The Blu-ray vs. HD DVD format war is over…
…as if there ever was a real war in between these two formats. The Blu-ray camp had a much better offering to begin with, but Toshiba decided to challenge them anyway with the HD DVD. Toshiba had one edge over Blu-ray, and that was the production and/or transition cost from DVD to high definition technology, which is supposed to be significantly cheaper with HD DVD. But if Toshiba and HD DVD camp had an ace in their sleeve, unfortunately for them the Blu-ray camp and Sony had the remaining three.
In terms of technology, the offering of Blu-ray is simply better. Most importantly it offers more capacity than HD DVD, which will come to good use with the 1080p full HD resolution material. If you look at the corporations behind these two formats, you’ll notice that support for Blu-ray was significantly stronger on the manufacturer side. Sony, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Panasonic (Matsushita), Hitatchi, Thomson, DELL, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi, Apple…Toshiba and HD DVD didn’t have much chance.
Game consoles are another interesting story. Sony’s PlayStation 3 shipped with Blu-ray drive integrated, while Microsoft decided to launch Xbox 360 early with previous generation DVD technology. Microsoft did support HD DVD to some extent and produced the HD DVD expansion drive for the 360, but that was more of a bluff and response to PS3 rather than real commitment for the HD DVD format. Microsoft’s high definition strategy is quite possibly a download service based solution, rather than physical media.
So actually when you consider the facts, war is an overstatement. Toshiba and HD DVD tried to challenge, but it was more like a David vs. Goliath deathmatch and as we know the latter wins nine out of ten times. And the media always loves the David. For the last couple of years we have been forced to read all kinds of crap about BetaMax vs VHS, or how PS3 will fail and kill Blu-ray in the process. Overall it became fashionable to bash Sony, PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray. But now, with the announcements from the recent CES expo, we can finally conclude that this battle is over.
Actually a dead cheap HD DVD player (the prices seem to be sinking towards US$100) with an interesting movie bundle might still be a good buy - you would get a nice DVD player with up-scaling features, some bundled movies, and perhaps you can buy a few more HD DVD titles cheap in the near future. And as a result you will have a piece consumer electronics history in your collection. Wait a few years and it’s vintage - kinda like owning a Laser Disc player!
But as the saying goes, the battle may be over but the war ain’t for Blu-ray. The real challenge is to convince the market and the vendors that a 12cm diameter plastic disc is still the way to go. After all the physical format of the disc is decades old, and not too practical. It is rather large and easily scratched and damaged. Will download services or solid state technology be ready in time compete with Blu-ray as the first generation high definition consumer format?
Oh ‘ljpp’ my dear friend, you completely surprise me. Bias is for readers, not writers
“”…as if there ever was a real war in between these two formats. The Blu-ray camp had a much better offering to begin with, but Toshiba dec to challenge them anyway with the HD DVD. Toshiba had one edge over Blu-ray, and that was the production and/or transition cost from DVD to high definition technology, which is supposed to be significantly cheaper with HD DVD. But if Toshiba and HD DVD camp had an ace in their sleeve, unfortunately for them the Blu-ray camp and Sony had the remaining three.”"
It’s not like there was an almighty Blu-ray from day one and Toshiba decided to ruin the party, you might do well to actually look back at the history of this so called “war” before you make a statement like that. Don’t you remember Blu-ray in the ridiculous protective Caddy? The DVD Forum… I think you will agree is a very important organization that has had a huge role to play in the last decade with that DVD format we all love… and the DVD Forum put its weight behind HD DVD for good reason.
As you mentioned it was not as expensive to produce as Blu-ray, and if you look at the tech specs on both, even just comparing numerical aperture, the HD DVD format appears to be the safer format for data storage. Of course, Blu-ray group has had several protective coating experiments, and experienced literally disc rot at one point.
But I’m not saying HD DVD was a more promising format, both mirror each other if not for a few minor details… at least at the specification level of what they can offer. I’m just writing “fairly” and saying HD DVD has “real” merits, and its not like all those other tech sites that assessed it that way were wrong in their findings at all.
“”In terms of technology, the offering of Blu-ray is simply better. Most importantly it offers more capacity than HD DVD, which will come to good use with the 1080p full HD resolution material.”"
For MPEG-2 you are definitely right, for AVC and VC-1, not really. If the DVD Forum rubber-stamped the triple layer HD DVD disc with 17GB per layer, this would change very quickly too. There are reasons not to though, such as early adopters who might not be saved by firmware updates or minor hardware upgrades, but to emphasize a point here too, I want you to go to Google News and search “New Blu-ray titles may not be compatible with older players”.
“”Game consoles are another interesting story. Sony’s PlayStation 3 shipped with Blu-ray drive integrated, while Microsoft decided to launch Xbox 360 early with previous generation DVD technology”"
Yes the PS3 shipped with a Blu-ray drive that could play Blu-ray movies, and as a result, it is trailing. It is good to see some better sales performance from the holiday season for PS3, as now we might have a real war to cover, but it doesn’t change the fact that Blu-ray is one of the biggest… if not the biggest… reasons why PS3 is in last place.
I say that because Sony made a huge mistake thinking if they stuck in Blu-ray and Cell and some other fancy bits and pieces, people would flock to buy a “Blu-ray player”. If you really don’t think that was on the company’s mind, dig up their press release history for PS3 and read! Or look at the photos online of many game stores with “PS3″ stands that had Blu-ray titles and often “no games” under a PS3 logo.
Around mid-2007 is when Sony realized without the games and with the high price, PS3 is going nowhere, so the emphasis on Blu-ray was quietened and games actually became the priority for a while which was nice, and the cost cutting was nicer. But the fact remains, it was bought for games, games and games, go argue with Netflix if you want, I need say no more on that point.
“”Microsoft did support HD DVD to some extent and produced the HD DVD expansion drive for the 360, but that was more of a bluff and response to PS3 rather than real commitment for the HD DVD format. Microsoft’s high definition strategy is quite possibly a download service based solution, rather than physical media.”"
They sold 270,000 HD DVD drives, and were they bought for games or anything else? No, because they play movies. It’s an accessory just for HD DVD movies and that’s it. 270,000 is not “DVD figures”, but take the fact mate that it can be used with only Xbox 360 for connection right to a TV, used as a player (it can be used as a drive too for WinXP/Vista) and you see that even with a smaller base of ppl who can use it compared to just selling a stand-alone, 270,000 is a huge figure.
Also, Microsoft’s support is for other reasons too. Firstly, the Xbox 360 competes with a Sony console, so did the original Xbox. Also Microsoft would favor an XML-based interactivity layer like HDi, over a Java-based BD-J for obvious reasons, and Microsoft always spoke of Windows Vista having HDi “built-in” so there’s more to the support than just throwing HD DVD group a favor.
I think it’s interesting that you commented about Microsoft’s Xbox 360 download service too, because thats another area where Microsoft support helps. If HD DVD continues to get releases, then wait for Xbox 360 to provide exclusive content for HD DVD titles. 17.7 million is a large group to appeal to.
“”So actually when you consider the facts, war is an overstatement. Toshiba and HD DVD tried to challenge, but it was more like a David vs. Goliath deathmatch and as we know the latter wins nine out of ten times. And the media always loves the David. For the last couple of years we have been forced to read all kinds of crap about BetaMax vs VHS, or how PS3 will fail and kill Blu-ray in the process. Overall it became fashionable to bash Sony, PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray.”"
Oh now come on, people did not bash Sony and Blu-ray because it was “fashionable”. I think its quite amazing you will stand-alone here on your site and make that claim about so many other tech sites, although generally they all try to keep an unbiased stance. You know me and where I write, and if you check my articles, you will see that even though I disapproved many times of Sony’s force-feeding strategy at a cost to consumers, I always done my best to keep it out of my articles, instead i debated the points with people like you.
But let me remind you here of a few things. Firstly, the tie between the PS3 and Blu-ray was literally beaten into the heads of consumers until people got sick of it. Secondly, there is the BD and other “additional” DRM to be placed on Blu-ray. Overall though, Sony just dropped the ball with everything from pricing to knowing what consumers really want, and that’s why they took a lot of crap.
Now Toshiba doesn’t get a lot of crap because they don’t sell a “console”, so they don’t appeal to the group of people most likely to be fanboys. But do you want to stand there and tell me that Microsoft doesn’t get it as rough as Sony?
Bottom line is, Blu-ray and Sony didn’t just get a load of crap from consumers because they were “Goliath” (I don’t think that even applies to this situation), they got it because they deserved it! Should HD DVD group get it too? YES! why? because they have been too quiet while I see Blu-ray ads on TV all the time and when I go to theater. They also never rolled out 3X DVD for the tons of movies in supporting studio’s catalogs that didn’t need 1080p quality and would have looked perfectly fine in 720p, sold on a disc that sells at a competing price to a “DVD”. They literally should have filled bins in Wal-Mart with the titles and they didn’t, they should have been pushing the studios to give them an edge and they didn’t, meanwhile Sony did do a great job to convince Warner to pull a stunt like pulling out of HD DVD support right before CES. That’s aggressive, and it should be met with aggression from HD DVD group.
And it was, $149 for a HD DVD player from Toshiba is incredible. Honestly mate, of both formats, who would be closest to a $100 stand-alone? Who could say “you know what, let’s challenge DVD!” and put up the best fight? It’s not Blu-ray.
“”But now, with the announcements from the recent CES expo, we can finally conclude that this battle is over.”"
No, you can!
So far the retailers disagree! Of course HD DVD group could lose Universal support, along with Paramount and DreamWorks, that’s a reality that can be faced based on the stupidly slow growth of HD disc sales… which btw, has nothing to do with the format war! Most people still don’t really know what Blu-ray or HD DVD are, they are just names on an ad, they aren’t being “confused” and not adopting because of that, they arent adopting because they don’t care!!! which is why this format “war” is dumb to begin with!
“”But as the saying goes, the battle may be over but the war ain’t for Blu-ray. The real challenge is to convince the market and the vendors that a 12cm diameter plastic disc is still the way to go. After all the physical format of the disc is decades old, and not too practical. It is rather large and easily scratched and damaged. Will download services or solid state technology be ready in time compete with Blu-ray as the first generation high definition consumer format?”"
I’m glad to see you finished with that, because i don’t believe that Blu-ray or HD DVD, even standing alone, will re-ignite the sales frenzy that DVD enjoyed! Download services might not either, but digital content will become massive. Let’s not forget WiMax technology and how Starbucks and McDonalds have WiFi and deals with iTunes and other services. Just give it a few years and ppl will be buying music and music videos for example using Wifi in a nightclub with their mobile phone… downloading the songs and videos of what is currently playing and getting charged on their bill.
The consumption of digital content is definitely going to change. HD might have to sit back in the restricted environment of a physical format for a while longer, but the solutions are already sort of “there”, like Apple’s MacWorld announcement of High Definition rentals u can download right to your Apple TV, or Microsoft’s Xbox Live Video Marketplace that let’s you also download and rent HD video to the 360’s HDD.
It’s a weird time! I don’t hate Blu-ray, I’ll buy hardware for both formats either way (even if HD DVD as a movie format disappears, the format itself may not if they work left to do on writeable HD DVD is actually done!)
Bottom line, I wrote this to attack the stance you are taking that Blu-ray was always a heavyweight that was always going to “win” and HD DVD couldn’t stand up to it. You know the news history, or at least you should, and you know that is not true at all.
But ye, that’s enough rambling, I just had to comment because you have commented on stuff you don’t like over on aD before and accused people of fanboyism, and then you wrote this, and called a winner when even the retailers won’t! But you know the comments are only out of respect. Constructive criticism always helps and debate always rocks
Take Care bud!
But isn’t it Dela of Afterdawn.com who is first to comment. You did not surprise me at all
Your response is longer than my article, so I will not go on answering to all of the points you have made.
“Oh now come on, people did not bash Sony and Blu-ray because it was “fashionable”.”
Now this is a surprising comment from such an experienced web author like you. Of course it is/was fashionable to bash Sony/Blu-ray/PS3! That’s how journalism makes money. They don’t give a rat’s ass about their bias - they try to maximize sales. The websites and blogs are a whole different story, since these days anyone can be a publisher, so the lack of professionalism among authors is evident. And as soon as nobody is interested in this “war” anymore, they go bashing someone else, what ever is fashionable at the time. Then some bloggers read these “major publications” without any source critique and start spreading the word even further.
This article was not about the success or non-success of of PlayStation 3, but let’s comment it anyway. I know something about manufacturing complex consumer electronics products, as that’s what I do for a living. There were three strategies for the “next-gen” consoles. Nintendo opted for low price point and introducing a new gaming experience, that supports the toy-like image of Nintendo. Sony decided to build a high end device with bleeding edge technology that would suit gamers and home AV enthusiasts at the same time. Microsoft decided to go for cost efficiency and build on solid technology, in order to be first to market.
In a way they all have succeeded. Wii has sold very well, and has reached totally new market segments. Xbox 360 has sold very well and reached traditional gamers, so far beating PlayStation 3. Despite all the critique Sony WAS ABLE TO DELIVER a device unlike anything else on the market, with Blu-ray. It remains to be seen how it succeeds in the long run - Sony has traditionally had about 10 year life cycles, but Microsoft most likely will not wait that long. Interstingly, in recent home thater and hi-fi publications, PS3 has been given a lot of credit for it’s Blu-ray video playback, which is said to be very high quality (unlike PS2 DVD playback). So in a way Sony did achieve the product targets, even though it has been lagging behind in sales. PlayStation 3 is a high quality device, and it is not expensive as Sony-haters like to say. It just contains a lot of expensive bleeding edge stuff.
The current price point of Toshiba HD DVD player is the most convincing evidence that Toshiba/HD DVD is seriously cornered, if not beaten to the ropes. Remember the original Nokia N-gage gaming phone? They started at the US$299 price point, but when it was evident that the new gaming platform would not brake through despite huge advertising effort, the went down to US$99. For that price people starting buying N-gage as a phone, as it was cheaper than any comparable phone. The same goes for Toshiba - they are doing the best they can to sell the device. If they do not succeed in turning their course around, they at least get the components out of their supply chain in order to minimize losses.
And I say, go and buy yourself a HD DVD for 100 bucks! It’s a bargain with the movies bundled, and you are very likely to find more bargain movies as they start to ramp down the format. Enjoy it for 10 years, and get rich by selling in on eBay when it has become a collectors item.
Hello Again
Before I comment on the consoles I want to point out that it is impossible to debate this without mentioning PS3. It is true that if there was no PS3, and no Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on… just stand-alone players, Blu-ray wouldn’t be taking any edge at all right now. They are in a very comfortable position when they can count PS3 sales as “Blu-ray sales”, which you, as an experienced author, should see the major “mega-flaw” in. It distorts the numbers of people who were actually interested in investing in a Blu-ray player, as you have to agree, more than at least 95% bought it for games, at the very least.
I don’t think the price point of Toshiba’s HD DVD players right now means that they are cornered, it just means that they are fighting back against what was obviously a set-up job right before CES to stir up the media, and to say that it wasn’t is dishonest. Of course, it’s business and Sony was just playing its cards right - but I don’t think they anticipated that Toshiba would half the price of HD DVD players and decide its times to throw boatloads of cash at marketing.
A $100 stand-alone player would be an incredible achievement and something that Blu-ray is quite far off. If you read into both formats down to the tiny details, you do find that HD DVD is the more consumer-friendly format. If Toshiba and its gang dropped the ball on anything, it was the marketing.
I don’t really “pick sides” in the format war because I don’t think it is the “second coming of DVD”, it will have far too much competition to deal with. But if I had to choose, I’d probably go to HD DVD format over Blu-ray for many reasons, most of which i told you before.
Now for the console comments you made…
I don’t doubt the power of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) at all. I’m a geek! I would like to buy a PS3 but I think the price will drop a bit more, then I’ll snatch one up. Instead, the problem obviously was with how Sony thought the general population would respond to the PS3’s powerful hardware. Running on almost Blu-ray player alone led to shockingly bad sales performance for the PS3, that’s not an opinion, that is fact.
Now you basically say that Sony was targeted somehow, collectively, by journalists and bloggers all over the world. I don;t see this as the case. You know as well as I do that respectable sources like NPD Group gave the sales figures which were published a lot by me.. without bias or ridicule. Associated Press and Reuters have written on the bad performance of PS3.
A lot of the news also came from game developers who were genuinely worried about the hardware sales for PS3. If you develop a game for a platform that its manufacturer thinks is untouchable, then you see sales like that, then that Xbox 360 starts to look a lot more attractive. Take a look for yourself at the comments made from the games industry about the PS3.
Now, what I find quite funny is that you say the PS3 price is not too high, but that Sony haters just like to say that… well then explain why the general population of gamers largely ignored it and instead cleaned the shelves of Xbox 360’s and Wii’s. Not everyone has a huge budget, and it just so happened that the Xbox 360 had a much better game line-up than the PS3 majority of the time, and the Wii had the “outside of the norm” innovation skill that Nintendo has used to stamp its name on the games industry once again.
Of course it has to do with price, and it was priced too high… look what happened when Sony knocked off $100. One thing Sony needs to thank its lucky stars for is the stupidly long delay of GTA IV, if that title has launched in October as planned, then Microsoft would be really laughing it up right now. All those people who love GTA but never chose a console to buy, they’d have gone the 360 route because it cost less and it had the better game line-up, and would have had exclusive GTA IV content on Live.
The thing you have to remember also is that, while you and I know tons about this stuff, the average person, and majority of all consumers who will end up buying this stuff, doesn’t! Ultimately its their wallets that decide winners. In the console war its nice and open, although Wii will not be dethroned for a long time. In the format war, it’s not the same. Big corporations are trying to make the decision on what consumers have, and they base their decision on stuff such as Digital Rights Management (Blu-ray definitely wins the DRM challenge) and what’s in it for them for the support. Meanwhile, the industry expects to finally settle on a format and then push it at consumers, it’s not like a console where u have a real decision to make because game studios aren’t particularly the same as movie studios.
The format war is basically nothing more than “who has more friends”, not “what do consumers want?”… they didn’t buy the PS3 in record numbers when Sony talked about Blu-ray almost more than gaming for PS3!
Well, once again you lay down so many arguments that I can’t comment on them all (and we did debate on the MICROSOFT Messenger in the mean time
).
Regarding the price of PlayStation 3. I still say that it is not and was not expensive. I am well aware that the consumer preference has been towards Wii and Xbox 360, which are cheaper alternatives.
Sony PlayStation 2 cost FIM3290 when it launched in Finland. (It could have been 3490, I am not sure..) That is roughly €560, if the inflation is neglected. I don’t recall anyone whining how expensive PS2 was at the time! And the many people that bought it got a good game console, and a poor DVD player.
At this very moment PlayStation 3 costs in Finland €459. If you buy it you get the best gaming hardware (not the best gaming selection though) and apparently a very good DVD/Blu-ray player, that can also act as a media center.
Now a Panasonic Blu-ray player from the same market costs €699. Toshiba’s HD DVD player price adjustments have not reached the Finnish market yet, so at the moment the HDE1 costs €249 with 5 movies bundled.
So PS3 is way cheaper than a Panasonic Blu-ray player, and on the other hand costs roughly €200 more than a Toshiba HD DVD. For me that seems like a bargain, at least now when the good video quality and features of PS3 have been confirmed!
So far the consumers have chosen differently. Comparison to Wii however is not quite valid, as Wii is expanding the market to new areas, and does not necessarily compete for “gamer audience”. Sony’s idea was also the expand the market to new areas — the home AV.
The future will tell if Sony’s market expansion succeeds. Blu-ray’s victory over HD DVD was a step to the right direction for them. I guess now we are waiting for the game line-up to improve.
\”\”Well, once again you lay down so many arguments that I can’t comment on them all (and we did debate on the MICROSOFT Messenger in the mean time
).\”\”
Actually it was ICQ, no wonder you forget so many facts
haha!
\”\”Regarding the price of PlayStation 3. I still say that it is not and was not expensive. I am well aware that the consumer preference has been towards Wii and Xbox 360, which are cheaper alternatives.\”\”
How couldn\’t you be aware?
Wii is approaching, or has passed 20 million sales. Xbox 360 is approaching 18 million. PS3 is only starting to sell well \”now\” because they dropped the price. Xbox 360 saw an incredible boost in sales after Halo 3 and Mass Effect were released… over 4 million units. That\’s because it is a games console, so if you release amazing games like Halo 3, Mass Effect, Gears of War etc. you sell well. Very simple and easy to understand concept that I think, for at least most of the PS3\’s life so far, it\’s maker forgot.
\”\”Sony PlayStation 2 cost FIM3290 when it launched in Finland. (It could have been 3490, I am not sure..) That is roughly €560, if the inflation is neglected. I don’t recall anyone whining how expensive PS2 was at the time! And the many people that bought it got a good game console, and a poor DVD player.\”\”
And how many do you think bought it because it is a DVD player and not because it plays games? I\’d put my money on the figure being a single digital percentage. Same happens with PS3 and Blu-ray mate!
\”\”At this very moment PlayStation 3 costs in Finland €459. If you buy it you get the best gaming hardware (not the best gaming selection though) and apparently a very good DVD/Blu-ray player, that can also act as a media center.\”\”
You seem to forget a few things about its competitors. Xbox 360 is a very powerful console and just because the 7-core Cell processor is present in PS3, that doesn\’t mean a clear cut win for gaming for PS3 at all, especially not for a few more years.
7 cores means the PS3 packs potential fopr a huge amount of processing power, that\’s not a secret. But for game developers, the bottleneck always lies with graphics. The RSX in PS3 has a clock-rate of 550MHz and the Xenos in Xbox 360 has a clock-rate of 500MHz. On paper, many non-tech oriented sites called it for the PS3 based on 50MHz.
The truth is, that 10% extra clock speed is easily pushed aside in favor of Xenos\’ unified shader architecture; instead of separate pixel and vertex pipelines, there is a single unified pipeline to do both. Therefore, pipeline instructions don\’t have to wait for others. This pushes the efficiency rate much higher, allowing Xenos to run at 100% efficiency when developers code the right way for the architecture. Typically, high performance chips only run at about 70% efficiency at most.
Proof of the Xbox 360\’s amazing graphics power is shown in tis game line-up. Even with the old DVD format, titles like Gears of War can outpace what games the PS3 has. Now I know it is the early days, but this is still a valid point and RSX vs. Xenos is a very important debate.
I\’m NOT trying to take away anything from the PS3\’s power but I want you to at least admit that Xbox 360 holds incredible hardware for gaming and going by game titles right now, it can still sit at the #1 spot for performance of all three consoles.
The Cell processor has 7 cores, which is great, but its worth noting how complicated developing for two or three cores is. One thing the PS3 will definitely have is it will always be a good computing piece of hardware to have. The hardware in Xbox 360 is truly next-gen too, in fact, Microsoft should not have released it when they did for many reasons, like the 33% failure rate of the initial shipments because they couldn\’t keep the hardware cool enough.
Again, I\’m not fighting the PS3 on this one, I\’m just pointing out how powerful the Xbox 360 is. I would, for example, love to see some way that Xenos could be used for Folding@Home over LIVE, that would be a great use of resources like the Cell is for Folding@Home, and a good contribution from MS to important research.
Also, you said that PS3 is a media center, and it is. However, you shoudl mention that Xbox 360 is also a media center, it is a Windows Media Extender v2 and Microsoft is finally waking up to the demands of its owners when it comes to media, by for example, finally giving proper support for MPEG-4 streaming from Windows XP/Vista, and I can definitely back up how well it plays back the DivX, or XviD video formats as I\’ve watched tons of videos on it since the support was added.
There is a long way to go for both when it comes to media center. I honestly do think that eventually the Xbox 360 will have a version with an internal HD DVD drive for viewing movies, but the DVD format will always be used for games. That \”is\” a problem, but so far the compression in sue for 360 has beaten it, but in 4 years the extra capacity of Blu-ray will become obvious I think.
So yet again, I love both consoles, but its not like one is extremely powerful and the other isn\’t.
\”\”So PS3 is way cheaper than a Panasonic Blu-ray player, and on the other hand costs roughly €200 more than a Toshiba HD DVD. For me that seems like a bargain, at least now when the good video quality and features of PS3 have been confirmed!\”\”
This only applies to people who want to invest in Blu-ray hardware though, that\’s the point I\’m trying to make, and you and I both know the Blu-ray isn\’t a big deal for uninformed consumers at all.
\”\”So far the consumers have chosen differently. Comparison to Wii however is not quite valid, as Wii is expanding the market to new areas, and does not necessarily compete for “gamer audienceâ€. Sony’s idea was also the expand the market to new areas — the home AV.\”\”
Wii certainly does attract new gamers, and that is part of its overall strategy, but it doesn\’t depend on new gamers for sales. Look at the pre-release of PS3 and Wii at E3 2006, who was the King of the show? It was the Wii and that was a complete surprise. You had to wait hours in line to use a Wii console, and people did, and this was the \”E3 Expo\”, it was full of traditional gamers, and they still crowned it the King of E3.
Even today it is a much have gadget for a gamer. Being completely honest I\’ll say that while I love Wii\’s innovative features, I still need powerful graphics filled gaming. But the Wii is games console and it provides hours of fun, it\’s like havign the Karaoke machine at a party, if you have a Wii in your house, and an Xbox 360, and your friends are around, it\’s an equal battle for which to play with, and I can definitely back that claim up and I know too many people who have agreed with me on that. Wii drives people mad.
It does compete with Sony and Xbox 360 directly because it relies on software sales. Each time I go to GameStop I see the stacks of games for each, Xbox 360 on one set of shelves, PS3 on one set of shelves and Wii on one set of Shelves. Usually I can\’t buy a game for all three, and neither can 99% of all people who go shopping for games.
Does Wii have software problems? Sure! Nintendo isn\’t kicking its third party developers enough for better titles, or instead it is trying to push out its first-party titles excessively while the Wii is still selling like its air in a poisonous world, nevertheless, a complaint from me about it would be the need for more exclusive titles from third parties.
Of course it has to be put in the same Category, it is taking money that otherwise might have gone on PS3 or Xbox 360 hardware, and both Microsoft and Sony hate that
I just want to make one more example as you work for Nokia so you know a lot about handheld electronics. The PSP would seem, on paper, like it could trash the Nintendo DS around the place. I own both and I admit that the Sony PSP has GFX that are unchallenged by DS.
DS also does not have a web browser built in, you have to buy a game title for it, it doesn\’t play video and audio like the PSP does (unless again, through a third-party accessory/method) and it lacks other great features of PSP. But when it comes down to consumers, the DS wipes the floor with the PSP.
PSP sales: 30.34 Million
NDS sales: 66.02 Million
Now how the hell did that happen? One definite answer is Nintendo\’s ability to make the world of \”gamers\” wider. Besides that, the control of DS was innovative and made way for much more possibilities than using the direction keys, analog stick and 4 buttons of the PSP. Now I love my PSP, but I\’ve been writing about all of this stuff for a long time and I know that it\’s getting its sexy ass kicked by Nintendo even though it is more feature packed and has better graphics.
That\’s not really what we are talking about though, it\’s just an example of how the \”winner on paper\” can sometimes be the \”loser in reality\”.
One last point. You say that Sony\’s aim was also to expand the market to AV. That is not exclusive to Sony. Now the inclusion of DVD drive in PS2 was huge for a time before stand-alones became cheaper and the PS2 started throwing up those familiar Disc Read errors, so you have to give that to Sony.. but in this generation, MS put out the first Console / Media Center in the Xbox 360. They have also since offered the option of HD DVD to anyone who is interested and sold 270,000 units of it. So the expansion into AV is not an innovative or exclusive feature of the PS3 either.
\”\”The future will tell if Sony’s market expansion succeeds. Blu-ray’s victory over HD DVD was a step to the right direction for them. I guess now we are waiting for the game line-up to improve.\”\”
I have to repeat myself about this. Firstly, it\’s not over till the fat lady sings. Paramount, Universal and DreamWorks might walk away from HD DVD, who knows, but if they don\’t it\’s not over. Also, the BBC, another huge player for a part of the home entertainment market, has decided not to go Blu-ray exclusive based on Warner/HBO/Newline decision, citing the Planet Earth sales.
The victory that you are calling early would not be a victory for consumers. Neither would the victory of HD DVD. Still though, let\’s compare. Who sold more stand-alones or drives made \”only\” for movie viewing? Who has the lowest prices of said devices? Who\’s specs are more consumer-friendly and less restrictive? You KNOW the answer, so why with all of that would Blu-ray win? because it\’s gang is bigger, I\’ve said this before.
Most consumers don\’t know what either format actually is, or why they would prefer one over the other anyway, but they are \”not\” choosing the winner and that is plain obvious. And again, so I\’m not accused of anything, it would be the same if Warner went HD DVD exclusive and then all studios followed, it would not be a consumer choice.
Also, if you think the PS3 will suddenly pass out Xbox 360 and Wii based on a bigger game line up anytime soon, you are definitely dreaming mate
With all respect! and sorry for how long these replies have been
Take care bud!
Well, HD-DVD Won, that’s all dude!
Maybe not the best choice, but it’s the winner…
And you know, Winner takes it All… lol
Best Regards!
Blu-ray sales now represent 85% of the market share according to this report, so as said - it is all over for HD DVD.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Industry_Trends/Disc_Sales/Blu-ray_Dominates_Disc_Sales_Chart_Post-Warner_Announcement/1383
It’s not over until the fat lady sings, even Steve Jobs of Apple Inc., an important member of BDA, referred to Blu-ray as a failure. He said that while Blu-ray may beat HD DVD in the so called format war, it has lost the battle to dominate HD content distribution, and that’s true for many reasons, including the expensive nature of Blu-ray, its anti-consumer limitations and the bullshit politics in how it may “win” in the first place.
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it at that because I think I’ve said some very good points which were validated by not being challenged at all
P.S. It doesn’t matter who wins in the grand scheme of things anyway. This is not the second coming of DVD, and it will never be.
And Jobs may well be right. He is not the first however, as many have already speculated for one or two years that both of the formats will lose (=will not gain DVD-like market dominance). I think I brought this up in the conclusion of my article as well. HD DVD is beaten, but the real challenge for Blu-ray are the other distribution methods/formats/channels.
Your debate strategy is quantity over quality, so it is very difficult to find the actual punchlines from all that (I think I must fine tune the site layout for you). And you have not been able to undo any of the original staments I’ve made.
I’ll comments one of your comments, regarding the strategy to attract Audio/Video segment. In this sense the two (360, PS3) are not at all similar. PS3 looks and feels like a device you can put next to you 40″ flat panel and Bang & Olufsen home theatre set. It has been designed for AV-playback from the start, AND has native support for the current leading high definition format. I think there is a DVB-tuner add-on coming as well?
360 looks like cheap crap unfortunately. It is a device that matches your toaster in the kitchen. HD DVD as an external drive is a joke, if you think about installing one conveniently to your home A/V rack/shelf. The add-on drive has been sold fairly well due to the low price - for some time it was the cheapest alternative to HD video, and since media made people think HD DVD had chance, it was an interesting offer. A cheap trial to the next generation.
Will Microsoft release a Blu-ray add-on?
For anyone who is reading these comments, let me just point out before I continue that LJPP and I have been friends for a number of years, and most of these comments just mirror the cat fights we have on IM every now and then, but there is a lot of respect, and I think I speak for LJPP too in saying that we’re just doing this to entertain ourselves because we obviously have quite opposite views on many of the subject we mention here…
Anyway, I think I set out to prove that your “presentation” of the format war was misleading and I said (maybe on IM, can’t remember) that you should rename the site to BiasBurners (joking of course) as a result. Later when we locked horns on consoles, I pointed out in my last comment that your insinuations about the PS3 and Xbox 360 were false, invalid and again, the result of what I think is blind bias.
However, you’ve done the work for me as your last reply was the most revealing of all, so let’s take a loom shall we
“”And Jobs may well be right. He is not the first however, as many have already speculated for one or two years that both of the formats will lose (=will not gain DVD-like market dominance). I think I brought this up in the conclusion of my article as well.”"
It was, I didn’t say it to counter any claim you made, I just wanted to back up how I said any win for Blu-ray or HD DVD doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
“”Your debate strategy is quantity over quality, so it is very difficult to find the actual punchlines from all that (I think I must fine tune the site layout for you). And you have not been able to undo any of the original staments I’ve made.”"
Well, first of all I don’t see how it is quantity over quality, I mean what exactly does Blu-ray offer that HD DVD doesn’t besides 20GB extra space? Look at the video and audio in the specs for both, they are mirror images. HD DVD won the early quality tests, now its pretty much broken even between the two, especially when it comes to consumers who aren’t going to take screenshots and count artifacts, and those who do will come to the same conclusion; win some, lose some: on a title by title basis.
As for quantity, I think it’s fair as you brought up the PS3 as if it is actually a Blu-ray stand-alone and nothing more. Then you also made little of Microsoft’s contribution to HD DVD in the form of the external drive, so I said the 270,000 figure simply because it proved demand. By DVD scale, it’s a low figure, by next gen Blu-ray / HD DVD players sales, it’s quite good.
Finally, I already mentioned what I set out to achieve after reading your article. But it is worth pointing out that a lot of what I address appears to be the favoritism of Blu-ray and Sony in general, and I’ve done that. Maybe I left some stuff unaddressed, but it’s not like we both didn’t do that
But as I said, I think what I said out to do, I’ve done!
“”I’ll comments one of your comments, regarding the strategy to attract Audio/Video segment. In this sense the two (360, PS3) are not at all similar. PS3 looks and feels like a device you can put next to you 40″ flat panel and Bang & Olufsen home theatre set.”"
Since you have put the word kitchen and Xbox 360 in the same argument (later on), I’m sorry, but I have to do it….
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2026/2157291078_000775f720_o.jpg
Wow, it’s a nice setup, but what’s with the George Foreman grill?
Come on man!! You have got to be kidding, your defense now is about the design? Both consoles don’t look very well at all, they are too big for starters, might have something to do with them being out only a year and 2 years…. you know FAT PS2 looks like crap, so does original Xbox. I’m not sure where you were going with that…
“”It has been designed for AV-playback from the start, AND has native support for the current leading high definition format. I think there is a DVB-tuner add-on coming as well?”"
Again, I was never doubting the PS3’s multimedia capabilities, I was telling you that its goal is not at all exclusive or original to Sony. The Xbox 360 was also designed for AV-playback from the start… it is one of the few Windows Media Extender v2 devices available…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Center_Extender#Version_2_Extenders
Of course I have beefs with Microsoft’s strategy by tying it originally to Windows Media Center, but the dashboard update over the holidays has been a remarkable improvement for multimedia and a sign that MS knows where its faults are, now u have excellent multimedia without MCE or Vista. Go check the reviews of the multimedia capabilities from serious tech sites and blogs after the holiday 2007 dashboard update… but that’s neither here nor there, I am only saying that AV intentions are definitely not exclusive to PS3.
“”360 looks like cheap crap unfortunately. It is a device that matches your toaster in the kitchen. HD DVD as an external drive is a joke, if you think about installing one conveniently to your home A/V rack/shelf.”"
How can you say 360 looks like crap and not say the PS3 looks like crap? That’s a bit revealing mate! HD DVD as an external drive is an accessory created by the company for whoever wants it and 270,000 didn’t find it a joke, but you can stand alone and shout from the rooftops if you want to
And it’s not like it takes up amazingly large amounts of space at all… have you ever even seen or used one… or an Xbox 360 even?
“”The add-on drive has been sold fairly well due to the low price - for some time it was the cheapest alternative to HD video”"
It was low priced because it was an accessory, an external drive that relied on the Xbox 360 console. I wouldn’t call it a cheap piece of hardware for that reason, it relies on the Xbox 360 or Cyberlink software on Windows to function properly, it’s not a stand-alone drive, just an option to add HD DVD functionality to a piece of hardware you already own.
But hey… “cheapest alternative to HD video”…. look up definition for high definition video! but that’s exactly my point, you don’t give an inch to anything other than Sony’s console and Sony’s format. You want me to talk nicely about PS3? no problem, I see its merits and they are many, but I always… you know this from IM… have had problems with Sony’s strategy for it and generally I was correct, look at its entire first year, but I won’t say its crap or anything like that because thats misinformation.
“”Will Microsoft release a Blu-ray add-on?”"
A comment at CES basically said that if consumers wanted it, then it would be an option to be explored. Then a press release confirmed there are no plans for Blu-ray on Xbox 360 and that Microsoft is still solely backing the HD DVD format. If the remaining major studios drop HD DVD which they might do, then I’d assume the Xbox 360 would get a Blu-ray peripheral too… sure.
[…] said it some time ago: The format war is over and now according to a Reuters Toshiba is throwing in the towel. One has to wonder how much money […]
Geez, alot of your “comments” are longer than the actual article.
As said above apparently Toshiba is going to announce this week they will stop production of HD-DVD. This shouldnt be a surprise to anyone who has looked at sales figures in the past few months.
I never bought anything HD-DVD but really feel bad for the peoplpe who got tricked by the low price of the players. Toshiba slashed the price after it became obvious they lost, they wanted to squeeze that last bit of money out of consumers by selling a soon to be obsolete product.
“apparently Toshiba is going to announce”…
it sounds like “bla bla bla…” LOL!!