Rumor Murder: PS3 with no Blu-ray

Will the price drop fast enough that the PS3 can still be a success? Because right now Sony is taking a giant loss on an item that isn't selling. Either they need to cut the price (and take a bigger loss) or hold onto their $600 console and not sell any of them.

Let's say that BluRay fails in a year. Couldn't Sony implement the player that LG will be releasing at CES. This way it will play HD DVD aswell?
Or they could ditch PS3 as a whole, go back to DVDs and call it PS4. =)

all they have to do is take out hd-dvd and make it optional, like Microsoft did. this would fix the price issue.

As much as I know Sony probably won't, getting rid of that BRD will sell consoles, FAST!

How hard could it be to put games out on DVD (or multiple DVDs)?

No BDR and a lower price will force me to pick up a PS3. Until then, I will wait a few years for the price to drop

v1cious - are you people mentally challenged? The games wont work without a blu ray drive in it. This article is just pointless and anyone stupid enough to start this rumor doesnt know much about electronics. Therefore how could they make the drive optional?

Wow this is getting really FU#$ed up now.

Whats next, Video Games will come out for it! Sheesh

Thank you! There is no way Sony would ever do this, as it contradicts everything Sony has been trying to convince us of. It would do far more damage than it would do good.

At #2: It doesn't MATTER if BluRay fails in a year, because it would only fail as a MOVIE format, PS3 would still be using BluRay as a format for the GAMES. Putting in HD-DVD /as well/ would only make it even /more/ expensive.

At #3: "Take out HD-DVD and make it optional"?? The PS3 does not have HD-DVD, it has BluRay. You cant make BluRay optional, because THE GAMES WOULDN'T WORK WITHOUT IT.


Anyways Alex, whoever is sending you these tips must be severely retarded. Probably analysts

v1cious, you win the award for the biggest retard i have ever seen on joystiq ever, the article even states the FACT the games are put on blu-ray discs so if you take it out all the current games wont play you idiot, please proceed to hang yourself now please.

" It would contradict Sony's entire marketing campaign"

Everything Sony says contradicts itself.

Sony is ignorant and hopefully going to fail faster than Bush in Iraq.

"v1cious - are you people mentally challenged? The games wont work without a blu ray drive in it. This article is just pointless and anyone stupid enough to start this rumor doesnt know much about electronics. Therefore how could they make the drive optional?"

actually i phrased that phrased that wrong. i mean HD components. if they make that optional, they could lower the price pull in the causual gamer. let's face it, there are still lots of people who want one, but the lack titles right now makes not worth it.

and where exactly did i say blu-ray discs Blizz? who's retarded again?

How exactly would you "remove HD components"? I don't see how thats... possible. Or feasible. BluRay simply /is/ HD, and the PS3 simply /supports/ a bit more data-transfering to support the BluRays HD. You cant just... take out HD... I mean, if you made Blu-Ray not support HD it would simply mean you limit the data-transfering or something like that, and also the output options of the PS3... so basicly just gimp the both of them... but it would be the same technology and wouldnt be any cheaper... correct me if im wrong here.

v1cious, do yourself a favor and stop talking...

v1cious blu-ray is the type of HD-DVD discs it uses, it does not use actual HD-DVD, so by saying like you said take out the HD-DVD that means taking out the blu-ray tech and make it optional which is retarded cuz that would make playing games optional so yes you are a retard.

v1cious isn't talking, he's writing. Imagine a discussion like this being talked out loud round a table.

on the net, we're all evil. Had we met, and discussed this in real life, it would've been a lot friendlier. hehe, trust me.

this is never going to happen... they need the format to succeed, can't make it optional because games are using the format, and shouldn't think about it because their setup is good for for future. I think the biggest problem isn't that they aren't selling the units they shipped at the current price- it's they're shipping them to the wrong places. Most reports of PS3s sitting around for buyers aren't in places like LA and NY... they should ship more to places that have buyers waiting and ready. A price drop would help, but having blu-ray is a must for Sony and developers that want to put FMVs in their games

Yeah the stuff will get cheaper and work out in time, but all the while the other guys are pulling ahead in a big way. Sony doesn't have the time.
I'm telling you people, the PS3 is the most hated on system in a long time. People DO NOT want this thing.
There really is no good outlook for the PS3 at this point.
I'd bet that, at best, it does as well as the gamecube. It will NEVER COME CLOSE to the PS2 base.

Isagani:

Actually, there are places in NYC that have PS3s in stock right now. I bought a 60GB one yesterday at the GameStop in NoHo. They got a ton in and I asked the guy how they were selling... he looked at me and shrugged.. "You're the sixth one today to buy one." This was at 8:30pm. Nearly 12 hours of them being in stock. And I was #6.

I asked about the Wiis for curiosity (I have one already) and he laughed. "Those sell out almost immediately when they come in" he said.

I agree though, not having BluRay is a nonstarter for Sony anymore. Without Bluray all the games that are currently out, and all the games in production, will just not work or be pushed back. It's just a non-option.

Taking out the "HD" in the PS3 is also a nonstarter. You think the PS3s crazy horsepower will even be pushed/used pushing 480i/p ? Might as well as cut the power in half at that point too, because the PS3s juice is there for 1080p playing/rendering.

OmGz!!! ThE wIi Is TaKiNg OuT dVd!!!

the games fit on a dvd9 and for the most part play off the hard drive because loading off a bluray is ridiculously slow. It would be a smart move by sony to remove bluray so they can drop to price.

the games fit on a dvd9 and for the most part play off the hard drive because loading off a bluray is ridiculously slow. It would be a smart move by sony to remove bluray so they can drop to price.

WOW!!!!

Sony is just a mess right now.

"PlayStation 3 is Blu-ray and Blu-ray is PlayStation 3."

If that's true, then shouldn't stand-alone Blu-ray players play PlayStation 3 games?

Christ... comparing the Wii and ps3, is like comparing a Macdonalds burger to Venison steaks with red wine and blackcurrant sauce...you nip into maccy'bloody cheap' D's to get a quick snack (i.e Wiis) cause its cheap and cheerful...
when you want something more substantial, you get ready and goto a fancy but expensive restaurant (i.e PS3)...

i dont know...i must admit tho..that apple looks very similar to pear..
lol

OOOOORRRRRR they could split production. half BD half DVD/x5. And seeing as how the adoption rate isnt that big Not many people would be missing out. thats only if they did it now. and since its only like 15 games out all they would have to do is release those games on a regualer dvd and im pretty sure that the newer games would fit on a regular dvd...The only problem then is is that the cell isnt made to handle the compression.

Huh. To be honest I hadn't even considered the games issue. I'd been vaguely thinking about the idea of Sony dropping the BR player to drop the cost, but I guess the reality of losing their entire library of PS3 games nixes that idea.

What a stupid bizarre piece of fud. Even if Blu-Ray failed, why would Sony deliberately cause the PS3 to become incompatible with earlier models? They'd stick with Blu-Ray for PS3 games if for no other reason than backwards compatibility (and protection against copying). This story is simply dumb in the extreme.

As for production problems, another piece of FUD. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are fundamentally similar technologies. Both use blue laser diodes and most of the software stack is the same. Production issues affecting BD discs also affect HD-DVD. Claiming that somehow Blu-Ray will fail because of them when the same issues affect HD-DVD is simply bizarre.

I can't believe people are still even TALKING about the possibility of sony taking out blu-ray...

now. this may come as a shock...it's only been mentioned 10 times...

WITHOUT BLU-RAY, PS3 COULD NOT PLAY ITs OWN GAMES which are on blu ray discs.
holy fucking shit, that's a REALLY simple concept kids, and if you cant pick up on that one, ps3 should NOT be your main concern...shit

In a couple years we'll see what the real mistakes made were. The idea of Sony taking out BluRay is easily one of the more retarded ideas floating around about the ps3 right now. it's been a bad launch, and for the time Sony is the underdog. Guess what, they were when the original playstation came out too.
As for them not flying off the shelves... it starts at nearly half a grand. That's not exactly the sort of money that most people just toss around. But, they are still selling, and Sony is still shipping regularly. With BluRay. If they took out the bluray, and sold it for the same prices as the xbox360 systems, people would still complain about it. What it has now is a hell of a lot of potential, which we will see come to fruition. As a launch-day owner, I'm looking forward to what we have coming our way in the future too much to care about any perceived problems now.

Thank you, stiq of joy, for finally pointing that out. Anybody who could possibly think that Sony would pull out the Blu-Ray does not know anything about the PS3.

PS3 games are on a Blu-Ray disc.
Therefore the PS3 needs a Blu-Ray player.
If they take away the Blu-Ray player then the PS3 can't play its own games.
So you'll be sitting at home with your $600 PS3 and you won't be able to play games.

Obviously, the is and still will be a Blu-Ray player in the PS3.

PS3 - Blu ray = Xbox 360.

@ DrXym

Actually, HD-DVD only required a small shift in DVD production lines - Blu-ray required all new manufacturing processes. That's why the first Blu-ray players were a lot more expensive than HD-DVD players.

And yes, Sony could take the Blu-ray player out. The only problem is that it would invalidate their entire library to date. Even then, most games in production now would be able to move to DVD, and it would lower the cost of the system. Sony would never ever do this though, because if they did:
1) It would be them admitting a mistake
2) It wouldn't bode well for their precious format
3) It would piss off early adopters
4) It would piss off PS3 developers
5) It would piss off PS3 publishers (because now you have games that are not only not profitable, but never will be).

They could take "blu-ray" out quite easily. It doesn't lower the manufacturing costs any, but they could recoup some of that with marketing.

Remove the capability to play blu-ray VIDEO disks, but keep the blu-ray laser and capability to read the game disks.

Sell the video capability to sucker^h^h^h^h^h^hconsumers with a firmware upgrade.

Drop the price of the PS3 a hundred, hundred and fifty, sell the "blu-ray expansion" for 200.

I don't know about this Sony is doomed to failure business, but I can say one thing:

It takes a lot of work to go from a massively penetrated giant to the laughing stock of the industry in less than 2 months. Good show, old boy.

@31, ridiculous. HD-DVD & Blu-Ray are evil twins separated at birth. Except for some mostly minor differences in the physical layer, both are indentical or so similar in other respects as makes no difference to their manufacture or disc production. Both use blue laser diodes and the other physical differences are hardly worth mentioning.

These comments are more pathetic that Farrah Fawcett's ass cancer.

[rim shot]

Man, that baby scared the shxt out of me. But it reflected the mentality of $ony's management when they decided to force BlueCrap to their customers.

"HD-DVD & Blu-Ray are evil twins separated at birth. Except for some mostly minor differences in the physical layer, both are indentical or so similar in other respects as makes no difference to their manufacture or disc production. Both use blue laser diodes and the other physical differences are hardly worth mentioning."

Do research next time you challenge a claim:
http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/19/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-state-of-the-s-union-s-division/

" The differing track pitch of the Blu-ray disc makes its pickup apertures differ, however - 0.65 for HD DVD vs. 0.85 for Blu-ray - thus also making the two pickups technically incompatible despite using lasers of the same type. HD DVD discs also have a different surface layer (the clear plastic layer on the surface of the data - what you get fingerprints and scratches on) from Blu-ray discs. HD DVD use a 0.6 mm-thick surface layer, the same as DVD, while Blu-ray has a much smaller 0.1mm layer to help enable the laser to focus with that 0.85 aperture.

Herein lies the issues associated with the higher cost of Blu-ray discs. This thinner surface layer is what makes the discs cost more; because Blu-ray discs do not share the same surface layer thickness of DVDs, costly production facilities must be modified or replaced in order to produce the discs. A special hard coating must also be applied to Blu-ray discs, so their surface is sufficiently resilient enough to protect the data a mere 0.1mm beneath - this also drives the cost up. The added benefit of keeping the data layer closer to the surface, however, is more room for extra layers."

Take out blueray, release the ps3 20GB at 250, 60GB at 350 and eat the cost of replacing possibly every blu ray game with a DVD version. The only question is how many games use more than 4.7/9GB of space and would have to be redone. I think that answer is zero. The cost would be printing out 10 million disks and shipping them out on customer request. This cost is what: $50 million. It could be done... if Sony was a pure video game company, that's what they'd do. Being a broad media/electronics company, they will make blu ray drives until 2012 in the PS3 (and support the format afterwards in the PS4) even if the Playstation is the last blu ray player sold.

No, PS3 - BR = PS2

I highly reccomend one to all. They're backwards compatible, play DVD's, connect to the internet, have wireless controllers available, and best of all, aren't $600.

/diatribe

ok, for all or you preaching about ps3=blueray and that it wouldnt be ps3 without it. is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing??? because it seems to me that its a bad thing. this system has had nothing but problems for whatever reason so if they need to take blueray out to make a profit so be it. i understand that the games (all 15 of them) would be incompatible. but come on now there is nothing worth playing on the system right now anyways. and if you really want to play those "games" im sure they would rerelease them on the dvd format for the new system after they nixed the brd. cutting out blueray would be a smart move on their part as a company. you know the old saying "if it aint broke dont fix it" well sony and their stratagy is broke. so they need to do something to fix it or else they might find themselves out of the video game buisness.

No.

(PS3 - BR = PS2) == compiler error C2106: '=' : left operand must be l-value

I think sony's biggest mistake since the psp is trying to put a multimedia device with a game console. I mean they can do neither one right. movies aren't selling and games suck. i hope they have realized this by now

All of you please stop. Sony was stupid for putting the tech in the PS3 and charging $500 and $600 in the first place.

The only reason the current games are on Blu-ray is because they can fit mutiple regions on the disks, but that does not matter- what matters is Sony was stupid and MS and Nintendo are going to run away with the lead this time.

Obviously joystiq is right. It's SILLY to even speculate about the Sony PS3 splitting their SKU into one that has a Blu-ray drive, and one that does not.

The number of people who buy PS3 games on blu-ray disks, then can't play them on their PS3, would be massive.

It's utterly brain dead to think Sony would or could do anything like that. It's bad enough that Sony and M$ offer two separate SKUs already.

-

As for lowering price right now... it would be pretty desperate to try to lower their price to gain market share.

If they DO, Microsoft will just lower their price as well. And with Microsoft's multiple billions of profit a year (in a good year, Sony makes a billion in profits), M$ can afford to take the hit more than Sony can.

Nintendo, likewise, can drop their console $50 and still make money on each console at this point (especially given that everyone will buy at least one extra remote). Nintendo also has $10 billion in cash on hand so they can afford to lose massive cash on the system to bury Sony on price to gain market share if Sony forces the issue.

The company with least ability to handle more loses is Sony.

Heres my required PS3 bashing for the day so that I can fit in here with the cool peoples on the internets.

Sony is teh suxors!!! PS3 is black cause it's like crap! Sony is like teh republicans cause they are evil and trying to take over the world!! 360 wins!!!

Thank you.

I am not sure whether the difference in costs is because of Bluray. An article by i-supply says the unit cost is 125, 100 more than DVD, and the biggest difference is the cell-processor (200-300 more than XBOX). And also the fact that the PS3 is much better built than the 360 adds cost, USD60 for a cooling cage and PS2 chip which is why the 360 is so poor at overheating and fan noise, why the 360 needs emulators for all XBOX games and why the PS3 has so few complaints 2 months after launch (except in store demos where the closed compartment casuses overheating)

@Ben Friesen , "Actually, HD-DVD only required a small shift in DVD production lines - Blu-ray required all new manufacturing processes. That's why the first Blu-ray players were a lot more expensive than HD-DVD players."

No it isn't. The ONLY major technical hurdle for Blu-Ray was supply blue laser diodes, the same as HD-DVD. Both technologies have suffered from shortages which appear to be clearing up. I'm sure there were other hurdles to overcome in software and hardware, but its fairly clear that Sony have overcome them and then some. If vgcharts.org are to be believed (and their guess is as good as anybody's), then there were something like 1.25 million PS3s sold worldwide (currently the site says 1.31m) from Nov17 to Dec 31. Discounting 400,000 as stockpiled for launch that means they're pumping them out at ~130,000 a week.

130,000 units per week is hardly indicative of production problems. And it's likely that production will keep on rising. It wouldn't surprise me if Sony have lowered costs sufficiently that they are already breaking even or nearly so. One must also remember that DVD drives in their day cost $1000 at launch and now you can get them for $30 (as in an entire DVD player for $30. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD player and drive prices will fall through the floor in the next year. Even if we were to generously assume it cost Sony $150 to make a Blu-Ray drive at launch, I bet that it would be down to $30 this time next year

So suggesting that they take them out of the PS3 and confuse the hell out of everybody just when all production and technical issues have been resolved is just absurd. It wouldn't work, it isn't necessary, it doesn't make any sense, and it would be suicide for the platform and Sony. Obviously they're not going to do it ever.

In summary, this story is complete bunk.

DrXym WTF are you talking about....when did the HDdvd diodes have production problems???when did sony overcome anything. Sony simply made their bed so for now they're laying it...."BREAKING EVEN" "LOWERED COST" wow man just wow....Its no way sony is breaking even already i cant belive you said that...and why would cost be lowered already....yes by moore's law technology gets cheaper and cheaper but not in the bounds that your talking about