@ naznatips

I don't think the purpose of this discussion is to convince you to get a high definition player to compliment your HDTV. Sure some PS2 games are great, I never owned a PS2 myself, but I bought Ape Escape 2, Jak 3 and God of War and they look and play well!

It's really all down to personal preferences. Do you want to spend more on higher quality or not? With the PS3 you get a Blu-Ray player included, I see this as an advantage, IMO it would not have made much sense to leave out Blu-Ray movie playback when adding a Blu-Ray drive.

DVDs upscaled are far less detailed than native 1080p movie content, Blu-Ray downscaled to 720p also looks miles more detailed than 480p upscaled to 720p. DVD upscaled vs Blu-Ray downscaled:

Upscaled 480p => 720p (XBox 360, one of the worst upscaling DVD players)

http://members.shaw.ca/VTXtreme/XBOXIA2.jpg

480p DVD, before PS3 DVD upscaling update, it should have looked like this:
http://members.shaw.ca/VTXtreme/PS3IASD1.jpg

Upscaled 480p => 720p (normal dedicated DVD upscaling player)

http://members.shaw.ca/VTXtreme/iceageSD.jpg

Downscaled 1080p => 720p (Blu-Ray)

http://members.shaw.ca/VTXtreme/iceageBR.jpg

IMO, for games high definition is more useful than with regard to movies as the content is interactive and you'll have a further line of sight, being able to better distinguish enemies further away.

Comparison (Ratchet and Clank series):

PS3:

Screenshots:

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/819/819456/imgs_1.html

PS2:

http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/655/655717/imgs_1.html

PS3 videos:

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=66126 (stops at 2/3 of the footage, but the Boss battle can be viewed at the following link below)
http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=66064

As I have a choice I prefer Blu-Ray movies over DVDs and I prefer to get the PS3 version of Ratchet and Clank instead of the PS2 versions.

Wow

Why do sony fans always try and peddle their favorite system when anyone says something bad about the PS3? I almost never see Wii or 360 fans start listing a mass number of features, constanly mentioning how much of a bargain it is, especially this fervently.

I just really think that this is no better than spam, and should be dealt with as such

sieanr said: Wow Why do sony fans always try and peddle their favorite system when anyone says something bad about the PS3? I almost never see Wii or 360 fans start listing a mass number of features, constanly mentioning how much of a bargain it is, especially this fervently. I just really think that this is no better than spam, and should be dealt with as such

 cause wii/360 fans argue with bs made up info.

Really, What "made up info" can you point me to?

Blue3 said: sieanr said: Wow Why do sony fans always try and peddle their favorite system when anyone says something bad about the PS3? I almost never see Wii or 360 fans start listing a mass number of features, constanly mentioning how much of a bargain it is, especially this fervently. I just really think that this is no better than spam, and should be dealt with as such cause wii/360 fans argue with bs made up info.

You want to site that, or are you just being a jerk again?  I know that fanboys of any side can become ridiculous, but find me a post with made up Nintendo fanboy stuff.  Cause I can pick you out a post of Sony "exclusives" from a few days ago that had quite a lot of said "bs made up info."

@ sieanr

Why can't you at least stay on topic instead of diverting to insults?

I have been a moderator at several websites, IMO postings like yours add nothing to discussions and often results into flamewars. Why not come up with arguments and try to add informative and insightful information?

Back on topic...

For many years many people heavily upgraded their PC hardware (some graphic cards alone costs as much as a PS3) to have their games and videos be shown in high definition resolutions. HDTVs finally offer similar resolutions as compared to computer monitors. So I think there's surely a place in this world for high definition content.

Personally I think the reason why Microsoft is behind HD DVD is mainly to confuse consumers and prolong the battle between Blu-Ray and HD DVD standards, knowing well that HD DVD is going to lose eventually. IMO this is at the cost of most consumers who rather prefer clarity. If the battle for the high definition format would have been more democratic there wouldn't have been a format war, it would be Blu-Ray and nothing else.

IMO one of the most severe cases of misinformation is that Microsoft pretends that they are giving people a choice between Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Yet they only offer HD DVD as an option, sure they can later release an external Blu-Ray drive (likewise an external HD DVD drive or maybe even a firmware update [backward compatibility, like some Blu-Ray players will allow] could allow the same with regard to the PS3), but the HD DVD drive they currently offer to consumers cannot even be used to benefit games...

MikeB said: Personally I think the reason why Microsoft is behind HD DVD is mainly to confuse consumers and prolong the battle between Blu-Ray and HD DVD standards, knowing well that HD DVD is going to lose eventually. IMO this is at the cost of most consumers who rather prefer clarity. If the battle for the high definition format would have been more democratic there wouldn't have been a format war, it would be Blu-Ray and nothing else.

 Br wining fast and going after dvd would hurt 360 while strengthen PS3!

MS is just screwing over their customers and a whole industry, nothing new for them. 

  

MikeB said: Personally I think the reason why Microsoft is behind HD DVD is mainly to confuse consumers and prolong the battle between Blu-Ray and HD DVD standards, knowing well that HD DVD is going to lose eventually. IMO this is at the cost of most consumers who rather prefer clarity. If the battle for the high definition format would have been more democratic there wouldn't have been a format war, it would be Blu-Ray and nothing else. IMO one of the most severe cases of misinformation is that Microsoft pretends that they are giving people a choice between Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Yet they only offer HD DVD as an option, sure they can later release an external Blu-Ray drive (likewise an external HD DVD drive or maybe even a firmware update [backward compatibility, like some Blu-Ray players will allow] could allow the same with regard to the PS3), but the HD DVD drive they currently offer to consumers cannot even be used to benefit games...

MS do not pretend to give consumers the choice between Blu-ray and HD DVD. They said they consider HD DVD the superior format which is why they are offering it for their customers' benefit. However, they do give consumers the choice between HD DVD and not upgrading at all. Sony forces consumers to upgrade to Blu-ray even if they just want to play games and don't care about movies. Why is it a bad thing that the Xbox 360 cannot use HD DVDs for games? This is actually a good thing because otherwise the HD DVD drive couldn't be optional and MS would have to force their customers to pay for technology that they might not want at all.

I agree that HD DVD seems to be just a means for MS to sabotage Sony's ambitions of establishing the new standard for optical media rather than something that they would really like to succeed, but taken that into account HD DVD is probably doing better than both Toshiba and MS might have even dreamt of, also given the fact that all HD DVD players have been bought willingly by consumers, unlike at least half of the sold Blu-ray players which were forced upon their current owners.

Why would there be "just Blu-ray and nothing else if the battle for the high definition format would have been more democratic"? The official DVD successor is HD DVD, not Blu-ray. The point is that Blu-ray is surviving only because the hardware is forced upon the consumers - which is the opposite of "democratic" in my book. If it had not been for the PS3, Blu-ray would surely be dead by now.

@ Golvellius

Regarding Blu-Ray:

"Microsoft VP Peter Moore was quoted at CES saying that Xbox 360 has the flexibility to adapt to consumers’ needs, allowing Microsoft to add features as consumers demand them."

There is consumer demand for a Blu-Ray add-on, or better yet considering it's also Microsoft's technology being used a Blu-Ray drive offering full HD DVD backwards compatibility (currently planned HD DVD compatible Blu-Ray drives won't support additional HD DVD features other than movie playback, they use the same codecs).

IMO the Blu-Ray drive will be mainly beneficial to PS3 games. Nobody is pressuring people to buy Blu-Ray movies, that's an option (I'm very happy with) as the PS3 does feature movie playback support.



Not really, most companies which were part of the DVD consortium are part of the Blu-Ray consortium.