Branko2166 said: Hephaestos said: if that 3.8 million BR is worldwide, that kinda sucks.... 3.8 million discs in a quarter with 10M PS3 and like 2M others that means people buy those at a rate of 1.3 BR per year... IMHO BR is a still born that will be on life support for the better part of a decade before it is relayed. There were many reasons to get a DVD player: video quality, sound, extra features, medium durability, portability, compatibility (laptops and PC), shelf space! There are less reason to get a BR: HD video, HD sound, more extras.... (I, like a lot of people only care about deleted scenes). But there are also reasons not to get one: 2x the price of DVDs and price for a HD TV, BR player, HD sound system... and HDCP incompatibility problems. Many of your arguments could have been used back in the the days of VHS as well. Undoubtedly VHS was far cheaper and dvds were more expensive however over time prices come down and the people will always choose higher quality as long as it becomes affordable.

 

 Well the only similarity with VHS is that the price of films was lower too when DVD came our, but you didn't have to upgrade your home theater to get a boost from the DVD player...

It's true that I would not say the same thing if BR was $100 ... but that ain't happening any time soon, and the longer the thing stays as an expensive item, the less people will go for it once it is cheaper. Kind of like the laserdisc was to VHS: better than, but just not enough.

It does have BC working for it, but then the new tech that will apear in 6 years will have that too... 

I think the issue is more price for movies period. Games are starting to win over the entertainment crowd and movies are becoming less relevant in terms of a medium for entertainment. Thank the Wii for that one. But, 360 and PS3 for the larger open-world games like GTA IV.

Think about it...

$60 CDN for GTA IV and over 50+ hours of entertainment that you can start over and constantly experience and control something different...

or

About $35 CDN for a 2 hour blu-ray movie that you watch and know most everything about it... Not to mention most people that buy it, already saw it in the theatre.

Movie prices will need to drop if they want to retain market share.

wow i think this analyst really stumbled on something... NOT! tell us something we dont know. tell me sony doesnt have it under control when they created the DVD market with the ps2. you honestly dont think they can do it again considering they have already beat out the competition?

sailordude said: wow i think this analyst really stumbled on something... NOT! tell us something we dont know. tell me sony doesnt have it under control when they created the DVD market with the ps2. you honestly dont think they can do it again considering they have already beat out the competition?

If by "created the DVD market", you really mean "DVD had already sold 14 million DVD players in the USA alone when the PS2 released", then I totally agree.

Revisionist history... Gotta love it. 

BR is being picked up more quickly then DVD was. The DVD market is massive. Go have a look at dvd sales and compare them to games sales. I think you'll be surprised how much larger the DVD market is in terms of sales.

Stupid. If someone has a PS3 and a HDTV, if the blu-ray and the DVD are the same price, they'll get the blu-ray. If they just pirate the DVD, they wouldn't have bought either. Personally, I have Netflix so there's no reason to not get the blu-ray version. The only problem for the movie studios is that blu-ray isn't a significant enough improvement over DVD that people will repurchase movies they own on DVD. Of course, that's not a complaint that will get much sympathy from anyone.

Hmmm, something about that seems to contradict the notion that people aren't getting the PS3 for games.

BMaker11 said: Ok....but this "crutch" helped it beat out HD DVD

But thats not really worth it if it cost billions to develop, sacrificed your gaming dominance and cost hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes because PS3 inclusion wasn't enough for straight-out victory now is it?

Reasonable said: I still think BR players will take over simply because they will be able to play BR and DVD (and upscale too) and so long as the price comes down you simply get more choice. Plus all the studios have to do is make the DVD versions 'skinny' and shove best extras on BR versions to encourage the film fans to go BR with new purchases while keeping existing DVDs.

Why on earth would studios do that?  The primary reason for a new DVD market (the high-definition) market was to increase the ability of manufacturors to make money.  Studios rely on the physical sale of discs.  What possible reason could they have to discourage people from buying DVD's at a time when Blu-Ray players, by all accounts only a small evolution over DVD players, are beyond the price most consumers can afford, in the midst of an economic slowdown?

 

starcraft said: BMaker11 said: Ok....but this "crutch" helped it beat out HD DVD But thats not really worth it if it cost billions to develop, sacrificed your gaming dominance and cost hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes because PS3 inclusion wasn't enough for straight-out victory now is it?

 Actually, I think it is worth it, because with a Blu-ray victory, some of the profits made on each disc sold will go to Sony. And since the movie market is WAY bigger than the gaming market, that equates to $$$$$. More than enough to recoup any development costs, and seeing as the PS3 production cost has already been halved in only a year, it easy to come to the conclusion that the hardware itsself will become profitable soon (They DID just release an article this week saying how it may be profitable by August). And gaming dominance wasn't sacrificed, imo. The PS3 still has great games on the platform, just that some went multiplatform, but with it's rising popularity, and the 360 seeming to peak, your perceived "sacrifice of gaming dominance" becomes negligible if they come out on top again, right? Not saying that because of BR, the PS3 will mystically outsell the Wii, but, well, when BR becomes mainstream like DVD along with the PS3 being at a prime price point....you just may see the Wii get beat out.

Optimistically, that won't be for a while from now, though