It' s the same thing as PC games being released on both CD-ROM and DVD. A title that takes up more space than DVD9 offers could have been released on multiple discs.

Simple question. Since Blu-Ray will not have a performance impact on gaming, only a size advantage, should it have been optional in PS3 from a consumers perspective?

I dont have a HDTV,i dont gonna buy blu-ray movies or HD-DVD until i see how the outcome may turn out to be.

So why would i want to pay extra for it?
Sony is just tryin to sell of Movie players everyone realise that except Cetra.

Its like MS tryin to sell of VISTA with having VISTA exclusive Games.
Doesnt mean VISTA is the best OS or gonna be as good MS talk abou it.
They wanna sell their new OS,as Sony want to sell their new Blu-RAY.

Can you imagien sony owning the HD era and then console?
They are playing at high stakes,the outcome isn' t certain by any near.

Yes it should' ve been optional I don' t particularly like that Sony is using the playstation, which is a gamers thing, and trying to force down our throat an expensive blu ray drive when its sole purpose is not for the improvement of our games, but a tool for them to corner the VERY profitable dvd market.

I guess I can' t blame sony for trying to expand their business, but they are pleasing movie enthusiasts more here by tossing a blu ray drive into ps3, not gamers. Its a cheap blu ray drive, but an expensive video game console. They trying to potentially alienate their most profitable section of their business? It could end up not being a big deal at all, but its not a risk I' d take.

Then again business is all about risks.

Well ps1 and ps2 sold 100 million,i doubt ps3 will sell that,but thats what they belive,100 million bluray being out just with the ps3 would be extrmely good for SONY.

Yea I agree it should be optional, they keep going on about how " it' s that expensive cos it' s a Blu-Ray player too!" , but I' m honestly not that interested in high-def movies yet. I can go and see the latest high def movie at the nearby cinema for less than a fiver.

I have to admit a big reason I bought the PS2 was because of the DVD player. (Before I realised it was a rubbish DVD player!) DVD was a huge jump over VHS that was the previous standard here (VCD wasn' t very popular). But high-def movies just aren' t appealing enough to most people I know. Maybe for the same reason VCD wasn' t, or maybe because they won' t work with our current TVs.

However, for early adopters of high-def movies, the PS3 will be great, if it' s a good Blu-Ray player. I know Blu-Ray drives for PC are going to come out at £600-700, compared to DVD drives that now only cost £30 or less! It' s just not worth it..

I mean the generation is done will you be bragging that your ps3 could play movies in a high resolution? You will be talking about all the great games that were on it. No matter how much sony tries to talk up blu ray it will always take a second seat to gaming.

Anyone see the Halo 3 Documentary on bungie' s site?

http://bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?link=e3makingof

Look at the amazing engine shown in that video the massive draw distance, how amazing hi res his armor is when they zoom in on it. The texture work is just awesome. Now chances are this game will end up being on a single disc and if it does what will Sony truly need to do to prove to us that the blu ray is as vital to the console as they claim it is? Vital enough to make the drive standard? I don' t think so. Will they make first parties purposely inflate the size of their games to convince people the blu ray discs are useful? I' m willing to bet that most ps3 games that touch 15GB (if any) this gen could' ve fit on a single disc, but the developer didn' t bother doing what was necessary to make it happen.

One thing I heard mentioned about the disks is with extra space game makers could throw in alot of special features.Sounds good coming out the mouth, but what about the reality of it?

Now if it costs millions to make the game itself how much of the budget do they wanna spend on hiring another crew to handle special content? Wouldnt doing so increase development time plus up the price like a special edition DVD and what not, costs about $10 more then a basic DVD.

Anyways bout the question: Should definatly be optional. I could only imagine the consequences at hand if Blu-Ray fails...the backlash could be immeasurable.

Costwise it is a mistake to include the blu ray drive in the machine, since they have upped the cost a lot with it. I believe you should always further techknowledgy, and in that way its good.

But it might be a bit to soon, a lot of hardcore gamers will see it as a trojan, except for those who have already been brainwashed, unfortunately there are a lot of them, the ones that believe the PS3 will be hundreds of times better, and some even believe it will be silent like the PSTwo.

If it was optional, then Blu-Ray wouldn' t get into as many homes as quickly as it actually will do upon launch. Whatever quantities are available will be sold out, that' s definate, but it could just be seed quantities in some regions so the numbers wouldn' t really be anything to shout about.

BUT, the machine will sell, even at it' s high pricetag, faster than standalone Blu-Ray players would/will, and that' s Sony' s main advantage over HD-DVD. HD-DVD players are far cheaper than Blu-Ray players, but PS3 is priced competitively and so the only real differences for people interested in hi-def films will be; do you want a next-gen console included, or do you want cheaper movies?!

If sony shipped a model using DVD9 at a cheaper price (obviously), even just $100-$150 less, the machine would sell in much bigger numbers than the Blu-Ray model and would easily be able to compete with 360 and Wii. I have no doubt that the 100 million units sold Sony achieved with PSone and two would be reachable with three, ...but price has been a big factor in the failure of other consoles, and if Blu-Ray fails too it could be the end of Sony as we know it.

But then, who' s to say that after the launch, Sony won' t look at the market and say " we need a non-Blu-Ray model" and release one?!

I think sony realizes that there is a real danger in splitting the market, and having two format, it sets up obstackles for the gamers. I believe that most of the 100 million PS2' s out there are owned by people who want little hastle with it, and dont want to make a lot of decisions they just want to play.

I dont think they will make a DVD9 PS3, it would be a step back, and half admitting they made a mistake.

I do wish though, that when the Xbox 360 HD DVD player is released, that the games that will ship on more than one DVD, should be availeble in HD-DVD, even though MS would split the market aswell, but id still like it :P

It was definitely a good decision from Sony' s point of view, using the highly successful playstation name to push blu-ray.

Look at the choices from a dvd manufacturer' s point of view:

Blu-ray = stand alone units + ALL PS3' s on the market

HD-DVD = stand alone units + a few (I' m guessing a very few) 360 owners

But a lot still dpends on Blu-Ray becoming the standard. I personally have zero interest in HD movies. I think DVD are just fine to watch on my TV because when i got my PS2 at launch, i already had a TV that it worked with (DVD playback was shoddy initially but they changed the hardware in revisions of the console) my new DVD playing machine.

With Blu-Ray (PS3), to take advantage of the movies, you need to have a HDTV, a projector, or a large enough monitor to make it worthwhile.

I don' t think Sony should have developed Blu-ray at all.

I agree. If it works for them then it' ll be awesome, but the risks are still great right now. Sony have never managed to launch a successful medium, with Mini-Disc, Beta-Max and now UMD being bad examples of how to do it.

Blu-Ray has tons of potential, but i think it' s too early for a next-gen format.

Sony' s made it clear.

The playstation console is to take backseat to the blueray format, if this was not so, they would have made more of an effort with the console aspect of the system.

I hate to admit it, but i see HD-DVD loosing out to blueray, and i think the blueray player will make sony a great deal of money, but not for the sake of games.

it' s a good feature , but PS3 would' ve been twice as powerfull as 360 (or much cheaper than 600) if they spend the blue ray funds on ram,cpu and gpu.

Sony didn' t have a choice but the product is a worse gaming platform than it could' ve been ...

300$ !!! they could' ve put core 360 in it instead of BR :)

The thing is - even if BR is succesful I' m not going to use my console to watch it - if it wins and prices go down , I' m getting a decent player.

DVD' s are getting cheaper now so that' s the good side of HD - and DVD' s are awesome (and can be upscanned with great results)

Agree they should have spent the funds they put into that elsewhere mostly on securing a flawless library for this gen. And I think a lot of people might prefer the stand alone player.

I do wish though, that when the Xbox 360 HD DVD player is released, that the games that will ship on more than one DVD, should be availeble in HD-DVD, even though MS would split the market aswell, but id still like it :P

Yeh I kinda wanted the same thing, I wanted them to release a HD-DVD version
and a normal DVD9 version of each game once the HD drive comes out, I know
how exepensive that will make developing costs, but I am the consumer
dammit!!

GIVE ME WHAT I NEED!

Yeh I kinda wanted the same thing, I wanted them to release a HD-DVD version
and a normal DVD9 version of each game once the HD drive comes out, I know
how exepensive that will make developing costs, but I am the consumer
dammit!!

GIVE ME WHAT I NEED!

It will really only be needed on very few games, i think hardly any games this gen will be released on more than one DVD. Some with CGI cutscenes would ofcourse since HD Cgi is costly in space.

The few grandtitles that would release on two types of medias, wouldnt really rattle much!

If the extra space is used for special dvdlike features with high resolutoion artwork and concept stuff on there maybe with stuff about the games testing and the different builds itd be great.