Why I think Blu-Ray will succeed

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Killdozer

[H]ard|Gawd
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Why I think Blu-Ray will succeed:

Because when that initial shipment of 400,000 PS3's sell, that will be about 400,000 more Blu-Ray players than HD-DVD players. When I worked at (insert shitty retail store here), we had HD-DVD players for sale. Between the time the store got them and to the time I left, not a single one was sold. After the holidays, retailers will see how many more BR movies they sold compared to HD-DVD...the numbers will speak for themselves.

Also, your average Wall-Mart consumer will have two choices. A stand alone HD DVD player that cost the same as the base PS3, or they can get a PS3 that plays 'dem 'Big Game Hunter' and "18-Wheeler Madness" games.


So, anywho, let the flaming begin.
 
neither will have to win with the new manufacturing processes and patents that are flying out that allow for dual bluray/HDdvd on single discs and so forth. Technology > stupid 80s style format wars.
 
Technoob said:
neither will have to win with the new manufacturing processes and patents that are flying out that allow for dual bluray/HDdvd on single discs and so forth. Technology > stupid 80s style format wars.
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If that comes to fruition that would be freaking great.
 
Killdozer said:
Why I think Blu-Ray will succeed
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You know why I think it will succeed? Ill tell ya why... I dunno if its ever planned for PC, but ive got 80 gigs of shit I need to back up, and im planning to order several 300 gig drives soon... I dont have time or sanity to swap through 50 dvds.

DVDs came out... over 10 years ago I beleive. 4.3 gigs of storage space blew my mind back then, but now its "ehh". Not even enough to back up a respectable Porn collection.

More power to em, I figure.
 
Stand alone players wont sell. (They havent been for some time now, that includes HDDVD players.)
People buying PS3 are not buying them for movies.

In other words, noone is seeing the point of a HD movie player. Blue Ray isnt going to win anything. It will eventually become the medium for PS3 games alone.

Dual format player might change that, but I doubt it, and it would alienate the "PS3=cheap BlueRay player". (Why go for a BR-only player, when I could get a Dual format?)

Basically, shit isnt selling now, it isnt going to sell later. The difference here is, back in 2000 people were actually buying movies and DVD players. Good for PS2. Now noone is biting, and the prospects of a Unified player alienates the market even more. Bad for PS3.

And that takes me back to the main point. Noone is looking at the PS3 as a movie player. Only games. And thats because it doesnt look like an atractive movie player (the sole purpose of BR), like the PS2 looked back in 2000.
 
LeviathanZERO said:
Stand alone players wont sell. (They havent been for some time now, that includes HDDVD players.)
People buying PS3 are not buying them for movies.

In other words, noone is seeing the point of a HD movie player. Blue Ray isnt going to win anything. It will eventually become the medium for PS3 games alone.

Dual format player might change that, but I doubt it, and it would alienate the "PS3=cheap BlueRay player". (Why go for a BR-only player, when I could get a Dual format?)

Basically, shit isnt selling now, it isnt going to sell later. The difference here is, back in 2000 people were actually buying movies and DVD players. Good for PS2. Now noone is biting, and the prospects of a Unified player alienates the market even more. Bad for PS3.

And that takes me back to the main point. Noone is looking at the PS3 as a movie player. Only games. And thats because it doesnt look like an atractive movie player (the sole purpose of BR), like the PS2 looked back in 2000.
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Which is why my parents bought a PS2 6 years ago.

I don't see them buying a PS3 for Blu-Ray now.
 
Killdozer said:
Why I think Blu-Ray will succeed:

Also, your average Wall-Mart consumer will have two choices. A stand alone HD DVD player that cost the same as the base PS3, or they can get a PS3 that plays 'dem 'Big Game Hunter' and "18-Wheeler Madness" games.


So, anywho, let the flaming begin.
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While I agree that blu-ray will win, the "average wal-mart consumer" does not buy $500 dvd players. I love the whole HD movement and have bought a Sharp 37" LCD, but I still cannot bring myself to spend $500-$1000 on a video player.

I believe the storage size alone is enough to win this war.
 
That's why I'm wating. I will buy a PS3 either at launch or later on. SO I will have Blue-Ray by defalut. But i'm wating to see if HD-DvD or Blue Ray wil be bigger in rental wise. I don't want to spend money on a DvD player and not be able to go to my local blockbuster and pick up a certain format for the Player. But with PS3 it's just an extra feature, that if it succedes then good for me.
 
since this is just a flamefest waiting to happen...

Couldn't the same argument be made that your average consumer will see the $200 Microsoft HD-DVD addon that they can use with the Xbox360 they bought last year and think thats the better value? PLUS it comes with a free movie!!!!! AND the HD-DVD movies are currently cheaper (at least at the BB/CC near me) by $5.

Personnaly, i'm not going to jump on either next gen format until prices become reasonable. And even though i'm not a fan boy of either the PS3/Xbox360, $600 for a gaming console is ridiculous.
 
If BR playback in the PS3 is garbage, it doesn't matter how many units there are in homes; the movies won't sell. The same goes for HD-DVD playback for the 360, but HD-DVD has been more impressive so far.
 
This is wildly off-topic in some ways, but relevant in others.

Can someone explain to me WHY the players are so over-the-top expensive? Just thinking about it logically, it doesn't seem like there should be any reason for the technology in these players to require a huge price tag.

I've never had this particular issue explained to me.
 
Whichever is cheaper and is backwards compatible....

That being said neither one will succeed in the near future, just like HDTVs are very slow to sale. They are just too expensive in a slumping middle class society ( thats anotehr topic). Plus the technology jump from VHS to DVD was readily apparent, but from DVD to whichever format not so much.

Everyone I talk to just thinks its a waste of money at this point and believes what they have is good enough. Just like television right now, no one is in a rush because it offers no signficant advantage. I doubt even the HDTV push by the FCC will actually be enforced in 2007, it will probablly be pushed back even farther.
 
Xaeon said:
This is wildly off-topic in some ways, but relevant in others.

Can someone explain to me WHY the players are so over-the-top expensive? Just thinking about it logically, it doesn't seem like there should be any reason for the technology in these players to require a huge price tag.

I've never had this particular issue explained to me.
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Because it's new technology. The creators have invested a ot of money into developing these technologies. Plus new technology is hard to manufacture. So for every 5 components that are made, two or three will be flawed. As the manufacturing process gets better and flaws are on the order of 1 in 20 the prices will come down. Remember it costs the same to manufacture 100 components whether there's 20 flaw pieces or one so the good parts have to make up for the bad ones.

Anway, it doesn't really matter whether BD or HDDVD format succeeds if Hitachi comes through with their plans. They're supposedly working on a 320GB (yes that's three hundred twenty gigabytes). disc that'll be announced sometime this winter. Or so I've read.
 
Despite the tie-in with PS3 this probably belongs in the optical media sub-section of the storage section.

The PS3 is going to sell all 400,000 units in the US at launch anyway. It will sell another ~600,000 by new years day. That has little to do with the redneck Wal-Mart shoppers you are describing.

So now there are 1,000,000 Blu-Ray players in the homes of American consumers.

There have been ~25,000 HD-DVD players sold to date. Assuming the external HD-DVD drive on the 360 sells extremely well I wouldn't expect it to sell more than 75,000 by the end of the year, and even that is probably a stretch. This adds up to 100,000 HD-DVD players.

So this means there will be 10:1 ratio of Blu-Ray to HD-DVD players in the homes of American consumers... I think you all can figure out the rest...
 
All the Blu-Ray devices in the world won't mean shit if the movies aren't selling.

Look how well UMD is doing, despite the fact that there are millions of systems that can play it.
 
K600 said:
All the Blu-Ray devices in the world won't mean shit if the movies aren't selling.

Look how well UMD is doing, despite the fact that there are millions of systems that can play it.
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UMD failed because you can only watch it on a PSP. Nobody wants to watch movies on a 2.5" screen.
 
K600 said:
All the Blu-Ray devices in the world won't mean shit if the movies aren't selling.

Look how well UMD is doing, despite the fact that there are millions of systems that can play it.
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Ding Ding, who is going to buy a 30 dollar movie when you can buy a 15 dollar DVD that looks the same on the average households standard TV. HDTV sales are poor at best.
 
VoodooChi|d said:
UMD failed because you can only watch it on a PSP. Nobody wants to watch movies on a 2.5" screen.
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damn you beat me to it. umd was a joke from the get go.
 
And, really, price is the bottom line. There may be a lot of people out there who would be up for high-definition discs, but $500 is just too much. I expect that number to fall by at least $200 for standalone HD-DVD players by next Christmas, and penetration will increase quite a bit. By the summer of the following year (assuming the format continues to exist), there will be players available for $150-200.

Really, this isn't that difficult to figure out. DVDs sold by about the same pattern. They debuted at very high prices (often as high as $1,000 for a standalone player) and came down later. I bought my first player about 2 years in (still before rental places started carrying DVDs) for about $250, and the following year gave five players to family and friends for Christmas at $200 a pop. Of course, now you can get a DVD player with good quality for under $100.

I'm not sure how things will go on the Blu-ray front considering the standalone players are going for $1,000 with the PS3 looking like a bargain at $500-600 - of course, a bargain of which relatively few will be able to avail themselves for quite a while. They'll have to price the hardware more competitively, but when that will happen is anybody's guess.

The difference in data capacity is completely irrelevant to people who would watch HD movies since either format can easily accommodate a 1080p movie with extras on their respective (30GB and 50GB) dual-layer discs. In other words, if HD-DVD beats Blu-ray on player price (and content - HD-DVD has more movies so far than Blu-ray) over the next 2 years I could see Blu-ray burners being adopted in PCs while HD-DVD wins the bigger war for the TV.

I have no idea which side will come out on top, and anyone who thinks they know is only WAGing at best.
 
bluray is apparently REALLY slow to access. Just going to menus and such on a store display is an exercise in patience. I would much rather hd-dvd win the movie battle, as the performance advantage in simple use is very visible.
 
It doesn't matter how many HD-DVD or Blu-Ray players are actually in homes, what matters is whether consumers are buying movies on their respective platforms. Sony can have as large an installed userbase as they want, but if nobody goes out and buys Blu-Ray movies, publishers will stop releasing Blu-Ray content and release content only on HD-DVD instead.

Personally, I'm rooting for HD-DVD because early reports have it being the better format (better picture, lower prices, etc).
 
As of right now, regular DVDs are the cheap and extremely popular way to watch a movie in-home. VHS dropped out of the race around the end of last year. Yes, VHS copies of certain titles are still produced (especially kids movies) but not with chart topping titles such as Click and so forth.

With that said, I believe that until the whole format war comes close to an end, nobody is really going to give a crap. Heck, something better will prolly come out by then! You also gotta look at the TVs in the market today that can really take advantage of 1080P resolution . . . not very many, at least not reasonably priced ones. 720p/1080i is still king with upconverting DVD players, digital cable and satellite HD streams and prolly will be for the next 4-5 years. 2009 is the year when all cable and satellite providers have to go fully digital.

Will the PS3 help out Blu-Ray sales? Well no crap. I think that it's cool that the player comes with the console (even though it should be a choice) but most consumers aren't really going to care. They will be broke!
 
VoodooChi|d said:
UMD failed because you can only watch it on a PSP. Nobody wants to watch movies on a 2.5" screen.
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UMD failed because it was an overpriced, unwanted media...just like Blu-Ray.
 
K600 said:
UMD failed because it was an overpriced, unwanted media...just like Blu-Ray.
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You only forgot the most important reason; it afforded practically no improvement over current media. As "unwanted" Blu-Ray is right now, you can't say "it looks just like DVD".
 
heatsinker said:
You only forgot the most important reason; it afforded practically no improvement over current media. As "unwanted" Blu-Ray is right now, you can't say "it looks just like DVD".
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To who? Most people can't tell the difference between a good and bad HDTV, let alone resolutions displayed within them.
 
Installed userbase does matter... Let's say if even half of those people who buy a PS3 use it for Blu-Ray that's still a 5:1 ratio...
 
K600 said:
UMD failed because it was an overpriced, unwanted media...just like Blu-Ray.
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How are you gonna say it's an unwanted media? No one knows yet. It's not a proprietary format that can only be used on a tiny game system. It's a next-gen format war....something 100% different from UMD's....
 
lesman said:
How are you gonna say it's an unwanted media? No one knows yet. It's not a proprietary format that can only be used on a tiny game system. It's a next-gen format war....something 100% different from UMD's....
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Blu-Ray is out now. HD-DVD is out now. Interest in both formats is low, at best. Very few people actually know what Blu-Ray actually is.
 
LeviathanZERO said:
In other words, noone is seeing the point of a HD movie player
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I think plenty of people would buy new releases on either bluray or hddvds if the players were mre accessible and at lower costs. when you can get a respectable dvd player for 100 bucks, or a hd player for 500 bucks, i think the choice is clear.

Now buying a ps3 for 500 and also being able to play bluray, all of a sudden i think people will buy those new releases on bluray instead of dvd.

I know i will.
 
K600 said:
Blu-Ray is out now. HD-DVD is out now. Interest in both formats is low, at best. Very few people actually know what Blu-Ray actually is.
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Well come on....how long have they been out now? A few months? Things take time to take off. ;)
 
lesman said:
Well come on....how long have they been out now? A few months? Things take time to take off. ;)
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I know that, but the sales of these players are hinged on things that still don't matter to the vast majority of consumers in the market.

DVD offered noticeable gains in size and visual quality, even on SDTV. HD-DVD/Blu-Ray offer advantages in size and visual quality, but you've got to have an HDTV to tell. I'm betting DVD will hold out a lot longer than some people here seem to think.

The best format doesn't always win.
 
K600 said:
Very few people actually know what Blu-Ray actually is.
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You dont think people will learn more about blu-ray in the days/months after PS3 drops in millions of homes?
 
Does anyone know why neither format has even 100 titles available for it? Lack of an installed user base. 1,000,000 players is that installed user base.
 
Bad_Boy said:
You dont think people will learn more about blu-ray in the days/months after PS3 drops in millions of homes?
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Of course they will, but it's still not going to be relevant until HDTV has at least 50% of the market and it's far short of that at the moment.

What do you think that Blu-Ray offers that will make DVD owners consider their collections obsolete? The more costly discs, the poor playback, or the features that don't apply to them?
 
K600 said:
Of course they will, but it's still not going to be relevant until HDTV has at least 50% of the market and it's far short of that at the moment.
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I was responding to your statement that many people dont know what blu-ray is. And I have a feeling that will change in the next 12 months, mainly due to the PS3's install base.

About prices you are arguing semantics, prices always go down eventually. Same happened for DVD. Prices of TV's will do the same. It may not happen overnight (no one is saying it will), but to say it wont happen at all....is well....iffy.
 
One of the formats is going to win before it overtakes DVD. PS3 is going to almost guarantee that format is Blu-Ray. DVD rentals didn't overtake VHS rentals until 2002.
 
I've seen many more ads for Blu-ray than HD-DVD. Is Microsoft not advertising HDDVD much?
 
UnlimitedMP said:
I've seen many more ads for Blu-ray than HD-DVD. Is Microsoft not advertising HDDVD much?
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The only one I have seen is at the end of "The Breakup" commercial where it barely manages to fit "also available on HD-DVD" into the commercial.
 
Bad_Boy said:
I was responding to your statement that many people dont know what blu-ray is. And I have a feeling that will change in the next 12 months, mainly due to the PS3's install base.
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Knowing != Caring

Bad_Boy said:
About prices you are arguing semantics, prices always go down eventually. Same happened for DVD. Prices of TV's will do the same. It may not happen overnight (no one is saying it will), but to say it wont happen at all....is well....iffy.
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Where did I ever say prices wouldn't come down?
 
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