I don't know if I completely agree with you. While I agree that you have to sift through a lot of garbage to find the gold I don't know if there was any more gold or any less garbage before.
I think the biggest differences is in the who is releasing the garbage or gold.
Back in the day the big name developers would release the amazing creative titles, and the smaller lesser known developers would release the copy-cat garbage. It was easy to spot the gold because it was the same stuff that got the best shelf locations and got the biggest advertising budgets and franchise tie-ins etc.
The difference is today it's the big name developers releasing the generic copy-cat garbage and the smaller lesser known devs releasing the gold. So we see the prime shelf space, big advertisement budgets and franchise tie-ins going to the garbage now.
Geometry Wars was an amazing game, but so is Marble Blast Ultra, Outpost Kaloki X, Cloning Clyde, Wik, and Small Arms etc. That's just in the Xbox Live arcade. That's not to say all big name stuff is garbage, Games like Condemned, Dead Rising, and Kameo are quite unique and amazing, and as you mentioned there are quite a few Nintendo titles that are quite unique as well. Last gen we saw gems like Shadow of Colossus, God of War, Guitar Hero, Katamari, Beyond Good and Evil, Dreamfall, Alien Hominid, Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Deathrow, Ninja Gaiden, Powerstone, etc. I could go on and those are just the games from my personal collection, I'm sure there are many more gems out there.
I think the gems are a bit harder to find today simply because they don't get the biggest advertising budgets... but I also think anyone who complains about there being no good games, simply isn't trying, because they're still not really that hard to find.
It's amazing to me that so many people complain about the current Sonic games and hardly any of these people have bothered playing Sonic Rush.
I'm certainly one of those people who have complained about the current Sonic games (Shadow the Hedgehog was just horrid on many levels) and I hadn't heard of Sonic Rush... I was curious why, so I looked it up and realized it was for the DS.
While I think the DS is intriguing and if I was going to get a portable that's probably what I would get, but I just don't like portables, I have thousands into surround sound and HD video in my home theater setup and when I play my games it's on a proper screen with proper sound. Portables just don't interest me.
While not always true I think theres definitely a large portion of gamers who just don't game on portables. Sonic has always been a home console franchise with the occasional port to a portable. My guess is most people haven't heard of Sonic Rush because they aren't watching the DS.
If I do ever decided to buy a DS I'll be sure to pick it up, but there's no good reason they can't release something like that to the Xbox 360 or even the Wii, perhaps even in Xbox Live Arcade or Virtual Console if it's more suited for that kind of gameplay.
What you described about other magainzes has been my experience as well. Other publications treat subscribers to a higher quality version of the publication, larger format, higher quality pages, cleaner front covers etc.
Not so with OXM... When I got my first issue in after subscribing I felt like I was kicked in the nuts, sort of a "ha ha, we've already got your money so we're giving you the cheapest product possible". I even called them up to see if I could get the newsstand quality issues for a few extra $$ but no such luck. It's really no wonder they can't sell subscriptions.
There are many stand alone video scalers, the problem is that they run in the hundreds to thousands of dollars. Any low-cost scaler will look like such crap that you'd be better off just letting your TV do the scaling.
It's a lot cheaper to implement a quality solution when the video data is in a mailable format within the device, like before it hits the video output encoder, cheaper still if the output encoder is the same chip that performs the scaling operations. This is how the Xbox 360 works. Sony wont be able to deliver a cost effective solution unless they ad this ability to their hardware in the form of a new console version. At present there is no hardware scaler in the PS3.
I suppose they could attempt to implement a software based scaler for Blu-Ray playback, the question is would the CELL have enough omph left after decoding the video stream to scale it as well? I would think it does but I don't know for sure. Certainly this would not solve the problem of scaling games, as the system is currently suffering from frame-rate issues in games as it is adding an intensive scaling op on top of that probably wouldn't be do-able.
I'm a subscriber to the US version of OXM... I can attest to it being crap. To be perfectly honest the ONLY reason I subscribe is for the discs, and the rest of the magazine just collects dust. Basically the mags cost $10 on the newsstand and it's $17 for a year's subscription. They get the occasional disc exclusive that will prompt me to buy the mag and I figure as long as they get at least 2 of those a year It's cheaper to subscribe.
Though they do things a little backwards, you buy it in the store and you get a thin plastic snap case for the disc with a full color double sided insert the magazine pages are relatively thick and it's slightly larger then most other mags on the newsstand. All that goes out the window when you subscribe, you get sub newspaper thickness pages, the magazine dimensions are physically smaller the disc comes in a generic white paper sleeve and they've recently taken to gluing full fold out advertisements ON TOP OF the front cover... I'd like to shoot the marketing guru who came up with that idea, God help me if they ever put that on a publication I actually cared about. There journalists leave me with the impression that they aren't fully cognizant of the games they're playing nor intelligent enough to critically and accurately analize them. Beyond that the journalists talk down to the readers under pretenses that the they're somehow even less intelligent.
I will say that the UK's OXM is an entirely different story. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by them for an article on a project I had done. Being that I'm in the states it's difficult to get a hold of UK publications so they sent me a few copies. I was quite blown away with how well the magazine was done. The reviews in that issue really impressed me, I felt like they were reviewed by my peers as opposed to rabid monkeys. The quality of that magazine was quite impressive with nice thick glossy pages, enlarged physical dimension and a nice plastic case for the accompanying disc. The biggest problem the UK OXM has is that it's quite an expensive magazine... at least by my standards. IIRC a subscription to the UK OXM is close to eight times as high as the US OXM. It's a shame, I'd be more then happy to import that magazine (and for the actual magazine content) if it wasn't so pricey...
yeah I'm not big on the whole re-selling thing either, I've had a few good chuckles at my friend's expense.
You've got to figure with everyone selling and no one buying it drives the price right down quick. The Wii is a similar situation but only due to supply catching up to demand, I was able to snag mine on eBay for only $40 over retail.
yeah I had a friend who managed to get his hands on 3 PS3s (2 pre-orders and 1 line wait) and he's on his 3RD round of auctions for all 3 due to dead beat bidders. No intention of keeping the consoles for himself, just re-selling them.
I'm in the same boat as you, I own a 360 right now, I throughly enjoy it and I recently managed to find myself a reasonable Wii auction... just waiting for delivery.
For me it's about the games, I don't buy any console until it has at least 3 titles available that I want to play, the Xbox 360 had that in the launch window (PGR3, Condemned, COD2, DOA4) and the Wii has that now (Zelda, Wii Sports, Red Steel, Excite Truck). The price has to be reasonable for the gaming experience too, so while Red Steel and Excite truck aren't as exciting to me as Condemned and PGR3 were on the 360 the price is low enough that it's still worth getting. The PS3 doesn't have any games that interest me yet, and for the price of admission it's definitely not worth it right now. But if they can offer me at least 3 "need to have" games that I can't get elsewhere and the price becomes reasonable for what I expect from those games then I'll get one.
Forbes was a good candidate but he was seriously lacking personality (and approachable looks) which seems to be important to voters and he did decent despite that, and while he had name recognition he didn't have the amount of name recognition that some of the other candidates did, particularly among the low to middle class voters. Perot could have actually made it into office but he got really flaky toward the end backing out then changing his mind, and that lost a lot of the confidence his supporters had.
I think Billy G. could do it, he's got the name recognition, he's much better looking and personable then Forbes was, and he's a whole lot less unwavering then Perot.
I completely agree, though I think it's the ESA who needs to keep retailers in line, not the government.
If GameStop is caught selling an M rated game to someone under the posted age then they should pull all their content from that store for some pre-determined lenght of time.
If they did it on a store by store basis, (as in Gamestop #156, instead of all Gamestops globally) I guarantee they'd start respecting the ESRB ratings. This is essentially how the movie industry works. The Government doesn't regulate it but they have secret underage ticket buyers and if they get through... the studios pull their films from that theater.
It's pretty apparent they don't pay attention to any of the other factual studies that have been presented. Giving them the results in a format they can understand (even if the format is corrupt) could be beneficial to getting the point across.
It think it's important to note that with the exception of sports games (which generally have gamer pics for every team) Kameo and PDZ both rank in the top 5 for games with the most number of items available for download. Kameo has 38 items available for download. From strategy videos to gamer pics, themes, and even skin packs that are worth less then horse armor and perfect Dark Zero has 15 items.
You'd think they'd be all over offering content for for a game where it actually makes sense. Perhaps they're soured by poor sales of Seasonally themed Kameo skins...
Protip: maybe people don't want to buy insignificant chachkis for a mediocre game that only takes a few hours to complete. Maybe, just maybe, you'd have more success selling downloads of things that, I don't know, improve, extend, or refresh the gamplay?
yeah I also ran a cable... one thing that bothers me about the Wii is that it's WIRELESS ONLY and you have to buy a USB adapter if you want a wired connection... which seems rather messed up to me.
and while I do agree that the official USB WiFi adapter MS sells is a rip-off, nothings stopping you from using a cheap wireless bridge if you're unable to wire a solid connection to your router.
I believe that the Xbox 360 has now dropped in production costs enough that MS turns a small (very small) profit on the $400 version, and looses only a small amount on the $300 CORE version. It's because of this that a lot of people are hoping they'll drop the price of the console further... but with MS staying at their current price point they seem to be following the article in that they're concentrating more on the bottom line (staying at current price and making a small profit on the console) then boosting market share to compete with Sony (dropping their price and taking losses again just to get more people to buy).
Nintendo is one of those companies that at least for the last two generations has turned a small profit right from the start. Most console hardware is profitable by the end of it's lifespan, IIRC Sony makes about $50 on every PS2 sold at this point. Part of the reason MS dropped Xbox 1 production so quickly was because it still wasn't profitable while the Xbox 360 is already.
While I agree it does do a lot, most of those things aren't why it costs $600
That $600 price tag is due mostly in part to that one little bullet item right there, the price could almost be halved if they removed that "feature". In my personal opinion it's that one price raising feature that changes this console from a "sure buy" into a "I'll wait a few years for a price drop"
Not only has that feature raised the price of the console itself, but it's also mostly responsible for the nearly year long delays we've experienced and the laughably small number of consoles available. It also raises the price of disc manufacturing, has slower disc read speeds (which directly hinders gameplay), and
throws gamers directly in the middle of a format war whether they like it or not.
You're not paying $600 for a feature filled PS3, you pay about $300-$400 for the PS3 and another $200-$300 for Blu-Ray. Personally, I think consumers and the Playstation brand alike would have been better off without it.
I'm quite fond of the Burger King games... the value meal I had to buy to get them was the first time I set foot in a Burger King in a LONG time but it was worth it for the cheap entertainment those games have provided. Sneak King is entertaining on concept alone, but Pocketbike Racer is entertaining for it's multiplayer capabilities (both online and off).
I'm curious how much those games actually cost to make, and if the development costs were just seen as an advertising budget to get people to buy more burgers or if they're actually turning a profit on these games and the advertising/burgers is just a happy side effect.
Quality tends to be expensive - not only in materials, but also in increased design and testing costs. I can understand why in a hyper-competitive market like cell phones it'd be hard to justify the added costs.
That reminds me of a saying that was used a lot when I was studying product design in college:
Damn I got excited when I heard I could get youtube on my cell, I've got Verizon too... I'd be more then happy to pay $15 a month, but not if it's only going to be pre-approved content... forget that.
If these prestige games have beautiful story, feel and gameplay then I fail to see why they won't sell well. I think they should. So why are we talking about poor sales? If a game doesn't sell well then I further submit to you that it must have some critical flaw involving your aforementioned beautiful aspects. Neh?
One word: Marketing
Marketing can make or break the sales of anything, good marketing can sell tons of a crappy product and poor marketing can cause a good product to not sell at all. The assertion that people make their purchasing decisions based on quality of product as a result of performing conclusive research and then thinking for themselves to apply that knowledge is a bit of a naive dream world don't you think?
You don't have to go far to find countless examples of people making their decisions based on laziness, social status, and marketing influence without any actual regard to the quality of product.
would rather see a more in depth examination of the top 3~5 launch titles for the different consoles. It's only the best and most unique games for any console I am interested in anyways. I think ultimately that's what most people judge consoles on rather than some abstract 'average' game construct.
Good point! Most people will buy only 1 or 2 titles, and most of the time there is a clear killer app that sells almost 1 to 1 with the console. Another good metric might be to simply compare the exclusive titles for that console. If you consider that variances in 3rd party titles are minimal you're really making your choice based on what one console offers that the other doesn't.
A lot of people, myself included. Prefer to have a tangible object in return for our money. Personally I enjoy seeing my purchase on a shelf, being able to look at the box art and insert. Particularly those of special editions and box-sets where it's clear the container received some thought as well.
Whether or not it's true it provides a sense of security in the purchase as well, being a physical object the most harm that could befall it is mechanical in nature so as long as I take care of it I have only myself to blame if I loose it. Downloads on the contrary require me to put faith in the device storing the data, of which I often have little, to me bits are far too fragile to invest a substantial amount of money in. I have well over 350 DVDs in my collection, many of them special editions, my appreciation for movies goes beyond just watching them for a cheap thrill. Owning a DVD I feel like I own a piece of the film, owning a download and I feel like I don't actually own anything.
Maybe I'm archaic but I still buy my music on a physical disc for the same reason, and I cringe every time I spend money on a game or other software that is only available through a download.
I agree with you that for most people downloadable HD content is a viable option. But there are many of us who still prefer the physical formats, as well as those of us who don't have access to the kind of bandwidth required to download something in HD within a reasonable amount of time, for those the choices are Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
What about when choices are an alternative to a standard?
Take Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD for instance, that's a choice that we'd be better without because you essentially have to choose which movie studios you want to limit yourself to or buy both sets of hardware. Alternatively if they removed the choice by creating a single standard for HD movies it would be a whole lot more beneficial for consumers.
There's more then one TYPE of choice, it's not as simple as choices being either good or bad, you need to take into consideration the results of the choices and their impact if you want to appropriately determine if more, less or no choice is the better option. But I do agree with you that when there are choices involved proper presentation is vital to ensuring people make the most appropriate choice.
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It wont happen, the way the console's security is setup it can' run code from the HD-DVD player. It's movies only... and that's it.
I don't know if I completely agree with you. While I agree that you have to sift through a lot of garbage to find the gold I don't know if there was any more gold or any less garbage before.
I think the biggest differences is in the who is releasing the garbage or gold.
Back in the day the big name developers would release the amazing creative titles, and the smaller lesser known developers would release the copy-cat garbage. It was easy to spot the gold because it was the same stuff that got the best shelf locations and got the biggest advertising budgets and franchise tie-ins etc.
The difference is today it's the big name developers releasing the generic copy-cat garbage and the smaller lesser known devs releasing the gold. So we see the prime shelf space, big advertisement budgets and franchise tie-ins going to the garbage now.
Geometry Wars was an amazing game, but so is Marble Blast Ultra, Outpost Kaloki X, Cloning Clyde, Wik, and Small Arms etc. That's just in the Xbox Live arcade. That's not to say all big name stuff is garbage, Games like Condemned, Dead Rising, and Kameo are quite unique and amazing, and as you mentioned there are quite a few Nintendo titles that are quite unique as well. Last gen we saw gems like Shadow of Colossus, God of War, Guitar Hero, Katamari, Beyond Good and Evil, Dreamfall, Alien Hominid, Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Deathrow, Ninja Gaiden, Powerstone, etc. I could go on and those are just the games from my personal collection, I'm sure there are many more gems out there.
I think the gems are a bit harder to find today simply because they don't get the biggest advertising budgets... but I also think anyone who complains about there being no good games, simply isn't trying, because they're still not really that hard to find.
While I think the DS is intriguing and if I was going to get a portable that's probably what I would get, but I just don't like portables, I have thousands into surround sound and HD video in my home theater setup and when I play my games it's on a proper screen with proper sound. Portables just don't interest me.
While not always true I think theres definitely a large portion of gamers who just don't game on portables. Sonic has always been a home console franchise with the occasional port to a portable. My guess is most people haven't heard of Sonic Rush because they aren't watching the DS.
If I do ever decided to buy a DS I'll be sure to pick it up, but there's no good reason they can't release something like that to the Xbox 360 or even the Wii, perhaps even in Xbox Live Arcade or Virtual Console if it's more suited for that kind of gameplay.
What you described about other magainzes has been my experience as well. Other publications treat subscribers to a higher quality version of the publication, larger format, higher quality pages, cleaner front covers etc.
Not so with OXM... When I got my first issue in after subscribing I felt like I was kicked in the nuts, sort of a "ha ha, we've already got your money so we're giving you the cheapest product possible". I even called them up to see if I could get the newsstand quality issues for a few extra $$ but no such luck. It's really no wonder they can't sell subscriptions.
There are many stand alone video scalers, the problem is that they run in the hundreds to thousands of dollars. Any low-cost scaler will look like such crap that you'd be better off just letting your TV do the scaling.
It's a lot cheaper to implement a quality solution when the video data is in a mailable format within the device, like before it hits the video output encoder, cheaper still if the output encoder is the same chip that performs the scaling operations. This is how the Xbox 360 works. Sony wont be able to deliver a cost effective solution unless they ad this ability to their hardware in the form of a new console version. At present there is no hardware scaler in the PS3.
I suppose they could attempt to implement a software based scaler for Blu-Ray playback, the question is would the CELL have enough omph left after decoding the video stream to scale it as well? I would think it does but I don't know for sure. Certainly this would not solve the problem of scaling games, as the system is currently suffering from frame-rate issues in games as it is adding an intensive scaling op on top of that probably wouldn't be do-able.
I'm a subscriber to the US version of OXM... I can attest to it being crap. To be perfectly honest the ONLY reason I subscribe is for the discs, and the rest of the magazine just collects dust. Basically the mags cost $10 on the newsstand and it's $17 for a year's subscription. They get the occasional disc exclusive that will prompt me to buy the mag and I figure as long as they get at least 2 of those a year It's cheaper to subscribe.
Though they do things a little backwards, you buy it in the store and you get a thin plastic snap case for the disc with a full color double sided insert the magazine pages are relatively thick and it's slightly larger then most other mags on the newsstand. All that goes out the window when you subscribe, you get sub newspaper thickness pages, the magazine dimensions are physically smaller the disc comes in a generic white paper sleeve and they've recently taken to gluing full fold out advertisements ON TOP OF the front cover... I'd like to shoot the marketing guru who came up with that idea, God help me if they ever put that on a publication I actually cared about. There journalists leave me with the impression that they aren't fully cognizant of the games they're playing nor intelligent enough to critically and accurately analize them. Beyond that the journalists talk down to the readers under pretenses that the they're somehow even less intelligent.
I will say that the UK's OXM is an entirely different story. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by them for an article on a project I had done. Being that I'm in the states it's difficult to get a hold of UK publications so they sent me a few copies. I was quite blown away with how well the magazine was done. The reviews in that issue really impressed me, I felt like they were reviewed by my peers as opposed to rabid monkeys. The quality of that magazine was quite impressive with nice thick glossy pages, enlarged physical dimension and a nice plastic case for the accompanying disc. The biggest problem the UK OXM has is that it's quite an expensive magazine... at least by my standards. IIRC a subscription to the UK OXM is close to eight times as high as the US OXM. It's a shame, I'd be more then happy to import that magazine (and for the actual magazine content) if it wasn't so pricey...
relax... that's why cowboyneil invented meta-moderation... at least I though your post was funny.
yeah I'm not big on the whole re-selling thing either, I've had a few good chuckles at my friend's expense.
You've got to figure with everyone selling and no one buying it drives the price right down quick. The Wii is a similar situation but only due to supply catching up to demand, I was able to snag mine on eBay for only $40 over retail.
I don't get your meaning. What does Halo 3 have to do with Vista?
yeah I had a friend who managed to get his hands on 3 PS3s (2 pre-orders and 1 line wait) and he's on his 3RD round of auctions for all 3 due to dead beat bidders. No intention of keeping the consoles for himself, just re-selling them.
I'm in the same boat as you, I own a 360 right now, I throughly enjoy it and I recently managed to find myself a reasonable Wii auction... just waiting for delivery.
For me it's about the games, I don't buy any console until it has at least 3 titles available that I want to play, the Xbox 360 had that in the launch window (PGR3, Condemned, COD2, DOA4) and the Wii has that now (Zelda, Wii Sports, Red Steel, Excite Truck). The price has to be reasonable for the gaming experience too, so while Red Steel and Excite truck aren't as exciting to me as Condemned and PGR3 were on the 360 the price is low enough that it's still worth getting. The PS3 doesn't have any games that interest me yet, and for the price of admission it's definitely not worth it right now. But if they can offer me at least 3 "need to have" games that I can't get elsewhere and the price becomes reasonable for what I expect from those games then I'll get one.
exactly how do you figure the 360 is a failure?
Forbes was a good candidate but he was seriously lacking personality (and approachable looks) which seems to be important to voters and he did decent despite that, and while he had name recognition he didn't have the amount of name recognition that some of the other candidates did, particularly among the low to middle class voters. Perot could have actually made it into office but he got really flaky toward the end backing out then changing his mind, and that lost a lot of the confidence his supporters had.
I think Billy G. could do it, he's got the name recognition, he's much better looking and personable then Forbes was, and he's a whole lot less unwavering then Perot.
I completely agree, though I think it's the ESA who needs to keep retailers in line, not the government.
If GameStop is caught selling an M rated game to someone under the posted age then they should pull all their content from that store for some pre-determined lenght of time.
If they did it on a store by store basis, (as in Gamestop #156, instead of all Gamestops globally) I guarantee they'd start respecting the ESRB ratings. This is essentially how the movie industry works. The Government doesn't regulate it but they have secret underage ticket buyers and if they get through... the studios pull their films from that theater.
It's pretty apparent they don't pay attention to any of the other factual studies that have been presented. Giving them the results in a format they can understand (even if the format is corrupt) could be beneficial to getting the point across.
It think it's important to note that with the exception of sports games (which generally have gamer pics for every team) Kameo and PDZ both rank in the top 5 for games with the most number of items available for download. Kameo has 38 items available for download. From strategy videos to gamer pics, themes, and even skin packs that are worth less then horse armor and perfect Dark Zero has 15 items.
You'd think they'd be all over offering content for for a game where it actually makes sense. Perhaps they're soured by poor sales of Seasonally themed Kameo skins...
Protip: maybe people don't want to buy insignificant chachkis for a mediocre game that only takes a few hours to complete. Maybe, just maybe, you'd have more success selling downloads of things that, I don't know, improve, extend, or refresh the gamplay?
yeah I also ran a cable... one thing that bothers me about the Wii is that it's WIRELESS ONLY and you have to buy a USB adapter if you want a wired connection... which seems rather messed up to me.
and while I do agree that the official USB WiFi adapter MS sells is a rip-off, nothings stopping you from using a cheap wireless bridge if you're unable to wire a solid connection to your router.
I believe that the Xbox 360 has now dropped in production costs enough that MS turns a small (very small) profit on the $400 version, and looses only a small amount on the $300 CORE version. It's because of this that a lot of people are hoping they'll drop the price of the console further... but with MS staying at their current price point they seem to be following the article in that they're concentrating more on the bottom line (staying at current price and making a small profit on the console) then boosting market share to compete with Sony (dropping their price and taking losses again just to get more people to buy).
Nintendo is one of those companies that at least for the last two generations has turned a small profit right from the start. Most console hardware is profitable by the end of it's lifespan, IIRC Sony makes about $50 on every PS2 sold at this point. Part of the reason MS dropped Xbox 1 production so quickly was because it still wasn't profitable while the Xbox 360 is already.
That $600 price tag is due mostly in part to that one little bullet item right there, the price could almost be halved if they removed that "feature". In my personal opinion it's that one price raising feature that changes this console from a "sure buy" into a "I'll wait a few years for a price drop"
Not only has that feature raised the price of the console itself, but it's also mostly responsible for the nearly year long delays we've experienced and the laughably small number of consoles available. It also raises the price of disc manufacturing, has slower disc read speeds (which directly hinders gameplay), and throws gamers directly in the middle of a format war whether they like it or not.
You're not paying $600 for a feature filled PS3, you pay about $300-$400 for the PS3 and another $200-$300 for Blu-Ray. Personally, I think consumers and the Playstation brand alike would have been better off without it.
I'm quite fond of the Burger King games... the value meal I had to buy to get them was the first time I set foot in a Burger King in a LONG time but it was worth it for the cheap entertainment those games have provided. Sneak King is entertaining on concept alone, but Pocketbike Racer is entertaining for it's multiplayer capabilities (both online and off).
I'm curious how much those games actually cost to make, and if the development costs were just seen as an advertising budget to get people to buy more burgers or if they're actually turning a profit on these games and the advertising/burgers is just a happy side effect.
Quality, Affordability, Usability... Pick Two.
Damn I got excited when I heard I could get youtube on my cell, I've got Verizon too... I'd be more then happy to pay $15 a month, but not if it's only going to be pre-approved content... forget that.
Marketing can make or break the sales of anything, good marketing can sell tons of a crappy product and poor marketing can cause a good product to not sell at all. The assertion that people make their purchasing decisions based on quality of product as a result of performing conclusive research and then thinking for themselves to apply that knowledge is a bit of a naive dream world don't you think?
You don't have to go far to find countless examples of people making their decisions based on laziness, social status, and marketing influence without any actual regard to the quality of product.
A lot of people, myself included. Prefer to have a tangible object in return for our money. Personally I enjoy seeing my purchase on a shelf, being able to look at the box art and insert. Particularly those of special editions and box-sets where it's clear the container received some thought as well.
Whether or not it's true it provides a sense of security in the purchase as well, being a physical object the most harm that could befall it is mechanical in nature so as long as I take care of it I have only myself to blame if I loose it. Downloads on the contrary require me to put faith in the device storing the data, of which I often have little, to me bits are far too fragile to invest a substantial amount of money in. I have well over 350 DVDs in my collection, many of them special editions, my appreciation for movies goes beyond just watching them for a cheap thrill. Owning a DVD I feel like I own a piece of the film, owning a download and I feel like I don't actually own anything.
Maybe I'm archaic but I still buy my music on a physical disc for the same reason, and I cringe every time I spend money on a game or other software that is only available through a download.
I agree with you that for most people downloadable HD content is a viable option. But there are many of us who still prefer the physical formats, as well as those of us who don't have access to the kind of bandwidth required to download something in HD within a reasonable amount of time, for those the choices are Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
What about when choices are an alternative to a standard?
Take Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD for instance, that's a choice that we'd be better without because you essentially have to choose which movie studios you want to limit yourself to or buy both sets of hardware. Alternatively if they removed the choice by creating a single standard for HD movies it would be a whole lot more beneficial for consumers.
There's more then one TYPE of choice, it's not as simple as choices being either good or bad, you need to take into consideration the results of the choices and their impact if you want to appropriately determine if more, less or no choice is the better option. But I do agree with you that when there are choices involved proper presentation is vital to ensuring people make the most appropriate choice.