Seious, the difference is like the biggest visual difference ever seen between formats. Blu-Ray is exceeding some expectations and because of your post its obvious you haven't watched a Blu-Ray on a 32" LCD with Dolby 7.1 surround sound. If you had, I guarantee you wouldnt say those things.

Really this is complete nonsense. DVD -> BluRay is not even a step compared to the giant leap from VHS to DVD. BluRay is nice, but it doesn't add a lot to the average consumer. I can guarantee you that the average consumer doesn't really sees the difference between BR and DVD. They did see a huge difference from VHS to DVD: High quality video (no stripes etc), no rewinding of tapes, start at any chapter, multiple subtitles/audio possibilities (great for Disney movies), no quality loss over the years, no longer these massive, ugly tapes you have to store. In short: BIG difference. DVD -> BluRay: Higher resolution, better sound. But only if you have top notch TV+Sound system. In short: Not so much difference, especially not for most people with average eloctronics.

Hmm...do you guys see them reestablishing the PS3, say maybe a PS3 lite?

...one thing the article touched on that I find interesting is that they feel that Sony should be focused as a software company. With the IP's they have they surely would be able to make a profit on other platforms like Sega is finally starting to do.

Thing is...I can't picture the TV market without a Sony brand. Just based on longevity that Brand > Playstation brand.

Whatever they do this is setting Stringer up as the fall guy...

 I have a 42inch HD plasma tv with a panasonic SC BT 100 Blu-Ray home cinema kit. In total that cost me nearly £2500 ($5000). I work in the media industry so will naturally buy any gadgets that come out, i love them. I notice the difference because i have spent a fortune on it so trick myself into believing it is a big difference. However when i have friends or my girlfriend over and show them say Transformers or Dark Knight etc.. they are like cool! But then they will say "i dont really see the difference". If they cant see the difference on a top end home set-up how will they see one on a bog standard one like the PS3 on a normal tv? They obviously wont. The reality is to me i think it is money well spent because i love films, but the average guy on the street will not be spending best part of $5000 to see a tiny bit of difference. The ironic thing is people i have had round think the old dvds ive got look better and that is just them being upscaled. The reality is we have been here before with other Sony formats, remember Laser disc? Remember Mini-Disc? Whatever happened to those? Wernt they better then normal discs and normal dvds? That is the reality the difference is so tiny and so small that majority of people will not justify paying as much as you and i have for something that will show that small a difference. Blu-Ray has just had its 3rd holiday season and has not really made any stride into the dvd world. In fact it moved from 2% shares to 4% share. At that rate it will take 25 years to just get to 50%. Somehow i doubt were be watching discs in 25 years time.

So much hate for the blu-disc

I have seen similar stories a lot.

The other day, me and my family went to visit a friend, a well educated guy. He had just bought a new 42'' LCD TV... I didn't say anything, but it was set up horribly. There was noticeable ghosting in the image, and he didn't seem to notice or care. His explanation for buying the TV was that it was bigger so they could read the text better while sitting on the couch at the opposite wall.

People generally buy HDTVs because they're flat and big, not because they notice an improvement in the image.

Quality upscaling on a well calibrated quality TV go a long way for most people. I got a 50" Plasma TV in mid 2006 and suffered major buyer's remorse at how poor my DVD's looked on an expensive upscale player. I seriously considered returning the TV but decided to look into a better upscale player and wound up getting an Oppo digital upscale DVD player after reading a lot of overwhelming praise for it's picture quality. After that I was very happy with my with watching DVD's on my TV as the Oppo made them look outstanding.

Personally I think the whole HD thing is a huge scam. The TV I have was a over $3000, and it wasn’t until I spent a little over another $100 on a upscale DVD player from a small obscure company I was happy with the quality of the picture I got from a media I thought looked great on any old tube TV. Ironically the other upscale player that did such a poor job was made by Samsung, same as my TV.

I might just be ignorant of the technical workings of TV’s, but is it not possible to include the same scaling components from an Oppo or similar ones in modern HD sets? And if Oppo made a profit from selling them for just over $100, is it not feasible cost wise to do so in a TV that cost over three grand? Call me tinfoil hat crazy if you want, but it really feels like companies are hosing their sets when it comes to SD signals in an attempt to push you to buy HD content.

I never understoof how Take-two always managed to get themselves into financial trouble....they have GTA..... GRAND THEFT fing AUTO!!

Take2 has two big problems:

1) GTAIV sold some 9 million copies less than the previous iteration whilst being the most expensive game ever made at a ridiculous $100 million.
2) They have nothing really big besides GTA

 can't say i agree with you there benga,  the healthiest thing for the home consoles would be ONE single gaming machine.   With multiple platforms many people can only afford to buy one.  What does this mean for game developers? well they have the option of going exsclusive and getting paid by sony / MS / Nintendo for the game as well as sales of said game.  They can go multi-plat with no bonus but have higher sales but still with 3 consoles many multi plats show up on only 2 or so, thus still missing a large chunk of users, usually millions.  If you have one console everyone benefits because

A)  you have a single console maufacturer who doesn't necessarily have to worry about spending all that cash on landing exsclusives and making deals with the 3rd party developers.  This extra money can be put into R + D spending on the machine and improve its quality and longevity

B)  software developers now have one huge localized audience.  With such a large demographic there is MUCH less to worry about in terms of install base and thus this gives way to more room for innovation.  With a single audience of this caliber you can make all kinds of new engines and gameplay mechanics because there are so many people to sell to without having to worry about the extra costs of going multi-plat. 

C)  the every day consumer benefits buy being able to make simply one single purchase and have a huge library of games at hand.  It makes the purchase of a console much more effiecient.  Also we benefit from all 3rd parties being on one system because it creates strong competition.  Shooter games will all be focusing on the same audience thus they will HAVE to innovate in order to sell.  Imaging if you will Gears 2, Resistance 2, MGS4, Killzone 2, Halo 3, all on one console.  With so many games available with shooting mechanics the developers will absolutley have to be fresh and innovative to beat out the competition thus making better games for us.