I don't think consumers would currently be buying either format in force even if there was no war. Look at DVD, which was an example of a format based on consensus. It took several years for that to take off.
I wish the movie industry, video industry, computer industry, and audio industry would all get together and realize that they are hurting themselves with this.
It's basically the Prisoner's Dilemma. They'd all benefit if they worked together, but that raises the possibility of backstabbing, which would be worse than simply losing a format war. Therefore, they pre-emptively attack each other instead. Another thing to note is that not everyone is hurting themselves with this; whoever wins the format war will actually be better off than they would've been if they'd cooperated.
Call me crazy, but does it strike anyone as a very interesting idea to produce the next Xbox360 addon as a combo HD-DVD/Blu-ray player? Think about it...they win either way. If people buy the device itself, they're in good shape and they're stealing the only real reason for the huge cost of the PS3 away from Sony.
Never mind the fact that Microsoft releasing a hybrid player would be like Sony doing the same thing--a 360 with a dual-player addon would cost more than a PS3, and it still wouldn't be able to play games. It wouldn't steal any thunder at all.
Putting an HD-DVD drive in the Elite version would make more sense, but it's too late now for it to make a real impact, especially since it wouldn't be able to support HD-DVD games without alienating early adopters.
You see, Sony is basically telling their partners to not sell BD players below the price of the PS3, because they still have this twisted hope/dream that it will help them sell PS3s
"The BDA cites a survey in conducted by talking to 10,000 US PS3 owners. It claims more than 80 per cent plan to buy movies on BD. A slightly smaller percentage, just over 75 per cent, said they plan to use their console as their prime device for watching movies."
Though that proves the converse of what you said (that the PS3 is helping them sell BluRay movies), it's hard to believe that none of those PS3 owners bought one at least in part because it could play BluRay movies.
The fact is that if you actually look at the total sales of both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies you will find that Blu-Ray is not leading by that much.
The problem with using absolute numbers is that they ignore the fact that HD-DVD movies have been out in stores for two months longer than BluRay movies, the fact that BR players are much more expensive than HD-DVD players, and the fact that the PS3 (the major component to BluRay's recent success) had been out for only four months before the cut-off date of that report. Taking those facts into account, BluRay's lead on HD-DVD becomes more impressive.
Certainly Samsung is releasing a dual-format player to take advantage of the fact that the general public has no clue which format is going to win out; few people even have next-gen movie players. I just don't think it will be necessary for too much longer.
The pluralisation of LEGO is imposible, because not only is "pluralisation" most likely not a word, but also because LEGO is a brand. You can't have more than one LEGO. On the other hand you can have more than one LEGO brand building block, LEGO brand building brick, or even just LEGO brick.
Fair enough, though it doesn't work for Lego any more than it does for Coke, Kleenex, or Band-Aid. The biggest problem I have with Lego zealots, though, is when they insist that something is "made out of Lego." No, it's not made out of Lego, it's made out of plastic. "Made out of Lego bricks" would be fine, though a waste of words in my opinion.
When these companies have no Wii titles under development in November, but three to six titles now slated to come out by the end of the year, how can you expect otherwise?
It's a window (reflecting the name and style of the OS) that's flying (because "flying" means "awesome" over at Microsoft, I guess) and each of its four panes are in one of the primary colors (RGB in additive color, Y in subtractive) to represent how bright and beautiful Windows supposedly is.
If Nintendo is smart, they'll give each competitor advantages in some events and disadvantages in others. So Sonic would do well in the sprinting events but maybe not so well in weightlifting or whatever. Mario would probably be the average character with no advantages or disadvantages, since that's the role he usually plays in other competitive games.
If outselling your competition by n-to-1 bears anything out, the fact that about 8 Wii's are being sold for every PS3 must prove that Sony IS overreaching.
I'm not basing my verdict on BluRay entirely on sales. In fact, sales are a pretty small part of the equation compared to the interests of the major studios. On the other hand, the only advantage the Wii currently has over the PS3 is sales.
The Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on's sales performance has been underwhelming, proving that gamers don't want to spend an extra $200 to watch movies in hi-def. That's a lesson Sony is learning right now, too.
With PS3 sales having a heavy lead on all HD-DVD players combined and a high BR movie attach rate to those PS3 sales, exactly what lesson is Sony supposed to be learning?
We may need to re-evaluate what we mean by "winning". I don't doubt that all three manufacturers will survive to offer a next-next-gen console four or five years from now.
Neither do I, but that's definitely not what I mean by "winning" since that would mean that the XBox and GameCube won too. To further clarify, the XBox was successful beyond what most gamers expected, but it wasn't a winner of the last console war. (A good analogy will probably end up being the PSP.) As for the GameCube, the only way it wasn't a failure was in terms of profit, though it did do better with third parties than the N64 did and arguably got Nintendo some of its dignity back.
What I mean is that the PS3 and 360 will both have fanbases large and loyal enough to enforce strong exclusive third-party lineups on both systems, just like what happened with the SNES and Genesis over a decade ago. Most gamers couldn't tell you much about what third-party exclusives were on the XBox; I don't think it's going to be the same with the 360.
Sony only needs to sell 4 million more PS3's to catch up to where the Xbox 360 is today.
Why do you think I care? Shocking fact: A console doesn't have to be in first place to be greatly successful. That said, basing Sony's chances of reaching first place on launch sales is silly anyway.
Er... the Genesis had plenty of momentum before the SNES came out, as the Genesis was released a whole two years earlier. But then the SNES came out and that, combined with a bunch of screwups by Sega of Japan, caused that momentum to disappear. That generation happened in precisely the opposite manner as what you're suggesting.
According to vgcharts.org, which I think most people here consider reasonably accurate, the PS3 has sold over 500K units in PAL regions since launch. So either way the PS3 has done better at launch in the PAL regions than the 360 did. That's not too surprising, since the 360 had an epically horrible launch worldwide.
1. Certainly Sony would succeed in the gaming industry if they hadn't included BluRay, but that's not all that Sony wants. You could argue that Sony is overreaching, but the dominance of BluRay over HD-DVD doesn't really bear that out. Also keep in mind that BluRay, like any other new technology, will drop in price rapidly, allowing for Sony to cut the cost of the PS3 in a short amount of time, probably around the time a decent game lineup starts to form. There's a good chance that this will be a better plan than what Microsoft has done, making the HD-DVD drive an add-on that can't play games.
2. GTA4 and RE5 were never going to be exclusives. In fact, the rumors that were going around stated that RE5 would be 360-exclusive, not for the PS3. As for Devil May Cry 4, the fact that that game will not be coming out for a while means that DMC fans can still be convinced (with other PS3 games) that they might as well stick with the Sony version over the MS version.
3. That would have been dumb, as there's no way either of those could've been updated with better graphics without causing massive delays. And if they'd put PS2-level graphics in a PS3 game, that would've just given Sony an even worse reputation than it already has.
How can the Sony redeem itself? It has to ensure that there are a sufficient quantity of third party exclusives and a $399 price tag.
Sony actually has a much stronger first-party presence than most people realize, stronger than Microsoft's. Though third-party exclusives are essential, they won't be the only things that the PS3 has on its side.
They need to buy Grand Theft Auto 4 exclusivity and pay to make MGS4 and FF13 multiplatform.
GTA4 exclusivity is about as likely as Phil Harrison quitting his job and becoming a corn farmer, unless you mean that Rockstar would delay its PS3 release by about a year, which I don't think would have quite as much of an impact as it would've a few years ago. Putting MGS4 and FF13 on the 360 wouldn't help Konami or Square enough to warrant it. The 360 might as well not exist in Japan, and the only way the Japanese would think about buying one is if one or both of those games were exclusive to it. As for the West, game sales would increase slightly, but I think most of the 360 sales would come from people who would've bought them on the PS3 anyway, so that the two companies would just be cannibalizing themselves. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if MGS4 comes out for the 360 at some point, like previous MGS games have for the XBox.
A Sony victory means your next console will cost $900 at launch because clearly people will clearly pay through the nose for graphics and Final Fantasy. A Microsoft victory will mean that next generation, you will have to pay for online play and downloadable content.
I do feel the need to defend them here since no one else seems to. I actually presently like the 360 a lot more than the PS3, but that console doesn't need defending.
To the surprise of no one, the Sony bashers talk about how the Wii and 360 might have sold more units in an alternate universe somewhere rather than admit that despite the high price, despite the lack of games, and despite the constant negative publicity that Sony's gotten for nearly a year now, the PS3 has still sold more units at launch than any other console in UK history, and a whole 60% more than the Wii. Perhaps they won't admit it because that would also be admitting that they've underestimated Sony's chances of success in this console war.
Says who? Consoles have never been commodities, and the fact that Nintendo is differentiating its console from the other two with controller gimmickry proves that it doesn't really believe that consoles are commodities either. In fact, it's farther from the commodity concept than the other two fairly generic consoles are.
If you simply meant that consoles should be really cheap, well, I would like for the current consoles to be really cheap, but cheapness is far from being a part of a console's identity.
you do not need an uber machine doing everything, the pc already does that way better than any console can do it, and a pc can be found in every house.
Fortunately for both Sony and Microsoft, however, both of their consoles can still play games a lot better than most PCs can despite their desire to create ueber-machines.
Nintendo slowly but surely reaches numbers which third parties cannot avoid to develop for anymore
Here's something I've learned over the past twenty years of watching the gaming industry: Just because developers have to make something for a system doesn't mean that they'll make something good for it. The Wiimote just makes it more likely that most of the big developers will make a bunch of shallow cash-in games and substandard ports for the Wii while leaving their more serious efforts on the other consoles. Some would argue that we're already seeing this happen.
look at PC gaming, HDTV resolutions have been a commodity there for almost a decade, games simply scale down or up, and often simply replace textures.
Which is quite obviously different from designing a game to be HD from the beginning, which is what we've seen on both the 360 and the PS3. Even if Nintendo decides to put HD games on the Wii in the manner you describe, the Wii doesn't have nearly the processing power to compete. If you think that that's good long-term thinking, I don't want to know what you think bad long-term thinking is.
Sorry, I should've been more clear. Beyond the fact that most people who don't have HDTVs aren't gamers at all, by "new game consoles" I meant consoles that are actually new, as opposed to the Wii which is just a gussied-up GameCube with a new controller. Most people who were willing to pay $600 for a PS3 either already have an HDTV or will be getting one very soon. As for the 360, I'd say the vast majority of owners will get an HDTV to play it on in a couple of years at most. Remember that not only are HDTV prices going down quickly, but that you don't have to get a big expensive one to see the significant improvements in graphical quality.
Four to six years? You mean long after the other two consoles have already left it in the dust? Furthermore, this "gameplay mechanic" you speak of has already been partially implemented in the PS3, and if it's successful at all will surely be a part of the PS4 and probably the next XBox as well. Sony's been copying Nintendo's innovations and making them more viable for the past decade, and that's not going to change in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
Except (of course) that at the begining of february it was reported that HD-DVD had 52% market share as compared to Blu-Ray's 48% ...
That seems to me to be supporting my conclusion, not yours.
Rob
I don't think consumers would currently be buying either format in force even if there was no war. Look at DVD, which was an example of a format based on consensus. It took several years for that to take off.
Rob
I wish the movie industry, video industry, computer industry, and audio industry would all get together and realize that they are hurting themselves with this.
It's basically the Prisoner's Dilemma. They'd all benefit if they worked together, but that raises the possibility of backstabbing, which would be worse than simply losing a format war. Therefore, they pre-emptively attack each other instead. Another thing to note is that not everyone is hurting themselves with this; whoever wins the format war will actually be better off than they would've been if they'd cooperated.
Rob
Call me crazy, but does it strike anyone as a very interesting idea to produce the next Xbox360 addon as a combo HD-DVD/Blu-ray player? Think about it...they win either way. If people buy the device itself, they're in good shape and they're stealing the only real reason for the huge cost of the PS3 away from Sony.
Never mind the fact that Microsoft releasing a hybrid player would be like Sony doing the same thing--a 360 with a dual-player addon would cost more than a PS3, and it still wouldn't be able to play games. It wouldn't steal any thunder at all.
Putting an HD-DVD drive in the Elite version would make more sense, but it's too late now for it to make a real impact, especially since it wouldn't be able to support HD-DVD games without alienating early adopters.
Rob
You see, Sony is basically telling their partners to not sell BD players below the price of the PS3, because they still have this twisted hope/dream that it will help them sell PS3s
More like actual fact.
"The BDA cites a survey in conducted by talking to 10,000 US PS3 owners. It claims more than 80 per cent plan to buy movies on BD. A slightly smaller percentage, just over 75 per cent, said they plan to use their console as their prime device for watching movies."
Though that proves the converse of what you said (that the PS3 is helping them sell BluRay movies), it's hard to believe that none of those PS3 owners bought one at least in part because it could play BluRay movies.
Rob
The fact is that if you actually look at the total sales of both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies you will find that Blu-Ray is not leading by that much.
The problem with using absolute numbers is that they ignore the fact that HD-DVD movies have been out in stores for two months longer than BluRay movies, the fact that BR players are much more expensive than HD-DVD players, and the fact that the PS3 (the major component to BluRay's recent success) had been out for only four months before the cut-off date of that report. Taking those facts into account, BluRay's lead on HD-DVD becomes more impressive.
Certainly Samsung is releasing a dual-format player to take advantage of the fact that the general public has no clue which format is going to win out; few people even have next-gen movie players. I just don't think it will be necessary for too much longer.
Rob
The pluralisation of LEGO is imposible, because not only is "pluralisation" most likely not a word, but also because LEGO is a brand. You can't have more than one LEGO. On the other hand you can have more than one LEGO brand building block, LEGO brand building brick, or even just LEGO brick.
Fair enough, though it doesn't work for Lego any more than it does for Coke, Kleenex, or Band-Aid. The biggest problem I have with Lego zealots, though, is when they insist that something is "made out of Lego." No, it's not made out of Lego, it's made out of plastic. "Made out of Lego bricks" would be fine, though a waste of words in my opinion.
Rob
HD-DVD is going the way of the dodo.
Fixed.
Rob
When these companies have no Wii titles under development in November, but three to six titles now slated to come out by the end of the year, how can you expect otherwise?
Rob
It's a window (reflecting the name and style of the OS) that's flying (because "flying" means "awesome" over at Microsoft, I guess) and each of its four panes are in one of the primary colors (RGB in additive color, Y in subtractive) to represent how bright and beautiful Windows supposedly is.
That is what you were talking about, right?
Rob
If Nintendo is smart, they'll give each competitor advantages in some events and disadvantages in others. So Sonic would do well in the sprinting events but maybe not so well in weightlifting or whatever. Mario would probably be the average character with no advantages or disadvantages, since that's the role he usually plays in other competitive games.
Rob
If outselling your competition by n-to-1 bears anything out, the fact that about 8 Wii's are being sold for every PS3 must prove that Sony IS overreaching.
I'm not basing my verdict on BluRay entirely on sales. In fact, sales are a pretty small part of the equation compared to the interests of the major studios. On the other hand, the only advantage the Wii currently has over the PS3 is sales.
The Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on's sales performance has been underwhelming, proving that gamers don't want to spend an extra $200 to watch movies in hi-def. That's a lesson Sony is learning right now, too.
With PS3 sales having a heavy lead on all HD-DVD players combined and a high BR movie attach rate to those PS3 sales, exactly what lesson is Sony supposed to be learning?
We may need to re-evaluate what we mean by "winning". I don't doubt that all three manufacturers will survive to offer a next-next-gen console four or five years from now.
Neither do I, but that's definitely not what I mean by "winning" since that would mean that the XBox and GameCube won too. To further clarify, the XBox was successful beyond what most gamers expected, but it wasn't a winner of the last console war. (A good analogy will probably end up being the PSP.) As for the GameCube, the only way it wasn't a failure was in terms of profit, though it did do better with third parties than the N64 did and arguably got Nintendo some of its dignity back.
What I mean is that the PS3 and 360 will both have fanbases large and loyal enough to enforce strong exclusive third-party lineups on both systems, just like what happened with the SNES and Genesis over a decade ago. Most gamers couldn't tell you much about what third-party exclusives were on the XBox; I don't think it's going to be the same with the 360.
Rob
Why the hell would GTA, RE5, DMC4, etc go back to Sony only after they have announced 360 versions?
Uh... yeah, why the hell would they?
Rob (???)
Sony only needs to sell 4 million more PS3's to catch up to where the Xbox 360 is today.
Why do you think I care? Shocking fact: A console doesn't have to be in first place to be greatly successful. That said, basing Sony's chances of reaching first place on launch sales is silly anyway.
Rob
Er... the Genesis had plenty of momentum before the SNES came out, as the Genesis was released a whole two years earlier. But then the SNES came out and that, combined with a bunch of screwups by Sega of Japan, caused that momentum to disappear. That generation happened in precisely the opposite manner as what you're suggesting.
Rob
According to vgcharts.org, which I think most people here consider reasonably accurate, the PS3 has sold over 500K units in PAL regions since launch. So either way the PS3 has done better at launch in the PAL regions than the 360 did. That's not too surprising, since the 360 had an epically horrible launch worldwide.
Rob
when did Sony become the underdog?
/. users love. It's just as silly a notion, yet just as true.
Around E3 2006.
Honestly, you might as well ask when Microsoft became the company that
Rob
1. Certainly Sony would succeed in the gaming industry if they hadn't included BluRay, but that's not all that Sony wants. You could argue that Sony is overreaching, but the dominance of BluRay over HD-DVD doesn't really bear that out. Also keep in mind that BluRay, like any other new technology, will drop in price rapidly, allowing for Sony to cut the cost of the PS3 in a short amount of time, probably around the time a decent game lineup starts to form. There's a good chance that this will be a better plan than what Microsoft has done, making the HD-DVD drive an add-on that can't play games.
2. GTA4 and RE5 were never going to be exclusives. In fact, the rumors that were going around stated that RE5 would be 360-exclusive, not for the PS3. As for Devil May Cry 4, the fact that that game will not be coming out for a while means that DMC fans can still be convinced (with other PS3 games) that they might as well stick with the Sony version over the MS version.
3. That would have been dumb, as there's no way either of those could've been updated with better graphics without causing massive delays. And if they'd put PS2-level graphics in a PS3 game, that would've just given Sony an even worse reputation than it already has.
How can the Sony redeem itself? It has to ensure that there are a sufficient quantity of third party exclusives and a $399 price tag.
Sony actually has a much stronger first-party presence than most people realize, stronger than Microsoft's. Though third-party exclusives are essential, they won't be the only things that the PS3 has on its side.
They need to buy Grand Theft Auto 4 exclusivity and pay to make MGS4 and FF13 multiplatform.
GTA4 exclusivity is about as likely as Phil Harrison quitting his job and becoming a corn farmer, unless you mean that Rockstar would delay its PS3 release by about a year, which I don't think would have quite as much of an impact as it would've a few years ago. Putting MGS4 and FF13 on the 360 wouldn't help Konami or Square enough to warrant it. The 360 might as well not exist in Japan, and the only way the Japanese would think about buying one is if one or both of those games were exclusive to it. As for the West, game sales would increase slightly, but I think most of the 360 sales would come from people who would've bought them on the PS3 anyway, so that the two companies would just be cannibalizing themselves. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if MGS4 comes out for the 360 at some point, like previous MGS games have for the XBox.
A Sony victory means your next console will cost $900 at launch because clearly people will clearly pay through the nose for graphics and Final Fantasy. A Microsoft victory will mean that next generation, you will have to pay for online play and downloadable content.
What if they both win?
Rob
I do feel the need to defend them here since no one else seems to. I actually presently like the 360 a lot more than the PS3, but that console doesn't need defending.
Rob
Dear Game Industry,
The UK market is the largest in Europe.
Love,
Objective Reality, or
Rob
To the surprise of no one, the Sony bashers talk about how the Wii and 360 might have sold more units in an alternate universe somewhere rather than admit that despite the high price, despite the lack of games, and despite the constant negative publicity that Sony's gotten for nearly a year now, the PS3 has still sold more units at launch than any other console in UK history, and a whole 60% more than the Wii. Perhaps they won't admit it because that would also be admitting that they've underestimated Sony's chances of success in this console war.
Rob
So it's bad not to sell out now? How times have changed since November.
Rob
consoles are commodities
Says who? Consoles have never been commodities, and the fact that Nintendo is differentiating its console from the other two with controller gimmickry proves that it doesn't really believe that consoles are commodities either. In fact, it's farther from the commodity concept than the other two fairly generic consoles are.
If you simply meant that consoles should be really cheap, well, I would like for the current consoles to be really cheap, but cheapness is far from being a part of a console's identity.
you do not need an uber machine doing everything, the pc
already does that way better than any console can do it, and a pc can be found in every house.
Fortunately for both Sony and Microsoft, however, both of their consoles can still play games a lot better than most PCs can despite their desire to create ueber-machines.
Nintendo slowly but surely reaches numbers which third parties cannot avoid to develop for anymore
Here's something I've learned over the past twenty years of watching the gaming industry: Just because developers have to make something for a system doesn't mean that they'll make something good for it. The Wiimote just makes it more likely that most of the big developers will make a bunch of shallow cash-in games and substandard ports for the Wii while leaving their more serious efforts on the other consoles. Some would argue that we're already seeing this happen.
look at PC gaming, HDTV resolutions have been a commodity there for almost a decade, games simply scale down or up, and often simply replace textures.
Which is quite obviously different from designing a game to be HD from the beginning, which is what we've seen on both the 360 and the PS3. Even if Nintendo decides to put HD games on the Wii in the manner you describe, the Wii doesn't have nearly the processing power to compete. If you think that that's good long-term thinking, I don't want to know what you think bad long-term thinking is.
Rob
Sorry, I should've been more clear. Beyond the fact that most people who don't have HDTVs aren't gamers at all, by "new game consoles" I meant consoles that are actually new, as opposed to the Wii which is just a gussied-up GameCube with a new controller. Most people who were willing to pay $600 for a PS3 either already have an HDTV or will be getting one very soon. As for the 360, I'd say the vast majority of owners will get an HDTV to play it on in a couple of years at most. Remember that not only are HDTV prices going down quickly, but that you don't have to get a big expensive one to see the significant improvements in graphical quality.
Rob
In 4-6 years you will see the Wii HD
Four to six years? You mean long after the other two consoles have already left it in the dust? Furthermore, this "gameplay mechanic" you speak of has already been partially implemented in the PS3, and if it's successful at all will surely be a part of the PS4 and probably the next XBox as well. Sony's been copying Nintendo's innovations and making them more viable for the past decade, and that's not going to change in the future.
Rob