Format Battle General Discussion Thread: Discuss it here! - Page 5  

Never mind.... I see "Elvis" has returned from the road tour... Y'all have fun with the chit-chat..

b2b

70K G1 players isn't a "volume" that brings significant cost reductions with it, is it?


I'm not saying BD players are cheaper to manufacture, but why should they be more expensive? Is the tech so different? BD companys don't speak about it, I guess, because they like to sell their players with a margin, unlike Toshiba...

Funny, a MS employee commenting on another company losing money in the console business.

Why would anyone here who's a consumer care about the costs? If the prices are viable, that's what people care about.

Should the people who bought the Xbox and X360 last year have stopped and said "But it costs them so much to produce?"

What blithering nonsense.

Can someone name me a new technology or new system or new major advance that wasnt more expensive then the last? Can you name me one that hasnt significantly dropped after its initial launch? The BD players are already going down and PS3s will be plentiful. Why is price always the biggest argument. The Xbox 360 was so much more expenseive then the first xbox and the PS2. Where was the uproar then. Stop crying about price, put it on your credit card and enjoy. Or go to ebay. I bought me a factory sealed Samsung BD player for about 500 dollars, shipping included. I love it.

Some historical numbers to review from http://nexgenwars.com/

11/29

Xbox360 - 7,715,895
PS3 - 333,283

Current

Xbox360 - 8,647,082
PS3 - 469,925

Change between these dates

Xbox360 = +931,187
PS3 = +136,642

At this rate......well, you all know what happens at this rate.

the PS2 has sold 35 million units to date. Where do you think most of them are gonna turn for upgrades on their system?

I believe these are the correct launch prices. If someone sees a mistake, please correct me.

Nintendo
Gamecube - $199
Wii - $249

MS
Xbox - $299
Xbox360 - $299/$399

Sony
PS2 - $299
PS3 - $499/$599

In the US, most will go to the Xbox360, in Japan most will go to the Wii.

Why would you say that? If i had a PS2 id stick with the Ps3 so I couild still play some of my old games on it. Why would I try to learn a new controller and make all of my games useless? Do you have any factual data to show why that would be the case?

Blu-ray players need to be able to focus on the surface and in the middle of the disk.

I'll just use a friend at work as an example. His son has a PS2, a lot of his friends had PS2s. During the last year a couple of his friends got Xbox360s. He's been bugging his father for an Xbox360 for months. His father told him, no, you're getting a PS3, I've bought you all of these games, we're not switching.

Then my friend realized how hard it would be to get a PS3 for Christmas. He decided that it would make much more sense to buy his son an Xbox360, since it was much easier to find, and it's what his son was asking for in the first place. He feels it's not such a big deal to just hold on to the PS2 for the old games.

I don't think this is such a unique scenario as parents start to scramble for what they're going to put under the tree. The fact that there are more games and it's a smaller bite out of their wallet helps as well.

as for factual data.....my previous post regarding sales numbers between 11/29 and today for the two consoles.

I agree it will happen sometimes. I didnt say it was absolute certanty. But 35 million people switching? An some of these people act like the xbox 360 sold all 8 million units in the first month it was released. No patience on this forum at all.

why not include the PS2. It did better then bothe of those.

On the other hand wouldn't the %of units sold/arrived at retailers be more interesting?

so I went from xbox to PS. What is your point?

rdjam, care to show us where these BD-Live features were promised on any of the Blu-ray players sold? If not than one can easily argue with that and regardless saying that BD-Video players are obsolete shows a complete lack of interest in the truth since all Blu-ray movies will be able to play on BD-Video players.



That is a bit too simplistic, after all if game designers were that short sighted than no new game console would ever gain much developer support. Also there are already several great looking games in development for the PS3 today so even a limited launch of the PS3 this year does not mean that it won't do great next year.

I believe the point is that the installed base of CE BD players won't ever be able to match the experience of today's HD DVD discs and players, even with future discs.

Nor will today's BD discs be able to match the experience of today's HD DVD discs, even with future players.

There's nothing to really buy today that would ever take advantage of the posited technical differentiators of BD.

To flip it around, if one assumed than hybrid players are the long term future, why would anyone ever NOT buy the HD DVD version of a title available in both formats?

Did you read rdjam's signature were he implies that all Blu-ray players until June of next year are obsolete? That is what I find dishonest and are you actually telling me that you agree with what rdjam posted? After all that is a heck of a lot different than simply stating that BD-Video players do not have certain features that will be found on BD-Live players.



Well actually that depends on the titles that you are comparing.



Well I know of certain Blu-ray discs that take advantage of the larger capacity, higher bandwidth, and/or BD-J features of Blu-ray. Now of course you can disagree on whether you think any of those advantages are necessary, but you can't dispute that such discs already exist.



Wait one second. If you are asking about the long term future how the heck do you know that the future Blu-ray versions of movies won't be better? Also if one assumed that Universal will start supporting Blu-ray next year why would consumers want hybrid players to become standard?

I am glad there are companies willing to take the risk with new technologies. Sony has been doing this for years. One can criticize their zeal for proprietary formats, but they have always tended to push the technology envelope. They were slowing down recently in terms of technology push, but they are back with Blu-ray and Cell. Same goes for Toshiba/Canon for pursuing SED.

It is easy to criticize certain companies for charging premium, but one also has to understand they have to recover their investment. If Sony started to follow instead of setting tech trends, it would be a shame. They might be unsuccessful at times, but at least they try. It is easier to follow than to set the trend (well, actually, sometimes it is not easy even to follow a trend). It is also easier to aim low and succeed than aim high and succeed. Same applies to yields of BD50 and blue lasers. And then there is Murphy's law [I think it should be added in the textbooks as basic laws of nature. ].

A new technology (especially the ones aiming higher: Blu-ray, SED) will always be expensive initially. Consumers get the benefit after the economy of scale kicks in. Early adopters like us pay for the R&D not only the equipment cost, and probably most of us understand that. There is always going to be a chance that $200 player of tomorrow will be much better and cheaper than our current gen expensive players.

Yes, my hat's off to engineers and scientists who still work on bringing new technologies and to companies who still believe in research part of the R&D.

Uh oh! You may have to eat your words in future! That is too bold!

Today must be the only day left for you then.

Here's the latest console sales figures for JAPAN for the period of 12/4 - 12/10:

Console #sold #change %'age change (Change from previous period/week)

- DS Lite: 309,630 +132,729 75.03%
- Wii: 85,439 -264,919 (75.61%)
- PS3: 50,171 +18,735 59.6%
- Xbox 360: 35,343 +31,290 772.02%
- PS2: 30,460 +7,345 31.78%
- PSP: 28,930 +5,013 20.96%
- GBA SP: 1,896 +324 20.61%
- GBoy Micro: 1,555 +303 24.20%
- Gamecube: 569 -252 (30.69%)
- DS Phat: 167 +27 19.29%
- GBA: 17 -5 (22.73%)
- Xbox: 6 -5 (45.45%)

link:
http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/200...terminator-ed/

Nintendo was once the king of consoles. It's a competitive business, and with each new generation of consoles, the ball goes back into play.

The PS2 is still selling strong, but it's the last generation. Why not talk about the fact that DVD players are outselling HD-DVD and Blu-Ray?

Developers always expect new consoles to have a smaller installed base compared to the last gen. But when looking at the latest gen of consoles, they're looking for the winners and loosers. They have their own bets to place and they want those bets to be winners.

For PS3 to do great next year, Sony has to work out their problems making them. I believe it's already too late though. The Xbox360 has enough of a lead that the momentum rolling into next year is in its favor. If a lot of your friends are on xbox live, you want to be on xbox live as well. Once you reach the tipping point it becomes all about the momentum.

I'd rather not get into arguing about who said what, so I'll say what I'm saying:
The lack of support for the full "BD Live" set of features, including advanced audio codecs, means that neither of today's discs nor players deliver on the promise of the format, or enable them to match the interactivity and overall experience of current HD DVD players or advanced titles.


Those are technical aspects - what's the point in using higher bandwidth or capacity if it doesn't deliver a meaningful advantage for the consumer. Are the best BD discs today that use them to provide a better experience than the best HD DVD titles? Would today's BD players be able to use the advanced features of those discs if they existed? No in both cases.


I'm asking why anyone would buy a BD disc or player before the long term future, since the oft-touted advantages of it isn't available in either content or players currently available.

Amen to that. Impatience combined with anecdotal accounts, chosen carefully for maximal support for the person's PoV.

A single sample makes for poor statistics, someone observed once.

I say, an inspiring post, this. (emphasis mine)

If a company is always pushing the envelope into several areas, i think proprietary formats are an expected & logical by-product cos its too much work to gather everyone round to your format and then enter the market. At least, Sony dares to do it. Hats off for that.

Its a far far better thing to have tried and failed than to have rested on one's laurels. The PS3 is a prime example, imo. Engineering the cutting-edge Cell and BD into it, being patient while the 360 sold millions, developing a console that is quieter and smaller than the 360 + brick, while also running cooler.. that is some awesome development to support the equally inspired research.

2CH: agree that a win cannot be taken for granted. But at the same time The PS3 is an incredible machine.

Ona different note, this is the HD disk forum on an AV side. The PS3/ 360 add-on is really just i9nteresting as far as movies are concerned. And the simple fact is that even if the PS3 loses market share and loses dominence, right know when it counts for BD/HD DVD and HD disks in general it will do what is important right now and that is putting a lot of players out there in the hands of J6P. It has already put BD in 500k+ homes

360 is selling well because it is one years old, the production and distribution has built up and is not in the "new console" world like the PS3. Deciding that the PS3 lost because it could not manufacture in a week as many as the 360 sold is insane. That is why I asked about the PS2. Like you said it is old, it is at the end of its life, but still doing better at this time then the rest.

Anthony.....the last generation was PS2, Xbox and Gamecube.....the current generation is PS3, Xbox360 and Wii. If you recall, there was supposed to be much less time between the Xbox360 and the PS3, but Sony had to delay.