I believe they very much like the word, "money."

Profit, would be my answer.

Both PS3 and Blu-ray were equally improtant to Sony. If not for PS3 Blu-ray would have failed. If not for Blu-ray PS3 would have failed. Sony banked the stability of the company on both of these products, and if one of them failed the other was going down the tube, and the Sony empire would be right behind them both. Had Sony left the PS3 woithout a Blu-ray player, the product would mean nothing to them. Ken Kuteragi had already priced the system out of reach without the addition of Blu-ray. Had Sony launched the PS3 with DVD it would have still seen a $599 price tag at launch with a 50 to 100 dollar lose per console, instead of 260 to 310. In this outcome they would have had to go after the Blu-ray market the same way Toshiba was going after the HD-DVD market.

If Sony had Blu-ray and PS3 seperate, they would have been facing HD-DVD as Sony only. They would have had to sell PS3 and Blu-ray players at massive losses. PS3 would have hit profitability a little bit quicker, but even if they won the HD format war, Blu-ray would have been a money sink for years to come. They would never be able to sell players at some rediculous price like $179 at 400 - 500 dollar losses, and then when Toshiba drops out they can not bump prices to $499 - 599.

Had the PS3 been Blu-rayless we could pretty much forget about making the fans happy. Say they did make the PS3 $399 at launch. PS3 sells better than the Wii and 360, and all the exclusive games never go Multiplatform. Sony does not give a crap about the PS3, it sells fine, and the future has no worries. Forget about Playstation Blog, Forget about In Game XMB, Forget about Home, Forget the Playstation Store, Forget the Video Download service. NON of the great things about PS3 would have become a reality. PSN would have been a service for Blu-ray players only, and would have featured movies and music only. Sony would have never given people custom soundtracks, and the same we will one day have this awsome thing, but it never comes mentality would be there.

So please get off the Sony tried to screw Playstation fans and shove Blu-ray and a high price down their thoats. I stated above the great reality it would be today had they not went the way they did. Sure everyone would be happy, the PS3 could be at $299 by now, and all the games that are now on 360 would have never made it there. That sounds fun and all, but knowing how it has turned out, if I got sucked back in time and that happened, I would never buy a PS3. I would neverget an HDTV, and I just go pick up a Slim PS2, and see what happens in the next generation.

I believe the same of you, at the beginning of the war, Sony wanted to take advantage of their fan base and wanted to kill 2 birds with one shot, they thought that they could have a succesful console and to make a succesful Blu-Ray putting high prices. Now they are conscious of their mistakes in the gaming division and they are trying to make it up.

I think Sony's decision to include blu-ray was largely due to them wanting to continue the strategy/tradition they've used in the past, by introducing a new larger format to replace the old with each new console - It worked well for them in the past. People shovel the trojan horse idea around way too much I think, and I really believe it wasn't their main motivating factor here.

I don't think that anyone can argue that CD format was a major advantage when the PS1 entered the industry against Nintendo64. And DVD may have had a larger role than most of us realize in keeping PS2 games from going multi-platform to the cheaper gamecube last generation. (for example gamecube didn't get a GTA game)

That's great that you think that. Personally, I'm a little glad that they did this.

I spent $500 on my XBox360 with a 20 GB HDD and a wifi adapter. I could play DVDs on it but the DVD drive was about a million dB too loud. I also had to check to make sure any original XBox games I bought were compatible before buying them.

I paid $500 for my PS3 with a 60 GB HDD, built in wifi, built in card adapters, and it plays Blurays. It also does a great job upscaling DVDs. It's also pretty quiet for movies. It also plays every PS2 game I've bought flawlessly. No need to check for compatibility. And Bluray movies are fabulous. Ratatouille made me a believer in Bluray (that, and the terrible job WB did with The Departed's DVD transfer).

So you tell me. Is Sony trying to screw me over? Obviously things have changed a little now (XBox360 price drops, Sony taking out backwards compatibility), but I think I got an awesome deal.

Hate to tell you this but,DVD offers HUGE improvements over CD,How ever Blue Ray does not offer big improvememts over DVD!

How?

Sure it has cool HD  but its only effective if you have a huge 30 inch HD TV,infact a upscaled DVD and blue ray look the same,Therefore Blueray is not very effective nor do many people want it,I guarantee you if Blue Ray was not built into the PS3 that HD-DVD would of won the format war.

Did you mean to say VHS instead of CD?  And why did you say this in response to his post when his post clearly deals specifically with storage space, and not on movie quality?

I think it was a good idea :\