Should Blu-Ray have been optional?

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.

Even if you break 2 legs from a crab it still runs!
What you gotta do is find its weak spot and do massive damage at it.

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.

Even if you break 2 legs from a crab it still runs!
What you gotta do is find its weak spot and do massive damage at it.

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!

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

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.

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.

Extra stuff is always great, i guess, but iv never watched any feature on a dvd, and the only game feature i looked at was the Michael Ironside interview on the original splinter cell

Then maybe they could put demos of other game on there

NO! No optional! It would only create more confusion for both the consumers and the developers… Also I like things big… Big but little… Y’know what I’m saying?

…Do you?

But I also like cheap… Is it too much to ask for high quality, advanced technology and a nice design for the price of a Pepsi and a snickers bar? Is it, SONY?! [:' (]

Our survey says, ................................................uhg uhhhh!!!!

I can see I' m going to get a name for myself round here:

Sony are entirely right in putting BluRay in the PS3. How many of you had a DVD player before your PS2? I didn' t.

As I said in another thread, I think Sony and MS will be pumping money into key players in the movie industry and we' re obviously going to see a VHS vs Betamax style battle with HDDVD and BluRay. You don' t win a battle without sending troops onto the field, which I think is exactly what Sony has done here with the PS3.

Of course I' m Xbox commited so I' m probably not gonna buy one :)

Sony are entirely right in putting BluRay in the PS3. How many of you had a DVD player before your PS2? I didn' t.

I did.

ORIGINAL: industrocyberbot23



Sony are entirely right in putting BluRay in the PS3. How many of you had a DVD player before your PS2? I didn' t.

I did. DVD' s were already well established as the newest standard. VHS was breathing it' s dying breaths by the time PS2 launched.

That said, I completely agree with you. This was Sony' s smartest decision.

Morally good? Hell no. But business-wise it was genius. They' ve set themselves up for two industries to perpetually feed each other...IF their strategy works.

Sony are entirely right in putting BluRay in the PS3. How many of you had a DVD player before your PS2? I didn' t.

I did.

HD films aren' t goig to have the impact that DVD did and i plan on vastly increasing my already insanely large DVD collection once Blu-Ray/HD-DVD causes DVD' s to drop further in price.

Digital distribution will eventually take over anyway, so that' s where the money should have gone to.

How many of you had a DVD player before your PS2? I didn' t.

I had a dvd player aswell but that' s not why I didn' t get it it just didn' t appeal to me. I think its good to have a bit of a cusion to fall back on but from what iv' e seen sony' s just gone all out this gen with the risks, but it' s sony so I think they might still manage it somehow.

haha I guess I was the last one here to get a DVD player then!!!

Lol so it would seem.

I never owned a DVD player before Ps2.

Even if you break 2 legs from a crab it still runs!
What you gotta do is find its weak spot and do massive damage at it.

Me either, well... that' s not entirely true, I did have a DVD player, but I never purchased anything for it, or for that matter, used it at all before my ps2. I definately agree that their Blu-Ray drive is good marketing but it' s just so underhanded. I mean, i know they have to make a living and everything, but, even microsoft and nintendo leave peripherals to be added, and not built into their flagship console.

Imagine, if you will, if Nintendo added their GBA player to the Gamecube, made their wavebird controllers standard, built additional ports for their (for the most part) failed GBA to GC link, and added a DVD player, just because it was bleeding edge, and they though we needed it, and in the process, janking up the price another hundred.

It' s not honest, but then again, it' s not like they' ve been known for their honesty when it comes to the ps3.

Digital distribution will eventually take over anyway, so that' s where the money should have gone to.

I agree 100% there. Now that the price/speed/capacity point of hard drives is becoming really competitive (500GB single hard drives are becoming really cheap and we' re well on our way to 1TB single hard drives) digital distribution is the way to go.

Music is already there and movies are already taking their first steps to digital distribution as well.

Its going to be a while before we are all downloading 9Gb 360 games, and who knows how large ps3 games. We dont have the broadband support for that and I perfer to have a Disc.

Personaly, blueray does bring up the price, and it is one of the first generation players of Blueray but games will ulmiately Benifit form the extra space. Making it optinal will give you the 360 hdd problem, some will have it, some wont and devolpers will have to limit themselves to those that dont. Those that do wont really benfit from it.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

I had DVD before ps2 and what' s more , I had a nice TV that was enough to enjoy DVD - if you don' t have an HD TV , Blue Ray has nothing to top DVD playback.

So that' s kinda different (and add to that comments about DVD being established when PS2 launched)

Digital distribution sounds cool for DVD movies , but for HD movies (30GB or more) it' s not that great ...not right now.

Digital distribution has some major problems - compression for one.
MP3 audio is not as good as many people would like their music to be , and it' s taking over CD' s and so on.If you own a great audio system you' re not happy to see MP3 domination.

same goes for movies if they decide to compress them even more.

What HD and Blue ray give you is amazing DTS and DD sound and awesome picture quality.

Internet is to young for true digital distribution without losses

Yeah i agree that digital distribution isn' t exactly the answer for HD content yet (feature length stuff at least), but iTunes, Steam and to a lesser extent XBLM have proven that it' s the way forward.

Obviously some people would still prefer to have a disc, but that' s not something that concerns me. I can only think of " what do i do if i delete XXXX and then want it again?!" as a possible argument against it, and Steam has shown that having a simple account that keeps track of your downloads ensures you never have to pay twice.

Storage space is the other thing, but HDD' s are so cheap now that there' s no real excuse to to have sufficient space.

In the UK, HMV are selling MP3' s digitally (you have to take your MP3 player into the store) per song. That' s something i really like the idea of as companies moving away from manufacturing discs, cases and packaging will only drive the price down, benefiting the consumer.

However, i would appreciate somebody explaining how upscaling normal DVD' s works (I seriously ONLY know games. Video and especially audio connections are a mystery to me). Or do i need to ask Joe?

I can tell you what i know, but take it with a grain of salt, seeing as how i don' t own HD anything at the moment. As far as i know, all upscaling does is match the pixel count of your DVD output signal, (mathematically) to the one on your HDTV. Hope that helps you any.

I know that eventually, everyone will switch over to digital distribution, but in the meantime I' m sticking with CD based media. I could download an album off of Yahoo launch, for maybe 12 dollars, but I' d rather go out, get the CD, and actually have the case and sleeve art. I' m just old fashioned that way, I know.

I download my music. Ahem, not going to tell you where or how but I do. Its the Way Forward.

Publishers hate me.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

ORIGINAL: Silentbomber

I download my music. Ahem, not going to tell you where or how but I do. Its the Way Forward.

Publishers hate me.

Ditto.

It may not be fair on the artist, but i couldn' t give a damn. They make millions anyway.