Engelos said: kn said: AOD was the standard before Blu Ray and HD-DVD split and went their separate ways. Who is to say that both Blu and HD aren't both at fault for not working together on one standard? Toshiba would not share royalties thus pointless hddvd was born.

And so the group forming Blu-Ray as an "alternative" that was outside of the DVD standards group at the time was purely a move to benefit the customer? Hardly. They wanted a piece of the Action Toshiba had from previos DVD licensing and Toshiba didn't want to give it up. It's all corporate greed... no matter how you look at it.

Interesting read for you... It sheds some interesting light on the whole breakdown that led to two formats...

http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3671091

 

and a small exerpt from that:

"Toshiba began to work on a format it called Advanced Optical Disc (AOD), while Sony and several other consumer electronics vendors started working on Blu-ray Disc. The DVD Forum, the official consortium that shepherded the original DVD format to the market, chose AOD as the next-generation and dubbed it HD DVD. Sony thumbed its nose at this snub and continued with Blu-ray (deliberately misspelled so it could be trademarked) development. "

MikeB said: @ johnsobas but knowing they could have released the PS3 $200 cheaper might piss some people off IMO, it would rather have been a PS2.5. The lack of a Blu-Ray drive would result in game developers making sacrifices for the long run (be that with regard to sound, visuals, extra like localization or gameplay length.

I would not have bought the PS3 if it came with a DVD ROM.

 

That's one less sale, balanced by probably 3 million more they would have had by this point.

The fact is that BluRay was shoehorned into the PS3 to bolster the format, and not for the PS3's (or the consumer's) benefit. It's true that we're now pushing the limits of DVD for gaming, but at worst that means swapping disks like we did in the PS1 days. There's been no evidence whatsoever that using DVD somehow limits what can be done with hi-def games, considering the 360 has kept up with the PS3 step-for-step in technical abilities. BluRay is at best a convenience feature, and a very high-priced one.

I don't mean to sound hard on Sony, but this is the reality. And while I'm sure I'll appreciate having a BluRay drive in the PS3 in a few years, I would rather have paid $350 for the PS3 today and bought a $50 BluRay player in a few years when it's actually worth it.

Meh, HD-VMD is better. Red laser, costs less, 30g single layer, could have $100 HD players now.

though, I agree that it would have been better for he PS3 to not have bluray, it is better for Sony that the ps3 has bluray. So, in reality it was a smarter long term business move.

 

Edit: Little off on storage

"a standard 4-layer VMD stores 20 GB which is comparable to a 1-layered HD DVD (15 GB) and 1-layer Blu-ray Disc (25 GB)." -- wikipedia

kn said: Engelos said: kn said: AOD was the standard before Blu Ray and HD-DVD split and went their separate ways. Who is to say that both Blu and HD aren't both at fault for not working together on one standard? Toshiba would not share royalties thus pointless hddvd was born. And so the group forming Blu-Ray as an "alternative" that was outside of the DVD standards group at the time was purely a move to benefit the customer? Hardly. They wanted a piece of the Action Toshiba had from previos DVD licensing and Toshiba didn't want to give it up. It's all corporate greed... no matter how you look at it. Interesting read for you... It sheds some interesting light on the whole breakdown that led to two formats... http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3671091   and a small exerpt from that: "Toshiba began to work on a format it called Advanced Optical Disc (AOD), while Sony and several other consumer electronics vendors started working on Blu-ray Disc. The DVD Forum, the official consortium that shepherded the original DVD format to the market, chose AOD as the next-generation and dubbed it HD DVD. Sony thumbed its nose at this snub and continued with Blu-ray (deliberately misspelled so it could be trademarked) development. "

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/soapbox/soap060107.html

Relevant section 

"At an industry conference last year, Warren Lieberfarb revealed during a panel that, right after standard DVD launched, Sony approached him about the need to start working on the high-def version (understandable given that HDTV broadcasting was already taking off in Japan and Europe), but the DVD Forum felt it was too early and wasn't interested. So Sony started working on their own high-def format."

Blu-ray was put before the DVD froum before HD DVD and was rejected due to the fact Toshiba effectively controls the forum. This is why the BDA broke of.f.

DVD's is still thrashing the hell out of HD-DVD and Blu-ray. The format is still undecided as of Tuesday September 25, 2007.

Borkachev said: I would not have bought the PS3 if it came with a DVD ROM. That's one less sale, balanced by probably 3 million more they would have had by this point. The fact is that BluRay was shoehorned into the PS3 to bolster the format, and not for the PS3's (or the consumer's) benefit. It's true that we're now pushing the limits of DVD for gaming, but at worst that means swapping disks like we did in the PS1 days. There's been no evidence whatsoever that using DVD somehow limits what can be done with hi-def games, considering the 360 has kept up with the PS3 step-for-step in technical abilities. BluRay is at best a convenience feature, and a very high-priced one. I don't mean to sound hard on Sony, but this is the reality. And while I'm sure I'll appreciate having a BluRay drive in the PS3 in a few years, I would rather have paid $350 for the PS3 today and bought a $50 BluRay player in a few years when it's actually worth it.

 Quite the opposite in fact.  Sony's PS3 blu-ray drive has a read speed of 2 times, DVD9's is much higher

Saiyar said: kn said: Engelos said: kn said: AOD was the standard before Blu Ray and HD-DVD split and went their separate ways. Who is to say that both Blu and HD aren't both at fault for not working together on one standard? Toshiba would not share royalties thus pointless hddvd was born. And so the group forming Blu-Ray as an "alternative" that was outside of the DVD standards group at the time was purely a move to benefit the customer? Hardly. They wanted a piece of the Action Toshiba had from previos DVD licensing and Toshiba didn't want to give it up. It's all corporate greed... no matter how you look at it. Interesting read for you... It sheds some interesting light on the whole breakdown that led to two formats... http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3671091   and a small exerpt from that: "Toshiba began to work on a format it called Advanced Optical Disc (AOD), while Sony and several other consumer electronics vendors started working on Blu-ray Disc. The DVD Forum, the official consortium that shepherded the original DVD format to the market, chose AOD as the next-generation and dubbed it HD DVD. Sony thumbed its nose at this snub and continued with Blu-ray (deliberately misspelled so it could be trademarked) development. " http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/soapbox/soap060107.html Relevant section "At an industry conference last year, Warren Lieberfarb revealed during a panel that, right after standard DVD launched, Sony approached him about the need to start working on the high-def version (understandable given that HDTV broadcasting was already taking off in Japan and Europe), but the DVD Forum felt it was too early and wasn't interested. So Sony started working on their own high-def format." Blu-ray was put before the DVD froum before HD DVD and was rejected due to the fact Toshiba effectively controls the forum. This is why the BDA broke of.f.

  

Though Toshiba does chair the DVD forum, that isn't the main reason Blu-Ray broke off.  The DVD Forum never said it wasn't ready... That's hearsay for certain.  It had everything to do with control of royalties for the next generation format pure and simple.  Toshiba wanted to maintain control and Sony didn't want to compromise and lose an opportunity at a huge revenue stream from future royalties.  There were attempts to bring them both to the table to settle their differences but in the end greed won out.

The best part of the fight, at the moment, is that both companies are bleeding money profusely in order to win the battle.  In hindsight it is probably good that they both are fighting to control the next gen as we will have low cost high def sooner rather than later.

The battle rages on... 

 

For me the question has never been "Did Sony always intend to release the PS3 with a Blu-Ray Drive?" it has always been "Was Sony doing the correct thing when they included the Blu-Ray Drive?" ...

Flash back 10 years and you see Nintendo with the ability to release the N64 with its memory cartridge, a CD drive or with a DVD drive (which was the new optical format at the time). Obviously the cartridge was the wrong format to choose for many reasons but Nintendo would have (potentially) been far worse off had they decided to use DVD as their format because it would have dramatically increased their system's cost with little benefit.

 

HappySqurriel said: For me the question has never been "Did Sony always intend to release the PS3 with a Blu-Ray Drive?" it has always been "Was Sony doing the correct thing when they included the Blu-Ray Drive?" ... Flash back 10 years and you see Nintendo with the ability to release the N64 with its memory cartridge, a CD drive or with a DVD drive (which was the new optical format at the time). Obviously the cartridge was the wrong format to choose for many reasons but Nintendo would have (potentially) been far worse off had they decided to use DVD as their format because it would have dramatically increased their system's cost with little benefit.

I think Sony were just looking at the historical precedent that was set in the previous generations. eg in the first 6 months of it's release the average PS2 game could fit on a CD (ie less than 700mb) yet in the year before the  PS3's launch the average PS2 game required a full single layer DVD (ie up to 4.5 GB). Now most PS2 games require a dual layer DVD. Sony have tried to future proof the PS3 by making sure it will never run out of storage capactiy.