I must admit I'm a bit confused since I could have sworn I have seen a ton of reports saying that the 360 is coming out with Blu-Ray in the fall. I can understand them putting a focus on downloadable content since that is the future, but why not stick it to Sony just a little bit more and match them feature for feature?
Besides downloadable content is cool, but eventually you will run out of room on an Xbox so I would love to see their solution for that.
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12 Comments
RightOn
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
Would be interesting to see where sales for the X-Box go if more ISP's jump on the bandwidth throttling bandwagon with Time Warner etc.
Focusing on downloadable content is the current trend and I'd love to just download stuff to my console but not if I'm going to have to ramp up my monthly bills to do it.
Right now it's not a bad idea though.
Oli
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
Yeah stick it to Sony by paying them to use their tech =)
It doesn't even serve their best interest - MS need to focus on growing a high-performance, affordable IPTV service.
Scrivs
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
Putting a Blu-Ray drive into a box doesn't take the focus away and I'm sure the only reason not to do it is as you said because paying Sony isn't an option.
Ozone42
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
If I was MS, I wouldn't put a blu-ray in it. I think the format is a failure. It may have caught on if it had not been for the format war, but I'm not certain. Most of the techies I know that are the people who appreciate and notice the higher resolution are much more likely to be watching things on their computer, on their DVR, or streaming via Apple TV, Netflix, etc.
480p is really a lot more resolution than your average american viewer is accustomed to. Unless I've personally set up their system, I don't really know any non-techie who is running component or hdmi output into their televisions.
Sure there's sales, there's hardcore AV enthusiasts, and there always will be. The need and desire to upgrade really isn't there for most people, and I don't see anything they can do to change that short of getting everyone to stop producing dvds.
RightOn
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
Well with HDDVD essentially dead... what else would you pick if they needed a high res disk format?
Downloading BluRay quality video is INSANELY large.
Ozone42
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
That's the thing. Not that many people care about a high res disk format. A lot of people don't even realize what it is.
You've gotta realize talking here that we're a very different market from the mainstream.
JPhill
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
I'd say yes and no. I would imagine that a good chunk of people buying PS3's would know and possibly care about the high res disc format if they're spending that much money on a console.
Ozone42
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
Sure. But the mainstream is not buying ps3s.
RightOn
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
Ozone... there is no mainstream... it's all an illusion :D
Tyme
Written Jul. 16, 2008 / Report /
Sony isn't dropping the price because they are selling enough PS3s to justify keeping it higher. Sony doesn't care why they are selling the units, only that they sell.
When I was in Best Buy the other day there were people who were purchasing PS3's because they were told it was a great Blu-Ray player, but were completely ignorant on what Blu-Ray was. They were there because it was "the thing" to do. They knew they can watch movies on PS3 and if they want, one day, they could play games. For the same amount of money why not get the PS3? That's what they were thinking.
Unfortunately, if that trend continues, the game developers and gamers lose out. A hell of a lot of systems being sold only for the player means the games are going to tank in the long run.
JPhill
Written Jul. 17, 2008 / Report /
Tyme, to add to your point, even people who don't even know what Blu-Ray is and still buy the PS3, eventually find out what Blu-Ray is and spread the word to their friends. So even though they aren't really tech savvy, hi-def video isn't a hard concept to pick up.
publicenergy
Written Jul. 17, 2008 / Report /
I don't think the new DVD formats matter at all. In the music world, we're all buying MP3 files because they're convenient. We know it's possible to get higher quality, but the convenience makes up for it - and it's good enough to enjoy and not worry about. There were even high quality audio discs at one stage - remember SACD or DVD-Audio? - Both sounded lovely, but really died at birth.
The downloadable HD versions of movies are good enough to enjoy without having to pay through the nose for a disc. A few years ago I got rid of my old VHS tape player because I just didn't use it. Late last year I got rid of my DVD player because I didn't use that either. I do watch films though and have rented movies through net services and the Xbox movie store.
As for ISP's throttling bandwidth, we've moving in to an age where we'll need more and more - any ISP trying to slow that down will result in them losing customers as people move to ones that don't do it. Like it or not, people will need more bandwidth and they need to work out how to deliver it rather than stifle it because they don't know how to deal with it.
In the UK, some ISP's moaned about the amount of bandwidth users were using for the BBC iPlayer - but these were ISP's that I wouldn't touch with a barge poll. The good ones just get on with it.
Currently BT, the ex-state telecomms provider, is embarking on rolling out their ADSL2+ and also their fibre network, resulting in ADSL speeds up to 20Mb/sec and Fibre speeds of 100MB/sec. Things have to move on, and I really don't see discs with more capacity having a place in the future.