Shareholders can vote to remove a director but bear in mind many directors would be executive directors with fixed term contracts so you would need to pay them significant compensation to get rid of them.  Non-executives you can get rid of cheaply.  But we are talking about a huge corporation here with tons of shareholders.  Shareholders are not going to call a members meeting, get over 50% vote to remove the whole board of directors because they want to release a $600 console with blu ray built in.  There is no way that is going to happen in the real world.  But aside from removing the board there is absolutely no other say they can have in the matter.  As I said before what specs the console has a decision for management.  If the board decided they want to release a console which has I hate blacks or I hate gays or I hate Jews printed on it then the shareholders may take this extreme step to remove the board but they are certainly not going to do so because they don't like the proposed price of a console or the optical drive it has.

As for the rest of your post you strongly believe what you believe but I am seriously suprised to think that there could be someone who thinks Sony would not have released a cheap PS3 without blu ray if not for HD DVD. 

Well he's a liar.

MGS4 did not fill a 50GB bluray, it was around 30GB of data. Of which many GB was wasted on umcompressed audio. They could easily have used lossless compression with no sideffects or audio deterioration and it fit on a 25GB bluray.

Yeah, they seemed to imply they filled 50GB up, and Hirai probably assumed as much from those quotes, but in reality, the BD shows they didn't. I suppose they could have meant that they filled up a single layer, for the first time, but I honestly don't really remember all the quotes about filling up the BD.

Additionally, as you mentioned, there's uncompressed audio, which, while nice, can be compressed for massive space savings, and AFAIK, they also put lots of data (textures and such) on the disc multiple times, to decrease loading times. I wouldn't be surprised if there was dummy data as well (ie, a whole lot of 0s written, just to manipulate data location on a disc) as that is a common practise to speed loading when you've got more space than you use.

Either way, putting the BD-ROM drive in the PS3 wasn't for gaming reasons. It's nice for gaming, with bigger textures, uncompressed (or lossless) audio, and no disc swapping, but it wasn't put in for gaming reasons. DVD is still very adequate for gaming. Putting the BD drive in may have been a good move on Sony's part for the company as a whole,  but it was a terrible decision for their gaming division. The BD drive was one of the largest reasons, if not the largest reason itself, for the PS3 costing a silly-high amount at launch ($699 Canadian, IIRC). The price was the main reason (though not the only one) that Sony dropped from first to third in sales. Had they gone with a standard DVD drive, things may have turned out much different, if they could have shaved a few hundred dollars off the MSRP.

That being said, I'm quite happy they did put a BD-Drive in, my PS3 has been funtioning in that capacity remarkably well, and I now have a library of just over 50 BD movies. That and knowing they can shove gigantic-ass textures on a disc is always nice. :) Unfortunately, what is good for gamers and good for games is not always what is profitable, or good for the company.

I think that Sony's statements on this are simply an attempt to justify their failed business case. If they had it to do over again, I think they would look very hard at whether the expensive BR drive hindered their ability to dominate this generation as they had hoped. Most games could be done on 1-2 DVD disks, so it's really a moot point. Sure, MGS4 is the exception, but it's more of a Hollywood movie than a game. It's this generation's Dragon's Lair. To those who are talking about the great sound on BR compared to DVD, I think you're fooling yourselves. Audio technology is already to the point where the human ear cannot distinguish from compressed and uncompressed audio. Do you hate watching BR movies on your PS3 because they're compressed and not pure, true, uncompressed video? It's ridiculous logic.

i have seen since the very start people and their "OPINION" on why the PS3 was so expensive and their first "CLAIM" has alway's been Blu-ray..well its not, it is an added expense, but no way near the ammount that the Cell pushed the PS3's cost up. that is what the main cost increase for the PS3 is . think about this for a sec.

if an EXPANSION PCI express card for your PC with a 4 SPE cell processor  card ran $400.00 that's right now. what do you think the cost would be for a full 8 core Cell is worth. alot more than the Blu-ray optical drive in the PS3 as a matter of fact i doubt the cost for Blu-Ray to be put into the PS3 was no way near a loss for Sony. the loss in the cost would mainly be due to the Cell.

I agree with 'joeorc' that the decision to use the cell processor was probably a poor one due to the excessive cost of the processor versus the minimal gain. If Sony had gone with off-the-shelf options like MS, they would've had a much better chance this generation. That being said, the BR player was still a huge expense, especially when it launched in 2006. What were they going for back then, a few hundred $US ? Compare that with about $20 for a DVD9 player. Hard to make the math work....

i do see the cost of the Cell as the main reason but as for your take on :

"the excessive cost of the processor versus the minimal gain."

Sony has never been about "off the shelf part's"

with the example the playstation 2 design back in 2001

on the Rambus white paper on the bus design of the PS2 Both Sony and Rambus both decided on the direction of how the next evolution of the PS3's bus design would be, Sony along with Toshiba and IBM along with other's viewed how processor's would be advanced in embeded systems in the future. the Cell processor is a hybrid CPU/GPU chip. has many gain's over off the shelf parts for the task's the chip is meant to do. and Since SONY along with Toshiba and IBM viewed that the direction Cell would take would indeed coinside with other companies direction with Embeded system's. One would only have to look at the NETBOOK's and Cell phone's to see how that's very true of enbeded systems.

now this pertain's to enbeded system designs more so than socket design's but you get the drift.

and the Blu-Ray launched  in APR 10th 2003 if you mean in the US than yes 2006 but not when the Format was first released.

joeorc,

You have good points and interesting background information. However, I was referring to the minimal gain in terms of what the average gamer experiences in the game. On most multi-platform games, you'd be hard-pressed to show that the PS3 is vastly superior to the X360 version. In fact, many games have the X360 version running at higher resolutions or higher framerates compared to the PS3 version. Good examples are Madden and GTAIV. I think it was the 2008 (or maybe the 2009) version of Madden that had the PS3 running at only 30fps compared to 60 on the X360. In GTAIV the PS3 runs at lower resolution.

see that's where the mistake is what many people are indeed overlooking..think about this for a sec.

take for instance developer's who have just started working on game development. what form of experience have they had on background with development...would you say there is a greater chance its mainly PC development..?

now up until most recently within the last couple of year's most game's were made for single core processor's. well not anymore most of your developer's have to now code for multiple core system's. now take into account the Cell processor was just unvailed in 2004..not even for developer's to gather any real experience to develop on the platform. than take into account very few development houses outside of Sony had development kit's until late 2006 early 2007. If it take's some development houses like EPIC game's to tweak their game Engine 4 year's..that's not building a GAME engine from the ground up but just advanceing the engine. you can see it take's time to learn and gather experience with such hardware.An then that also point's toward the Skill level of the developer's and how much time they have had with development with any platform. I have played GTA:IV on both the XBOX360 and on the PS3 the game play's the same on both system's the resolution may be a factor with how the ENGINE was made for the multiplatform GTA:IV development instead of what Each platform is able to obtain with development within each platform.

Example:

at the time the API's for the Cell Processor was not as well developed for 3rd parties to take advantage of, let alone 1st party had trouble , there was many time's that insomniac had went and helped other developer's within Sony on development for the PS3. AS right now you can see the result's that developer's are getting now with more mature tool's that they can use.

example of Blu-Ray viability:

I have heard alot of people say that Blu-Ray is not needed, and that it would be far cheaper for Sony not to have included it from the get go. let's take that very common outlook view for a sec. and let me pose this problem with thinking like that way of Blu-Ray's viability into the PS3.

first of all let's take the idea of Cheaper for the Consumer ..is it realy?

in the short run it may..but not in the long run think about this:

many people in the INDUSTRY say this is the last OPTICAL format because digital downloads will be the future...

now when do you see that take off..1 year, 2 year's 3 year's 5 year's..? if this is true than DVD would be alright until Digital Downloads take over..but let's look at that point of view very closely..if this is the case why use DVD at all in the next cycle of systems..the network port's would be fast enough to handle the data transfer, and the storage would be solid state to handle the amount of data needed .BOTH the xbox360 and the PS3 would be able to handle game's developed with DVD's storage limitation's in mind. Thus ASK yourself why anything more than DVD in the next System's cycle..would Microsoft use DVD, or solid state next system cycle..?

We already know a main Question will  Sony be sticking with Blu-Ray..?

will the Viability of Blu-Ray make's the PS3 last longer on the market..?

let's take those two statement's and view them...

why would Sony not use Blu-Ray is their a reason why they would not stick with Blu-Ray for the next system cycle..for me there is no reason that i can see because right now Holographic optical disc's" which Blu-Ray" is also !, so right there it's already geared toward that evolution toward Holographic's. internet digital downloads..well the PS3 is already set for that you can download game's , movies, software for your PS3..it would not be very much of a streatch to see the next playstation be able to do the same. the XBOX360 is also able to do digital downloads of Movies, game's software. so there is no reason to think the next xbox system Microsoft put's out would not be able to download digital content.

So that bring's us to the next system cycle:

what will both the xbox360 and Sony use to distribute content in the market for each system.

we already know Microsoft released

The xbox360 with an add on to allow the xbox360 to be able to view HD DVD movies on the xbox360.. that was (2 optical drives),a standard DVD optical drive and a (optional HD DVD) drive.

the PS3 used a Blu-Ray optical drive to view both DVD's and Blu-Ray optical disc's..

Now since both the xbox360 and the PS3 both offer digital downloads why would their market viability Hinge on a Optical format at all..?

If the Optical drive is just for the function to hold DATA it make's no sense to view one is not needed over the other if OPTICAL format's will not matter in the first place..unless...they do matter!

In the next cycle do you see game's passing the 10GB to 15GB mark that's with compression? On the Microsoft side of GAME Development..?

if so what format will the NEXT xbox system use to distribute content for game's ..? just online, stick with Standard DVD or MAYBE EVEN USE HD DVD or how about use Blu-Ray would Microsoft use Blu-Ray for the next xbox...if less than 20 GB for a game is plenty of space a single sided Blu-ray disc is 25GB it should be plenty and even now it's the cheapest cost to make per GB even vs' flash storage. the Blu-Ray optical drive's are already at 8x speed.

so..the fact's are

sony's PS3 play's Blu-Ray+digital downloads

microsoft's xbox360 plays DVD,HD DVD+digital downloads

what are the reason's both the xbox360 and the playstation 3 would "NOT BE READY" for any form of content distribution in the next system cycle.

IE: would there be any form of "content distribution" that both the PS3 or the xbox360 would not be able to take advantage of that you can think of..?

as you can see there are many way's to view each companies over all outlook on how they want their system to move forward. the PS3 the XBOX360 the Nintendo Wii are not just Game CONSOLE'S there is no such thing as just a game console anymore. because all the companies have designed their system's to do more than just Game's

Sony's evolution: of their playstation

PS1 played GAMES+MUSIC CD's

PS2 Played Games+music CD's+DVD's+ "with optional HD be used as a linux PC"

PS3 playes Games+music CD's+DVD's+HD Blu-Ray movies+ Blu-Ray Game's+be used as a LINUX PC.

if you notice:

xbox played Games+music CD's+DVD's

xbox360 plays Games+music CD's+DVD's+ HD DVD movies

if you notice:

Game cube play's Games+music CD's+game boy game's with ad-on

Wii play's Game's+music+vtgame boy games+wii ch.

none are just only Game systems..and will that change moveing forward.?..

I ask you has anyone of the above companies moved away from their vision of the evolution of their systems?

Wait.... Gamecube and Wii play music CDs? lol... i never tried it :S