did with the PSPGo and refuse to sell the consoles that do online distribution.. It's scary to think they may be that powerful..
If physical media is to be replaced by downloads for 1080p HD content anytime in the near future, someone better tell the ISPs, especially in Canada. I'm a Rogers customers (which seems to be becoming the pariah of ISPs in terms of thottling and bandwidth limits), and I'm allowed 60Gb/month as a "mainstream", or average customer. I can get more, if i want to pay for it, but i'm already paying enough for my 60Gb.
If I want to download a single Blueray, that will use more than half of my monthly allowance.
Until the ISPs start handing out realistic speeds and bandwidth caps, at realistic prices, this will never happen.
Lokatana
Not everyone, even in this day and age has a high speed connection, and I'm not talking about monks or hermits. My inlaws live on a farm. Their only available "high speed" is about 2-4x dialup AT BEST. There's no way they can stream HD. Hell, I could barely stream SD netflix last time I tried at their place. Even in my own house, I have to use powerline ethernet where wireless won't work, and even it has poor signal between circuits. Streaming HD is a strain on that system and I'd hate to loose physical media for my movies 'cause my networks used for a lot more than watching movies! I agree with HockeyPuck as well, no streaming media is going to have the quality or the features of distributed physical media. We should stop calling it dead. Let the consumers truly decide that. VHS and Beta are dead. Even DVD is still quite alive as many people just don't want to pay for an expensive player and more expensive disks.
I don't think Blu-Ray is done for quite yet. The biggest problem is that true high def content is large, 25-50GB large for a movie. Given bandwidth caps, and our poor broadband networks in the in the US I don't see downloading "real" HD content coming soon. Sure you can get HD movies on Hulu, iTunes, Netflix but the quality there is terrible compared to watching a Blu-Ray.
Another issue for purchased content is local storage. Even though hard drive space has increased exponentially on a 1TB drive one could only store about 40 HD movies. Not only that but hard drives are prone to failure and one could easily lose their entire movie collection if a hard drive fails, or gets reformatted. I have yet to see a site or company which offers downloadable movies where one can download their collection whenever they want. The ONLY reason I can accept buying games via steam is that I can delete, and re-download my games as much as I want on any computer I log into.
"PS3 may be prettier"
Hilarious! Don't cry assclown. You've always got your old hilariously fake Unreal Gears of War marketing shots to remind you 'teh power of teh Xbox 360' LOL!
The Xbox 360 is in last place in 2/3rds of the console gaming markets: Asia and Europe.
And it is about to be dumped into last place worldwide by Sony.
Let me guess idiot? You get your sales numbers from that fanboy vgchartz site?
Get the fuck off this site you fucking faggot.
Destroyed, eh? Okay, the Cell is without a doubt the more powerful CPU once you get to taking advantage of it, and game developers are a clever bunch who have managed to do so. The CPU core itself is on roughly par with the Xenon (and the Xenon has three of them) but the SPEs are real workhorses with no competition.
I don't think there's much good to say about RSX though, and it certainly doesn't appear to beat out the Xenos in the 360. In fact the Xenos has hardware tesselation (a feature only seen years later in desktop DX10 cards) where the RSX does not, the Xenos has unified shaders and a unified memory model, where the RSX has hardwired splits in both. So you end up having to use those SPEs as shaders, and while they do keep up, you lose them for any other use.
In the end, both consoles seem to do a pretty good job at showing you pretty colored blobs at HDTV resolution when you waggle the sticks, and both show demonstrably high-quality HD video. That indie developers and casual-game producers need or prefer the low overhead of assets that fit in a download doesn't seem to reflect much on the platform, given the existence of casual and indie games on the PS3 as well.
Perhaps my ecumenicalism and overall lack of fanboi-ness comes from the fact that I can actually afford all three systems?
One is led to wonder, however, whether MS sells more streaming downloads because the XBox users don't like the sodding jet-engine-loud optical drive it has.
From Microsoft's perspective anything based on Java has to die. BluRay is based on Java, so of course physical media is obsolete. Why do you think Microsoft went HD-DVD and there will never be BluRay for XBox?
Interestingly, I was having a conversation with a UMass BSIT student about cloud computing yesterday. We were talking about SaaS. It's been around for a while but now its all the rage, its got a cool hip name, cool companies like Google are pushing it. What's striking about it is that how we're being sold on the idea that it is the next best thing. Seems a lot like what we're discussing here today. Welcome to the future. Complain about it or turn a profit with it your choice!
What's the point of Mod points over a long weekend?
I have the fastest available broadband in my area(18Mbps down). To download an entire high def movie in that size would take significantly longer than I would want to wait in front of my television for it.
What, would you rather spend that time driving to the store? Sure, you can automate downloads just as well as you can automate Netflix blu-ray delivery, but when it comes to the now factor, downloading vs driving to get HD content is a moot point. HD of blu-ray quality is simply not available instantaneously.
Blu Ray is definitely thriving. Many moves are priced less than $10 nowadays, and you can watch them in full 1080p with uncompressed audio, unlike many streaming solutions that still max out at 720p most of the time. With physical media, you're not chained to the internet so you can watch it anywhere. You can take it to a friend's house, lend it, and it's a lot easier to rip and transcode for playback on your portable devices than to find the appropriate software to remove a particular version of DRM to allow you to do the same.
I generally don't like to own physical stuff because as they say...the more you own...the less you own of yourself.
Anyways, 99.5% of the videos I watch are a one time only affair. No need to own. With games and music its a bit different...but still the paradigm holds.
I just want to be able to get the media I want when I want it (streaming and local cache options) for a reasonable price.
You're feeding the trolls. The rule around here is "don't feed the trolls."
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Someone needs to smack the fucking shit out you.
It was somewhat understandable four years ago when stupid little shits like you scampered off to PC/Xbox fanboy sites like beyond3d to fill their heads with the laughably inane garbage you just parroted.
But in 2010? Dude get a fucking life. Even the fucking Dreamcast fanboys weren't that absurdly delusional.
And, lol, at you being so fucking stupid to try the old 'I own..' meme to try to cover your idiotic fanboyism.
The PS3 has annhilated the wimpy and poorly designed Xbox 360 like no other console in the history of the gaming world. Get the fuck over it loser. Spouting inane fanboy drivel isn't ever going to change that fact.
Aww, poor babies. You piece of shit console is getting laughed at.
Cry to mommy!
Well, there goes another perfectly good sarcasm meter. They really should put fuses or breakers on these things.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
and digital downloads have the secondary effect of entirely cutting out the popular market for second-hand films and games — a plus for publishers, but a big negative for the
I would contend that the only reason a second hand market even exists is a lack of a decent digital market.
The success of digitally-distributed music has shown us that if digital distribution is priced correctly and works with devices that makes sense to consumers, it will be a successful compliment to physical media. A side-effect is a reduced demand of physical media, and thus the second-hand market will decline.
Why would games and movies be any different?
Honestly, there's no reason to go to blu-ray when DVD is good enough, and when it isn't, then (i) downloads (e.g. Amazon, Netflix) and (ii) rental service (e.g. Netflix) will be. DVD still outpaces the Blu-ray market with more discs available in stores than Blu-ray. Yep, I'm never going to buy Blu-ray, or if I do - it'll be data storage only for backups of the downloaded data, not for playing movies, music, etc. I've had it with the RIAA/MPAA and their copyright abuse. Someone needs to reign them in, and not buying blu-ray will help do so.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
"Apple famously refuses to put a Blu-ray drive in its Macs, as Jobs prefers to send people towards iTunes to download their entertainment"
The only explanation we've heard from Apple on the lack of Blu-ray is Jobs saying licensing it from Sony is a "bag of hurt" (http://www.google.com/search?q=jobs+blu-ray+bag+of+hurt). Yet another Sony technology killed by licensing.
--
They're only interested in the people with real broadband. The difference in their profits is probably not worth while worrying about people on dialup.
No sig today...
I have to agree: I have not used my standalone DVD player more than may be a couple of times in the last year. Will probably never buy a Blu Ray player. Got rid of premium cable (for over the air) due to compression. We get most of our entertainment, recreation, knowledge, information and telecommunication over internet. Have land line phone and basic cable more out of irrational fear of cutting "connections".
"demand for legal digital downloads of PC games exceed sales of the physical object"
OR
"the majority of gamers prefer physical discs"
???
--- What?
Sure, proclaim BluRay dead and try not to remind people that Microsoft (and the Xbox 360) backed the failed HD-DVD bid.. Not to mention, not everyone can download 20+ gb instantly, I think physical media will be with us for some time to come..
Not too worried about your dysutopian future. Plenty of alternatives. I don't mind new market efficiencies though. I never needed to own most movies, but love renting them at will.
I hate when directors edit movies after they are released (oh wait that pretty much only happened with star wars?)
FA
Lets say you have an extremely fast internet connection, don't mind that most HD downloads from various services don't exactly live up to BD quality, then all media does go totally digital with DVDs and BDs gone. What happens to those who have ISPs with download limits? The average HD movie size can be 10gb to 30gb, if your cap is 20gb a month, you're screwed before you get your hands on ONE movie, that it would be assumed you legitimately paid for! We post about this all the time n /., I'm somewhat shocked nobody has mentioned it. We can never go full digital distribution until bandwidth caps put to rest forever. What good is access to digital content that you can buy, when you can't even get it to your playback device?
I'm not 100% sure but I think this Gen Console situation is this 1.) Wii 2.) Xbox 360 3.) PS3 The 360 is beating the PS3, but the Wii is appealing to the Casual gamer. I know more people who have a Wii, and nothing else. While the 360 and PS3 appeals more to the Hardcore gamers.
I'll start collecting books now.
Wii has sold more units but 360 is the most used. Basically, a lot of people have the wii sitting there collecting dust. Also, the wii isn't really a competitor of the 360. The overlap between their target markets compared to the 360 and PS3 is minimal.
Winning the format war was a hollow victory for Sony...it's like making the best covered wagon at the advent of the automobile.
apple like microsoft are just mad that sony made blu-ray. apple refuses to use other companies products. apple just like ms want to control everything. If we let these two companies make all the decision we wont have anything. apple and MS just have $ not ideas. They take others ideas.
From the BDA site:
"Companies participating in the Board of Directors are active participants of the format creation and key BDA activities ... The board sets an overall strategy and approves key issues."
(http://www.blu-raydisc.com/en/association/membership/MembershipLevels.html)
From the Apple press release announcing their participation:
"The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting and further developing business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc"
(http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/mar/10blu-ray.html)
It would seem Apple's participation in the BDA is limited to formats and advocacy. Not licensing terms.
--
Curtosey vgchartz.com, worldwide hardware totals:
XBox360: 43.2M
PS3: 37.6M
A 14% greater install base on 360s is a pretty flimsy "king of the hill". Even better, by the most recent reasonable industry estimate (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6216691.html) the XBox360's lifetime failure rate is 13.7% higher than that of the PS3 (23.7% vs. 10%); it's not unprecedented for companies to count claims in sales numbers, though I could find nothing conclusive either way.
The PS3 has a clear edge in processing power and media capacity, in addition to home theater use (Blu-ray playback). Sony had a slow start due to the more expensive console, later deployment date, and relatively difficult development environment associated with the many-core Cell processor. All of those factors have improved over time.
Basically, the "XBox360 edge" is extremely thin, and while the XBox360 is starting to get a bit long in the tooth, the PS3 is reaching full market maturity.
The dead on arrival Microsoft cellphone OS
Given that it hasn't arrived yet, how do you know?
In the US this is a joke. Until you have 100Mb min speed with no monthly cap for almost every person bluray is the only way to get real HD videos with full surround sound. The average size of a Bluray is 19GB some can be as small as 13GB other are as large as 40GB... I really don't want to be streaming a 19GB movie when the national average speed is 4Mb. I guess it's enough for low quality 720p "HD" and stereo sound.
People believe Apple famously avoids Blu-Ray? In 2005 they were backing it over the competing HD-DVD format. To quote their press release at http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/mar/10blu-ray.html
“Apple has a long history of technical innovation around DVD hardware and software, and their support of the Blu-ray Disc format is a testament to their commitment of ongoing innovation. The Blu-ray Disc format provides the immense capacity and the revolutionary functionality that Apple’s loyal customer base will be sure to enjoy,” said Maureen Weber, chief BDA spokesperson and general manager of HP's Optical Storage Solutions Business. “We’re thrilled about Apple joining our 16-member board, and we look forward to working with them on the development and promotion of the Blu-ray Disc format.”
[)amien
What about the porn industry? They seem to drive a lot of technology as well... Unless they declare a media as dead, I'm not buying it!
Streaming and download services offer decent quality, but I want real quality. Also, I don't see streaming services offering 3D or 7.1 uncompressed audio anytime soon. Blu-ray is becoming an audio/video-phile format while streaming is content for the masses. Until iTunes and Netflix can deliver 60+mbps bandwidth for audio and video then I will not be stopping buying Blu-ray movies anytime soon. Also, what happens if TV's double their resolution?
You can quibble all you want about the emergence of downloadable/streamable content, but if you think it is looks and sounds as good as Blu-ray then you need glasses and a hearing check.
Also, Microsoft is just pissed off they bought into a dead format in HD-DVD. Microsoft hasn't even done anything to offer downloadable video services themselves. At least Sony, the major backer behind Blu-ray, actually offers their own video streaming service on the PS3 in addition to Netflix. Blu-ray is still increasing in sales and as cheap sub-$100 players emerge, it will become the dominant physical format. Heck, even Blu-ray players offer streaming content capabilities, its not like the Blu-ray makers are saying it has to be one or the other, they realize there is a reason for both formats and don't blindly solidify themselves behind one format like myopic companies such as Microsoft or Apple.
Another thing downloadable services can't touch are the bonus features. I actually LIKE movies, so I like to hear the director's commentary, look at the behind the scene's footage, etc. I am not just a couch potato that needs to consume 10 videos a night, I like to buy a movie and enjoy everything the movie and director has to offer. I usually watch only one movie and all its content in a night where as I know people that will watch movies all day long. Its like I prefer a good steak dinner that costs $50 rather then consumer Big Mac's for $5.
The only thing I like streaming for is TV content. I refuse to pay $80+ for a season of "whatever", especially when TV producers start to split a TV season into 2 or more parts. I think video streaming can declare Cable is dead.
surprised u fucking dickheads did not bring up rootkits....