I would say for launch only, it might have been wiser to remove Blu-ray capabilities only to lower its price. It took a while for Blu-ray to prove itself as a format. I guess Sony just wanted an extra selling point.

But if it was removed for launch, they shouldn't wait until like the PS3 slim released because that's too long. Maybe around when I got a PS3, which was an 80 GB at $399, they could have made it standard for all models then.

Yes, but it shouldn't have had the Cell, that was the real money eater.

**Great thread by the way!

"Good post. But I'm confused. Do you think Sony would have been better off without Blu Ray or no."

Thanks! Actually, I'm really not sure either! (But I get to an answer at the end of the it.) The only way for Blu-ray to have won is to have it in the PS3 at launch. But the war erased any big profits Sony was expecting to make - because, now with streaming, few need to buy the Blu-ray disk, where now the HD format should have been killing DVD sales. BR is not selling that much, because fewer people have blu-ray players than would be expected at this stage (because of the war). They missed the time when consumers would have bought a bunch of disk.

I think it's best summed up that the whole format war was a failure. It should not have happened - as many people, companies and producers lost out (including Sony). And it seems that one can hold Sony responsible for walking away from the talks and causing the 'HD Format War' to happen by refusing to compromise with last bit of negotiations. (Microsoft makes the AC-1 format used to capture many films before they downgrade it 1080P - it makes a logical choice to have they write the software of the HD format - and the majority of manufactures wanted it- but Sony refused and wanted manufacturing AND software control.)

Blu-ray is still not natively supported by Apple or Windows, and I think it is unlikely (but not impossible) that it will be in the next Xbox. It is like fighting over a city - but burning it down in the process - so all you win is a few houses and some rubble. Even Windows 8 will not support native DVD playing.

With increasing higher quality digital streaming being the norm, and ever increasing speed and data. I think disk are the way of the floppy.

If the PS3 would have launch with a DVD player, and at the same price as the Xbox 360, the world might look very different now. The PS2 was huge in market share, and Sony could have kept those consumers in the Playstation family. But they let in a big door open - and Microsoft walked in.  So I think having a high cost, with Blu-ray was ultimately bad for the Playstation legacy.  So my answer is No. (Now, a separate another discussion - if the Wii had decent 720p I might not have an Xbox 360.)

Yes BluRay is awesome
The only Problem the PS3 had was the architecture all those Noob Developers couldn't understand.
While we had Naughty Dog and co on this side we had all those "OMG PS3 ARCHITECTURE IS SO HARD AND THE 360 is better cause a monkey can understand it" guys on the other side.

If those Devs could have used the PS3 like Naughty Dog,Guerilla,Santa Monica Studios and so on they would have used the Power of the BluRay a lot more.
Maybe next Gen if Sony isn't that confident anymore in those Developers and helps them a little bit with changing the architecture while Microsoft is using the BluRay too without holding the PS4 that much back with its hardware we will finally see full use of the BluRay.

Yes, that was it's unique selling point. Without blu ray I believe PS3 sales would be a LOT less. Obviuosly I cannot prove this but it is what I believe. Without BR what would the PS3 have over the x360?

If a survey was carried out you would probably find quite a few people looking for a first or only console went for the PS3 just because of Blu Ray.

In terms of the economics of it I don't know. I think from a business point of view it is better to have sold more consoles because of BR than selling less without it.

The PS brand having strong sales and losing money is probably more important going forward than having the brand badge with weak sales and saving money.

Everything was overpriced in the PS3 lol This is from early 2010 and should give a rough idea of what the components cost at launch (PS3 cost about $850 to make at launch), hard to find the 2006-2007 break down of each components, Isupply deleted it or something? So I'm sure blu-ray was over $100 at the begining according to Isupply Sony was losing $250 for every console when the PS3 launched, lets completely take out the optical drive and assume that the Blu-ray player cost $150 at launch, that'd still be a $100 loss on every console for the PS3 when it first released. So even if they had a DVD player they'd still be losing over $100 at launched, they would just get out of the red quicker.

But it's hard to say now, the more PS3's sold the more sales for games, so it might of even out a little better by having Blu-ray.

Blu-Ray was not a better format than HD-DVD

But it won anyway for a few simple reasons

1) The HD-DVD on X360 was an additional $200 add-on expense
2) The Blu-Ray on PS3 was included in every model and much cheaper than stand-alone Blu-Ray players
3) Content

Sony owns a significant portfolio of Hollywood movie studios
Sony made deals with others like Warner Bros and Paramount for timed exclusive Blu-Ray only for their HD movie library

So ultimately it was about Content

It is always about Content... and for Games Blu-Ray hasn't really been that useful because it is much slower than DVD so to allow the game to load/run fast anyway they put the same data on multiple parts of the same disk. It also makes developers stupid about optimizing and not using good compression techniques which again help the games load faster.

Case in point

The massive game world of Skyrim on X360 fits on a single DVD Disk or it fits on the much larger Blu-Ray disk but runs more poorly.

I do like that Blu-Rays are extremely resilient and scratch resistant.

1.) I would say Blu-Ray would have helped more, the price impact wouldn't have been that significant, especially after a few years. If SONY had included the Blu-Ray player and priced it like they intended to if they hadn't included a Blu-Ray player I'm sure they would have profited off winning the format war.

2.) DVD wouldn't have cut it, there needed to be a HD format, if SONY hadn't pushed Blu-Ray then HD DVD would have been made anyway and would be in the same position that Blu-Ray is in now. Has SONY profited from Blu-Ray? If they have, then yes, I do think it was worth winning the format war. As for DVD's still being the most popular format, that's down to consumer ignorance and the lack of advertising for HD movies. I'm not a fan of digital movies, they're far too reliant on internet connection and they have the same bit-rate as DVD's. Just like games, I prefer digital copies, the better quality is just a bonus.

3.) I agree with you there, it isn't that important and it's being bottlenecked by all the other components. While it isn't that important, it's still a bonus.

Yeah the original isuppli page from 2006 is gone but other websites mention that it had RSX at 129 dollars and Cell at 89 dollars at launch. I think the Bluray drive in the PS3 cost Sony around 200 dollars at launch.