AIAS' Olin: Blu-ray Not Long-Term Advantage For PS3

 Is the console war reaching a turning point? The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, for one thing, are reaching graphical parity, while software exclusivity, formerly a great differentiator, is becoming more and more rare.

Speaking to Gamasutra recently, Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences president Joseph Olin -- whose organization puts together the DICE conference and Interactive Achievement Awards yearly -- pegs another console advantage that might lose its relevance as the space evolves.

"I look at Blu-ray being the obvious short-term differentiator, but if everything goes to digital download -- and over time, it will -- then the Blu-ray device no longer has the same competitive advantage, or the benefit is not as strong as the feature is," says Olin.

But how long will it take for digital distro to be a large enough force in the space that it blunts the advantage of a disc player, and how long will the growth of downloadable games keep accelerating?

"Perhaps maybe five years? Maybe seven years? I think the challenge with digital distribution is more because of piped-to-the-home bandwidth than the technology within the systems," says Olin.

"Digital copyright issues have been resolved, largely. The cable companies have certainly shown that you can digitally encrypt and prevent theft of intellectual property over broadband. If they can do it, certainly our industry can do it."

Despite any remaining gating issues, says Olin, the current generation is becoming more and more accustomed to content delivery on demand, and that trend will drive the games space as well.

But, of course, the PS3 has other movie-centric advantages beyond the obvious. Olin concedes that, in his opinion, conventional DVDs running through the PlayStation 3 look better than the competitive players such as on the Xbox 360.

"The PS3 has a nice upscaling chipset that really does make a standard-definition DVD look a little bit crisper and better," he says. "Is that enough to get you to buy one [console] versus the other, as opposed to someone who is buying it for a game franchise?"

The AIAS president concluded of the increasingly homogeneous nature of the next-gen war: "Over time, I think you've always seen software drive hardware selections... if [the game franchises are] all available on everything, it's sort of hard to know."

Link here.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19942

 Exactly what I was thinking...LOL

What an asshole ...

... amazing.

Yes, VOD will be mainstream in ... 7 years !!!

But, before this, the BR player inside the PS3 console will continue to push it in NA. This is why people accept to pay the higher price of the PS3.
Just check NPD US sales in case you dont believe VGC
(and when you think we are not even in the xmas period ...)

Confirmed, Joseph Olin is a moron.

Sometimes i think we, the average forumers, are more informed and able to create more educated analysis than some analysts out there lol.

He's also not factoring in the bandwidth caps that broadband providers are slowly adding in. I know Comcast is rumored to be a 230 or 250 Gig monthly cap, but other providers aren't as generous. If caps do become mainstream, the demand for Blu-ray should increase.

Same Here.

Digital distribution won't kick in during this generation strongly enough to kill physical distribution. We should already be seeing the marks if there was to be any chance. No, normal games will stay on physical media at least for this generation unless we move to smaller - that is, more casual - games.

Anyway, I'll stick to physical distribution until the very end - or until there's absolutely no sense in using buying discs.

Oh, and Xbox 360 doesn't even have a HDD by default. Also, net speeds are still too slow for big games (that's for all platforms).

IF digital downloads are the way to go ...

Thats a big IF .

What I see is that each and every time that theres a disc-download option available most consumers prefer the disc one.

Some even dont buy games they like as Siren:Blood Curse just because they cant get hold of the disc version yet.