MikeB on 08 June 2007
@ Golvellius
You say there is consumer demand for a Blu-ray add-on? Err... how do you think it would sell if MS released one right now? Would you buy one? I think the sales numbers of stand-alone BR players speak for themselves.
No, I won't buy such a device since I already have a PS3, otherwise I would be interested yet saddened if the drive wasn't internal and used for games.
Blu-Ray players were really expensive before the PS3's release, some people waited for the cheaper PS3 to arrive. It happens to double as one of the best Blu-Ray movie players on the market.
People who want to play PS3 games but aren't interested in high definition movies are forced to buy a Blu-ray drive that they do not need because a common DVD drive would be sufficient for games. (I know Sony-affine developers are claiming the opposite, but what else should they do? Telling people that Blu-ray is not necessary at all for their game wouldn't be very smart.)
Well launch games like Motorstorm, Resistance and Oblivion (the three games I bought) all use well beyond the storage capacity of DVDs. I don't have to read about what developers have to say, I can figure this one out myself.
Nevertheless the DVD Forum has voted HD DVD to be the high definition successor of the standard DVD.
The DVD Consortium as it was originally called included the following founding members:
* Hitachi, Ltd. Blu-Ray
* Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. Blu-Ray
* Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Blu-Ray
* Pioneer Electronic Corporation Blu-Ray
* Royal Philips Electronics N.V. Blu-Ray
* Sony Corporation Blu-Ray
* Thomson Blu-Ray
* Time Warner Inc. Supporting Both formats non-exclusively
* Toshiba Corporation HD DVD
* Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) Blu-Ray (Blu-Ray consortium, technology contributor, not member of the the board of directors)
Amongst the companies mentioned above Blu-Ray board members include companies like Apple, Dell, LG, Samsung, Sharp, TDK, Sun Microsystems, etc.
