Which is it, Sony? "Blu-ray is dead!" or "Long live Blu-ray!"?

The two ideas are not at all incompatible. Besides, take your average DVD collection and multiply it by the probable size of an HD movie. Do you really think people will have terabytes of storage on their hard drives for their movie collections?

This is really digging deep and putting words in Sony's mouth. It's getting a little rabid over here. I think there should be a little accountability for Joystiq bloggers these days, maybe some peer review to make sure Joystiq doesn't become a firebrand trouble-maker designed to attract traffic by creating controversy where none exists.

Sony stating PS3 having a life-span of 10 year has nothing to do with the media the games will be coming in: it just states the PS3 platform will still be around ten years from now. stupid joystiq...

Just went to digitalbattle.com, at least a bit tone down there. Almost the same content, but more reasonable comment. Thanks guys for the recommendation, I'm so out of here.

People are always saying most people don't own a HDTV, and right now that's true. But the number of people who own an HDTV dwarfs the number of people who have a fiber optic internet connection, and that isn't going to change. Quite the opposite. Congress has ensured that everyone will have HDTV by 2009 or they will get snow on their old TV. There is no such mandate to force people to upgrade to fiber optic internet. No, people will be buying their games on physical media for quite some time, I'm afraid.

wah wah wah... i think joystiq is bias. quit crying. maybe it's a possibility they're writing all these PS3 "bashing" blogs because it's EASY. just like political analysts and comedians "bashing" on president bush. take it in stride you wieners. it's just a machine, it won't love you for defending it. it's not trying to get your vote.

besides, VC isn't even bashing PS3. he's merely posing a question to the readers to get feedback... rumor/fact: who cares, this isn't a news site. it's a blog. they write what they hear. read it, and get on with your life.

Just another non-news post by Vlad just to rile up the fanbots.

I'm pretty sure that all civilized areas have FIOS available.

I don't have it myself, but that's just because I intend to be buying a condo soon, and making improvements to the current place would be pointless.

Jesus guys, its a blog. Calm down.

Yeah! Go FiOS. Fiber rocks. Everybody should get it.

if that actually happend say goodbye to gamestop and eb games.

The only reason UMD is not succeeding as a movie medium is that the PSP is the only device that plays them. Had Sony and other companies made some stand-alone UMD discs or even UMD-r/rw's then the UMD format would have done much better. It's really not a difficult concept. Every other medium from CD-R to DVD-R to memory cards/sticks have multiple devices that use them, and UMD should have been no different. I personally think UMD is much more portable than DVD's for movies on the road.

Are you trying to say just because Sony supports the idea of digital distribution within 5 years means the PS3 will only live for 5 years? Gee, I wonder why the system has the ability to connect online and has a 20-60 GB hard drive? Maybe when the time comes they'll enable us to purchase games through digital distribution?

But even if that does happen, I don't see media discs dying out so quickly. I love the convenience of bringing a game to a friend's house to play, rather than brining an entire system. Even if the system is small like the Wii, you still have the cables, controllers, etc. Being able to bring a CD wallet full of games is just so simple.

The best information comes from Freudian Slips. In the case of these guys, the most valuable information comes from when they aren't holding well-scripted press conferences. Hang on these words, good and bad, they have the most truth.

I couldn't find anyplacebetter to put this, so here goes: NCSX (and probably Liksang) will start taking pre-orders for PS3 tomorrow. NCSX has stated that they've "received details from a pool of suppliers and have enough information to set a price that'll elicit equal amounts of laughter and jaundice."

I'm thinkin' that means $2000. Any other guesses?

JET

i really dont like this blu ray stuff but sony isnt the only one's supporting it... other big electronic companies like LG and Samsung are supporting it too... it's not like SONY is the only one... As long as other companies backs up SONY with this whole blu ray thing, i'd say blu ray might succeed... if remember correctly it didnt take long before DVD prices went down, same can go with blu ray

The commenters can't seem to make up their minds: which is it? Are you biased, or just hit-hungry? Tell me, Cole, tell me!

I don't think the majority of video game consumers will ever get comfortable with buying something and not having something physical to show for it. There's a need to have something tangible upon purchase.

All the promo posters in the world pronouncing the wonderment and benefits of jumping aboard Sony's online exclusive retail vision wouldn't match up to going to a store, seeing something you like, paying for it and leaving with that item in your hands.

Especially not when Nintendo and Microsoft can continue to do a bit of both. Buy on or offline, your choice. That's the way it's going to go. For a while longer. Yay capitalism.

The main reason why these companies push digital distributions is because of the one and only thing that truly matters: money. CDs and DVDs can be produced now in bulks with drastically cheap prices, but they are not sufficient enough to carry all of new technologies such as HD quality visuals, or increased content. This is why the companies invest so much into a new media that will eventually grow old.

But if all the costs went away, along with paying retail stores to carry games, advertising, promoting, etc., I'd think these companies would be the first to jump at it. Even if for consumers worry about data security or the feeling of having something physical, the companies will try what is cheaper. Also, the thought of not paying retail but still gaining the consumer's attention and wallets at any time in the consumers' homes as they turn on their consoles will be too tempting for companies.

I fully expect companies to try more aggressively as Xbox Live Arcade and Steam became huge successes of digital distribution. The companies will market digital advertising by citing the ease of use, instant direct to home purchases, and such if they haven't already done so.

This affects Sony as well, and there is no doubt they will leave blue-ray once the right technology is availble. In fact, MacDonald in the posted article says blue-ray is needed because current technologies will not allow otherwise. Sony, according to Harrison and MacDonald, strongly implies the move to digital, and there is no doubt about it.

You guys want to know where the PS3 is headed ??!!! Go check out IGN...go to the PS3 section and read about nba 2K7.....The devlopers are saying straight up that the PS3 is more powerful (something i already knew) and is cappable of more detailed, more lifelike EVERYTHING !!!! Go and read the whole article and you will begin to understand why the guys over at Sony have been saying "NEXT GEN GAMING DOESN'T START UNTIL 11.17.06" !!!!!!!!! :)

Me again, everyone knows the PS3 is more powerful.


We also know the Gamecube and Xbox were more powerful than the PS2.

What did it get them?
The last time the more powerful system won the generation we were all playing Super Mario World and Actraiser.

30Mbps downstream will chew thru one of them fancy Blu-ray discs pretty fast.

If you call 3 hours pretty fast, I can pop down to my local shops and buy in 30 mins. Until Downloads are quicker than that I don't see people waiting on them (even with 30Mbps).

Me Again

I heard exactly the same thing from somebody touting the xbox360 as the more powerful console. It's tit for tat, the hardware specs on teh PS3 haven't been changed since it was originally due to be launched, just been waiting on the blurred ray drives. Which makes the PS3 hardware all of 4 months newer than the 360, with a stunted experimental cell processor that is generally acknowledged as not particularly suited to games.

Who would have guessed. Another VC post.

This post's chain of reasoning is more poor than even the worst fanboy comments on this blog. Terrible. Just report news, VC, your attempts at teh funneh and teh smrt fail, big time. That's why there are so many comments. These posts are rubbish.

I think Vlad is great, and this post is interesting. it does suggest that Sony have poured a lot of money into a situation they can't exactly win. and the Fios claims are true: my cousin in North Carolina got hooked up by Verizon, and it's like the second coming of Christ. it's fucking brilliant. I wish I oould receive that service here... but I think there will always be a place in the industry (for at least another ten years minimum, probably twenty) for disc-based storage tuned to the casual market and the technically inept. the trouble is, that market isn't the easiest sell if you're pitching a out-of-control expensive answer in this next-gen optical media battle against Toshiba. look at your sunday newspaper and Best Buy isn't even featuring the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players in the ads on a weekly basis (occasionally they do, to be fair) and we're months into the format war and a month aways from the PS3 Blu-Ray trojan horse launch. both these formats have achieved negligible penetration outside the tech-savvy demographic, and Blu-Ray has done very poorly WITHIN that demographic because of technical issues with the video and sound encoding and the Samsung player. with 2007 probably seeing the birth of commercially viable flash-based PC hard drives, and with fiber optic lines covering more of the country, digital distribution is just around the corner for those who want it. the question is, can Sony or Toshiba get the country to give a shit about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD before a digital distribution system is everywhere?

Joystiq needs more page views. Come on, guys, assault each other.

Boy, Kotaku does sound mild these days.

Sony can take that overpriced, overhyped piece of sh*t movie player known as the Playstation 3 and jam it up their a$$ along with every Blue-ray disc out there! POS format!

Why the hell do these insignificat stories keep coming up? Joystiq CLEARLY enjoys watching Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo fans go at it multiple times a day. It gets beyond repetitive. I'm so close to forgetting about this site, which is a bit of a downer because I used to come here for actual news. There is never anything good said anymore, just stories to put companies/people down.

Just to actually pitch in with an on-topic point.

Both Sony and Microsoft would LOVE to move to a digital download business model and ditch physical medium as soon as possible. Why?

Is it because it will give us, the consumers, entertainment on tap?

Is it so they can pass savings on to us, the consumers, as they no longer need to hold stock, press discs, package the stuff?

Hell no!

In one fell swoop they eliminate the second hand game market, the ability to lend friends your discs, and also lock in with some evil DRM - imagine a 'pay per play', or 'pay per hour' method of charging us for games and you're too far off what 'could' happen.

Yay for digital distribution!! :-(

@ my last post #76

That should have been:

'...and you're NOT too far off'.


To add another point.

Digital distribution would really save Sony, Toshiba etc a lot on R&D for developing future read-only consumer storage.

There's been a few articles round the net of screens that can go way beyond 1080p - so in 20years or so when we are actually using these massive resolution screens we're going to either need a digital distribution over very high speed lines, or a Blu-Ray / HD-DVD disc about 10feet wide!

any of you guys remember the original specs for the PS3? it was supposed to have 4 Cell processors, each with all 8 SPUs working, running at 4.0GHz each.

game developers who had seen demonstrations of the hardware claimed it was 'an order of magnitude more powerful than Xbox 360'

cut to present day where we're awaiting a system with 1 Cell processor (with only 7 working SPUs) running at 3.2GHz. the dream is over. time to wake up everybody!

i dont know where you read those specs for the ps3, but from day one it was always 1 cell running at 3.2 ghz. Go check e3 2005.

"The last time the more powerful system won the generation we were all playing Super Mario World and Actraiser."

I hope you're being sarcastic: Sega Genesis Motorola 68000 CPU hands down crunched Snes's puny one at sheer processing power. Tired of beating just 3 opponents at once in Final Fight? How about six of them in Streets of Rage 2? or how about Sonic's scrolling speed?

presentation was a bit better on Snes, i'll give you that...

"any of you guys remember the original specs for the PS3? it was supposed to have 4 Cell processors, each with all 8 SPUs working, running at 4.0GHz each."

well, the N64 was supposed to be as powerful as a Silicon Graphics station. Sega Genesis was supposed to have "blast processing". PS2 was supposed to render Toy Story in real time. And marketroids making PR lines are supposed to talk BS all the time...

Blu-ray is a little more than 5 x DVD capacity right?
So is throughput a little more than 5 x that of DVD?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it's actually half the speed of DVD – A tad faster than UMD but much slower than DVD. But maybe they will copy data to the hard disk and stream from there right?

What was the capacity of big Blue-ray and what is the capacity of the hard disk again? Was the hard disk a 200GB, 320GB, 750GB or the new Hitachi 1TB SATA or SAS?

Oh no that's right Blew-ray is 25 - 50GB and the hard disk is 20GB or 60GB; thats funny isn't it... So if 9GB of data is actually needed (about DVD capacity) and the rest is just in-game advertisements and FMV filler - how long does it take to buffer to 9GB to a hard disk?

Do you think that all this buffering from a low speed read device to the fast HDD will cause any wear on the Blow-ray and Hard Drive? Won't the data on the disk become fragmented too?

All that activity and with the chunky 90nm sized Cell and the RSX and the built in juice chugging power supply must produce quite a bit of heat right?

But I'm sure that Sony has figured all that cooling business out and the PS3 will be reliable wont it? What is the warranty again? Was it 3-Years next day swap? No - 2 Year fix in a few days? No that's not it - that's right it's a Sony 12 month limited warranty.

Heck look on the bright side, you'll get to join another class action against Sony and maybe just maybe after waiting five years for the claim to be heard you may get your PS3 Blow-ray fixed! No big deal as its only your money not ours or Sony – I mean they have your money and thats all that matters right?

For the price they ask & the risk their choice in unproven technology presents; Sony should offer a 3 Year warranty - I dare them!

Gazbin, the PS1 was a huge success, despite a very slow CD drive. put it to rest...

besides, i hear the PS3 comes with a HD builtin. That and a far faster media drive will do wonders for load times...

sorry, Gazbin, didn't even read the rest of your comment.

"Do you think that all this buffering from a low speed read device to the fast HDD will cause any wear on the Blow-ray and Hard Drive?"

They're made to handle it. My PS1 CD drive still works fine despite countless RPG playing and the battle and spells loading from disc every ten seconds or so.

"Won't the data on the disk become fragmented too?"

no, it's not using some Windows filesystem. I heard Linux is inside, so we'll probably get some decent filesystem and swapping.

"that's right it's a Sony 12 month limited warranty"

hey, if the system misbehaves, it'll probably break down within that time frame. Just in time for Sony to have already corrected any production problems and recall your problematic unit.

This is funny as hell. The damage control from sony supporters backpeddling faster than cell-powered moonwalking robot.

Face it, broadband speeds will reach the necessary levels for full on digital distribution in much less than 10 years. My broadband has gone from 2meg to 24 meg in just a year.

Meanwhile, the blu-ray drive on the ps3, which obviously IS NOT recordable, will become obselete in favour of a meaty hard drive attatchment.

Microsoft and nintendo, with their typical 5 year console plan, will be ready top release a new machine that cateres for the future of distribution. Both are alredy paving the way with the live/vc servces.

Unfortunately, sonys '10 year lifespan' will have to cut out at around the same time, as the ps3 with its unnecessary blu-ray will simply not be tailored to the new methods.

PS£ will probably have to die just before it bocomes profitable.

Aint that a crying shame?

Gazbin talks in questions...


it's scary

Blu-Ray is screwed for one reason.. mpeg-2

Maybe next time Sony should invent a good codec for their new format instead of using one that's over 10 years old. Blu-Ray looks like shit next to HD-DVD. Don't believe me? Go check out an actual movie at the store (not a demo disc).

Well Sony and Microsoft love the idea of digital distribution, personally i like the idea of physically owning the game on media and call me old fashioned but i like the box/artwork that comes with games.

As long as we keep buying software on disc they will keep producing them. Digital distribution means they will keep drip feeding levels, extra characters etc. to get games to continually pay for more and more. Whereas now we usually get a complete game on a disc. The other downside for us is that you won't be able to buy a game then sell it on when completed as the game is stuck on your HD!

Blu-Ray is not dead and will probably be the next big thing along with HDTV for the next 10 years. You gotta remember, their are many people in the world who still don't even have high speed internet and I don't expect that to change over the next few years.

Even if it does, very few will have FIOS because of the costs. For many casual internet users, DSL is all that is required for them to be happy.

Hey Toby, thanks for the links - these sites look very good. Bye Joystiq.

We recently got verizon FIOS in our area, and we got the 15mbps/2mbps package. WOW. fast as hell. I can DL a 200MB in video in under a minute usually. They offer the 30meg package here but it's 180/month vs. the $45 for the 15 meg package.

"Congress has ensured that everyone will have HDTV by 2009 or they will get snow on their old TV."

Not true. The mandate is that broadcast TV will only be DIGITAL, not necessarily high-definition. That could mean anything from 352x480i to 1920x1080p. And the deadline has already been pushed back once due to the industry's failure to convince the public to upgrade; who's to say it won't happen again?

"Sega Genesis Motorola 68000 CPU hands down crunched Snes's puny one at sheer processing power."

Possibly, but the SNES had a greater color depth, more on-screen colors, and higher possible resolutions, and its Sony-designed 8-channel PCM audio was indisputably superior to the Genesis's 6-channel FM synth.

"Tired of beating just 3 opponents at once in Final Fight? How about six of them in Streets of Rage 2?"

Well, the character objects in the SoR games were significantly smaller than those in FF. FF was also a launch title, so it wasn't exactly the best the SNES offered.

"My broadband has gone from 2meg to 24 meg in just a year."

Your experience is not typical. My broadband throughput, in a dense urban area, has gone from about 1meg down to 6meg down over five years.

hehe, I have Optimum Online Boost 30/2 mbit, which is around 3.5 mb/s for downloads and around 220k/s for uploads at the moment and very happy whit it. tho I think i'll switch to verizon 20/5 mbit due higher upload rates.
BTW their digital distribution vision was told by Gates a couple of years before Sony's 4D and HD era was born.

"its Sony-designed 8-channel PCM audio was indisputably superior to the Genesis's 6-channel FM synth."

i don't know, it's a synthethiser largely used in pop music during the early 80s vs a sampler. When used in the way it was supposed to -- like percussions, drums, bass and keyboards -- it sounded better than SNES sample-based tunes. SNES drums always sounded muffled and lacking substance. You couldn't get the kind of beats and deep bass Yuzo Koshiro was loved for on SNES... :)

you could get a clearly plastic sounding orchestra though... :)

"the character objects in the SoR games were significantly smaller than those in FF."

not at all: the first game really featured tiny sized character compared to giant Haggar and friends. But that's why i specifically compared with SoR 2, which featured characters about as large as FF, only with a lot more action and sprites at once.

"FF was also a launch title"

I played FF 2 and lots of other FF-alikes in the SNES. They were all, all of them limited to just 3 enemies at once. Once you defeated one of them, another entered the screen. pathetic...

Konami employed some heavy optimizations to get TMNTs to display even 4 enemies -- with characters being little larger than SoR 1 -- and some special programming techniques to get those persky, but slow moving, biting mouse robots around the same scene with other characters... but Konami is Konami. or was, before the music games craze...

I agree that the idea of physical and non media living together is not a crazy idea, it happens now on a number of software, it will probably the case for a long time for people to have a copy always around with a printed manual.

However Sony is being a bit dumb by pushing blu-ray when it knows that it is just another step rather than a real change.

armin, those comments were not 'off the record' If they were they would have never been quoted. I think your site lacks journalistic merit.