SONY lost 3.31 Billion on initial PS3 costs; May never see that money back.

[theRepublic]

Sullla said:

tombi123 said: 

I am 99% sure Blu- Ray will take off like DVD. With all the film industry behind Blu-Ray, it doesn't matter whether the general public want it or not. Blu-Ray will get forced on the consumers. In a couple of years Blu-Ray players will hit mass market point. Film companies will start to release their films on Blu-Ray first, then on DVD later. As Blu-Ray player sales rise, film companies will forget about DVD's all together.

See, I disagree with this. It's based on an overly materialistic (almost quasi-Marxist) view of how markets work. I don't believe that people are blind, gullible fools who can be easily controlled by giant corporations (at least, not all of the time!) I think that people largely act as rational consumers in free markets, spending their money on things that they genuinely want. That's not to say they spend money on things that they NEED, per se, but that they spend it on things they truly do want. And people aren't as foolish as many would like to believe.

For example, DVDs didn't take off because movie companies successfully gulled people into buying them. They succeeded because the technology was vastly superior to the old formats, and offered advantages that anyone could see. ipods/MP3s succeeded for the same reason, even though the actual audio quality was lower than with CDs. Perhaps Blu Ray will prove to be just as successful; it's impossible to say at the moment. If Blu Ray suceeds, it will be due to a genuine desire on the part of consumers to upgrade to better picture and sound quality. It will not come about simply because the film companies forced it on the market. History is littered with many different products that corporations tried to force onto the public, and were rejected by consumers because they didn't meet their wants.

Agreed.

I would argue that quality has little to do with the reasons that cassettes beat records, CDs beat cassettes, MP3s beat CDs, and DVDs beat VHS.  In fact, MP3 players generally have lower quality sound than CDs.

What all of these winning formats have in common is convienence.  Portability and ease of use have increased with each format change.  Generally there is an increase in quality, but that is not the driving factor.

I don't believe that BluRay offers enough advantages over DVDs.  Sure you can fit a few more episodes or bonus features onto the disc, but the step up to the new TV and new disc player is pretty steep for a lot of people.

Earlier someone mentioned the switch to digital broadcasts in the US as a reason people will switch to HDTVs.  If your TV is hooked up to cable or satelite, the change will not affect your TV.  Only if you get your TV from bunny-ears (an antenae) will the change affect you.  Somehow, I don't think that people still getting their TV this way are in the market for a HDTV.