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Forums - Gaming Discussion - "Sony risks falling out of console battle"

Jack on 23 February 2007

Blip said: I can't remember where I saw it - it might have even been a link from this forum, but haven't a few analysts dismissed the claims that Blu-Ray is pulling ahead? Supposedly the numbers used by those making the claims were skewed by the fact that the PS3 contains coupons for 20 or 30% off a Blu-Ray movie. It was surmised that once the launch coupons have all been used (in Dec or Jan), that the Blu-Ray number will come back in-line with HD. I will not pretend to not be a Nintendo fanboy (or fan-old-man), in that I am hoping that they do re-claim their rightful place at number one from a loyalty perspective. But ultimately, as long as they exist and I can play new versions of Mario I do not care. I am too old and busy to spend every waking moment worrying about who is number one. That said, anyone who thinks that Sony is guaranteed to maintain the number one spot just because they are Sony has obviously not been around, or at an age to notice the fall of Atari or the decline of Nintendo. I can assure you that none of us who spent years glued in front of our old console televisions back in the late 70's or early 80's playing 2600 games would have ever envisioned that Atari would be a non-player in the console market. It does not matter if the graphics are better, or who's name is on the box - nothing is guaranteed no matter how bad you want it.
Blu-ray is currently selling 2:1 so it does not matter what analysts say facts are facts. from dvd empire
100 units to every 98.71 units of HD DVD — since the inception of both formats, according to First Alert data.
Blu-ray Tips Scales The reason Blu-ray will not slow down is because they are releasing more titles faster already this year 39 titles to 19 titles. The main reason Sony is increasing their releases and Universal(only HD-DVD exclusive studio) has slowed down abit.



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Blip on 23 February 2007

Whatever. I am not convinced either will win. I think what we have here is the next laser disc. Even the biggest movie and or HD aficionados I know have no interest in either format - it is too soon. I know some people who clinged to their VHS collection until the last few years. I think people are crazy to use their game consoles as movie players. It is probably one of the reasons Sony sold so many PS2's - people wearing their consoles out for dvd use. Most PS2'ers I know have owned many and they all played movies in them. I cannot imagine risking a $600 console for movie viewing.



sieanr on 23 February 2007

I cant believe people here are dumb enough to think washimi or whatever his name is is for real... He's a troll, and you're providing him lulz BTW: It's hysterical that you say BLUE-RAY and then have a link that spells blu-ray properly



Leo-j said: If a dvd for a pc game holds what? Crysis at 3000p or something, why in the world cant a blu-ray disc do the same?

ssj12 said: Player specific decoders are nothing more than specialized GPUs. Gran Turismo is the trust driving simulator of them all. 

"Why do they call it the xbox 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away" 

staticneuron on 23 February 2007

HappySqurriel said: washimul, did you even understand what I was getting at with my Blu-Ray to UMD comparison? After 3 months people said that UMD was a great success because of how well it sold and it failed ... Blu-Ray has existed for (about) 3 months ... This time next year, if Blu-Ray is still dominant, you can claim that HD-DVD is dead; until then there is so much that can happen that HD-DVD can still come out on top. just like the CELL which is a minimum of 10x powerful as any processor in the market.........including the 113 million dollar massively watered down XENON. How much does Sony pay you for this BS? A rough way to look at processor performance is that a processor that two processors built to meet similar requirements, using the same process, will have similar performance. The Cell may be more powerful than the Xenon, but it is unlikely that it is more than twice as powerful. At the same time, I'm positive that the newest Quad-Core Intel and AMD processors are more powerful than the Cell (and much easier to develop for)
Not really because UMD's are totally proprietary. BR is not. When was the last time you saw home UMD players? UMD burners? UMD computer drives? Blank UMD's on shelves? UMD as a movie format failed..... because it was expensive and idiotic. Where as blu ray and HD DVD have more use. Personally the Best use is storage and in that instance blu ray wins out. I have seen movies on both and I dare anyone to Spot a difference in movies like superman returns or the last samurai. If you can't don't feel bad because the format has nothing to do with quality it is more or less the space and the encodes. Yes the cell is more powerful that the latest intel or amd but for what? The cell is a SIMD that lends itself better to vertex processing. Which makes it a beast for computational simulations but depending on the design of the cell chip in question certain chips may lack in integer processing. Because VIDEO GAMES are not GENERAL PURPOSE programs as quite a few american devs and brilliant web journalists would have you believe, over time the PS3 just might pull off some amazing things later on in its life. But I could rant about that for a while. In another article I posted Sony's income status. Sony Sales: $68.58 billion Profits: $1.08 billion Assets: $100.34 billion Sony is not going anywhere. The gaming division would have to take Huge losses (that were not planned for, of course) before you see sony closing down shop.



Games make me happy! PSN ID: Staticneuron Gamertag: Staticneuron Wii Code: Static Wii - 3055 0871 5802 1723

HappySqurriel on 23 February 2007

staticneuron said: Not really because UMD's are totally proprietary. BR is not. When was the last time you saw home UMD players? UMD burners? UMD computer drives? Blank UMD's on shelves? UMD as a movie format failed..... because it was expensive and idiotic. Where as blu ray and HD DVD have more use. Personally the Best use is storage and in that instance blu ray wins out. I have seen movies on both and I dare anyone to Spot a difference in movies like superman returns or the last samurai. If you can't don't feel bad because the format has nothing to do with quality it is more or less the space and the encodes. Yes the cell is more powerful that the latest intel or amd but for what? The cell is a SIMD that lends itself better to vertex processing. Which makes it a beast for computational simulations but depending on the design of the cell chip in question certain chips may lack in integer processing. Because VIDEO GAMES are not GENERAL PURPOSE programs as quite a few american devs and brilliant web journalists would have you believe, over time the PS3 just might pull off some amazing things later on in its life. But I could rant about that for a while. In another article I posted Sony's income status. Sony Sales: $68.58 billion Profits: $1.08 billion Assets: $100.34 billion Sony is not going anywhere. The gaming division would have to take Huge losses (that were not planned for, of course) before you see sony closing down shop.
I wasn't saying that Blu-Ray was going to become a failed format, but it is way too early to say that it has "won" anything. Currently, Blu-Ray has seen a massive sales spike as everyone who bought a PS3 has picked up a couple of movies to try out their "Blu-Ray" player; a similar behavior (I would expect) happened with the PSP. Now, most of these people will not be buying Blu-Ray movies on a regular basis and (as more games come out) will probably be using their PS3 as a videogame system. Over the next year movie collectors and the general public will be either buying HD-DVD players or Blu-Ray players and it could go either way. People could choose HD-DVD players because it is the least expensive way to have HD movies, or they could choose Blu-Ray because they believe the PS3 will force the format war to be over. In January 2008 we will either have a victor or it will be clear that dual format players will be the "winners".



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Erik Aston on 23 February 2007

I think the original article, ridiculous as it is, is just saying Sony could "fall out of the battle", not that they might close up shop. MS and Ninty were never IN the battle last gen, and they're both doing fine right now. Well, MS is about to be doing fine... I think what is likely for Sony is some "corporate reorganization," or whatever they call canning the higher-ups these days. There is no division where Sony seems to be entirely on top of things right now. A lot of divisions with sporadic profits, and a couple with sustained profits... And a SCEA division eating through much of those profits. They're a company with a great history, and I think it is just a matter of time before they have another product like Walkman or PlayStation, but right now its hard for me to believe Blu-Ray is that product, and its hard for me to believe that they find that product with their current management...



"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."

Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.

staticneuron on 23 February 2007

HappySqurriel said: I wasn't saying that Blu-Ray was going to become a failed format, but it is way too early to say that it has "won" anything. Currently, Blu-Ray has seen a massive sales spike as everyone who bought a PS3 has picked up a couple of movies to try out their "Blu-Ray" player; a similar behavior (I would expect) happened with the PSP. Now, most of these people will not be buying Blu-Ray movies on a regular basis and (as more games come out) will probably be using their PS3 as a videogame system. Over the next year movie collectors and the general public will be either buying HD-DVD players or Blu-Ray players and it could go either way. People could choose HD-DVD players because it is the least expensive way to have HD movies, or they could choose Blu-Ray because they believe the PS3 will force the format war to be over. In January 2008 we will either have a victor or it will be clear that dual format players will be the "winners".
Well I was trying to point out how this wasn't relevant. UMD's recieved a boost but nowhere near the level that blu ray is selling. Yeah you can get a standalone hd dvd player for $400 and Blu ray for $500 but the situation has changed drastically. People aren't going to go and buy whats cheaper. They are going to need a reason. http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html As you can see from these list Blu ray releases far outnumber the HD DVD ones. THe studio support is starting to show its' muscle (obviously planned) and if you have even take a quick gander at any home video enthusiast site you would have seen many posts about die hard HD DVD fans purchasing Blu ray players. Like I was saying the UMD was a novelty. Offered no new promises. The quality was not hd, you can only play it on a psp and as for storage it couldn't beat a DVD. Blu ray has been on the mind of AV enthusiasts and has won over converts. With the PS3 pushing quite a few owners to get a 1080p TV in some shape or form I highly doubt the blu ray is just a fad.



Games make me happy! PSN ID: Staticneuron Gamertag: Staticneuron Wii Code: Static Wii - 3055 0871 5802 1723

Diomedes1976 on 23 February 2007

Erik Aston said: I think the original article, ridiculous as it is, is just saying Sony could "fall out of the battle", not that they might close up shop. MS and Ninty were never IN the battle last gen, and they're both doing fine right now. Well, MS is about to be doing fine... I think what is likely for Sony is some "corporate reorganization," or whatever they call canning the higher-ups these days. There is no division where Sony seems to be entirely on top of things right now. A lot of divisions with sporadic profits, and a couple with sustained profits... And a SCEA division eating through much of those profits. They're a company with a great history, and I think it is just a matter of time before they have another product like Walkman or PlayStation, but right now its hard for me to believe Blu-Ray is that product, and its hard for me to believe that they find that product with their current management...
Blu Ray isnt a Sony product as UMD and Beta .Blu Ray has a complete association of enterprises behind it .UMDs were only playable on PSP ,Beta was only manufactured by Sony ....in this Blu-HDDVD thing the company that is alone is Toshiba and not Sony wich is in the Blu Ray Association . There are many divisions of Sony selling a lot and producing truly great products .Dont let the hate blind you ;Bravias are one of the most sold HD TVs ,CyberShot digital cameras are hight quality and selling really well ,Vaio computers are also of high quality ,Sony Ericson mobile phones are high quality and sell very well ,Sony Pictures is having great movies with success (Pursuit of Happiness ,Casino Royale ..) ....and the games sector has lost money in the last exercise but that will change soon ...only with the PS3 sales you have enormous amounts of money coming in ...until now PS3 were all losses as the developing costs and manufacturing cost didnt see any revenue ...now the revenue will come in a third way ;hardware sales ,software sales ,blu ray movies .... The only way for Sony dissappearing of this market would be doing way worse than the original Xbox .....somehow ,even if they dont win ,I dont see this happening .



Shameless on 08 May 2008
sieanr said:
I cant believe people here are dumb enough to think washimi or whatever his name is is for real... He's a troll, and you're providing him lulz BTW: It's hysterical that you say BLUE-RAY and then have a link that spells blu-ray properly

 Missing out a letter is hysterical?