Why Blu-Ray is bad for the PS3

[GotchayeX]

The thread is hardly premised on the PS3 not being the best BluRay player. That's -one- reason why -one- potential outcome isn't that great for the PS3. Sure, technophiles who don't already have a PS3 or a high-end BluRay player might end up getting a PS3 if BluRay wins. These are exactly the sort of people that would have bought one already, though, and they're a tiny market to begin with. The more important point being made in that section is that casuals are going to opt for cheaper players.

The point of the thread is that the inclusion of BluRay was generally a bad idea as far as PS3 sales/profitability are concerned. That's not to say that it was necessarily a bad idea for Sony as a company, but it doesn't seem like the PS3 is going to derive that much benefit from a successful BluRay format, while an unsuccessful BluRay could drag it down significantly.

Enos, you've entirely missed the point. Obviously BluRay -can- be used to fit more data on to a single disc. No one's arguing that, and that's an absurd strawman to attack.

When we talk about BluRay being 'necessary' for gaming, we mean that the extra space allowed by BluRay makes games so much more compelling that they're simply head and shoulders above the competition. Sales numbers seem to show that, in fact, they're not. Gamers are not actually convinced that all that extra space makes games appreciably better, and many seem to have noticed that, in fact, PS3 games are often worse than 360 versions of the same games, which isn't helpful when many of the most popular games are multiplatform.

Similarly, one could argue that supercomputers are 'necessary' for gaming because you can have better physics simulations. That's nice and all, but no one cares, or at least no one cares enough to pay significantly more for it. The sense of 'necessary' at work here is literal - most games have to need it in order to be well-received.