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Blu-ray a disaster for Sony?

igniq.com — The Hollywood studios aren't liking Blu-ray. What does this mean for the PS3?

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  • dharm, on 10/12/2007, -15/+58fud...

    Warner: always on both camps, and still is.
    Weinstein: they announced recently that they are releasing BR titles early 2007
    Paramount: has always been on both camps, and have recently announced more BR titles to come out down the road.

    Universal... has always been with HDDVD camp since day 1...

    marked as innacurate... just more bs from hddvd marketing group.

    hd-dvd have about 50% of studios supporting them...
    br have about 90% of studios supporting them.

    Universal is and always never been a supporter of BR
    • Aceanuu, on 10/12/2007, -9/+26BR can't fail entirely. Regardless of wether or not the BRD fails as a movie format (which is impossible to tell at this point), PS3 games will still be BRD and therefore it will continue in some form. Of course, after the PS3 launch there will be a relatively large installed base of BR players, unlike HDDVD.
    • richardlawler, on 10/12/2007, -21/+7> br have about 90% of studios supporting them.

      What is Universal? Chopped liver?

      Ok. This article is just some stupid blog spin on a lame bit of HD-DVD hype. But Blu-ray can't claim 90% of the studios without Universal.
    • nreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14@ richard...

      uhm. yes they can. Sony itself is 3 studios. 6 more and they have 90% vs. Universal and it's cronies. Maybe it's closer to 80% but there are several studios EXCLUSIVELY blu-ray and only 1 exclusively hd-dvd.
    • drn666, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14One of the big things about comparing studio "percentages" is really that people need to compare the production output of the studios, rather than the number of studios themselves.

      Warner, for example, is enormous. The biggest, by far, by releases... and Warner is in both camps.

      That said, HD-DVD has not Fox (Star Wars) or Disney (Pirates of the Carib and all Pixar Movies).

      My money is on Blu-ray .... even though I am currently enjoying HD movies on my Toshiba HD-DVD player. I suspect the PS3 will be my first Blu-ray player and I'll buy a console player shortly thereafter when they come down below the $1k mark.
    • EatingPie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Flagged as Inaccurate.

      Contrary to the subtitle, the article refers to only ONE studio (not "studios"), and it's the ONLY major studio that never was in the Blu-Ray camp. All other majors support Blu-Ray.

      -Pie
    • mrgreen4242, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3"uhm. yes they can. Sony itself is 3 studios. 6 more and they have 90% vs. Universal and it's cronies. Maybe it's closer to 80% but there are several studios EXCLUSIVELY blu-ray and only 1 exclusively hd-dvd."

      You're not very good at math are you?
    • ReCkLeSsX, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Terribly written article.

      Honestly...
    • ThinkBox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+250 % and 90% look funny that close together... I know what you are saying,b ut still. I kinda giggled.
    • nreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@ mrgreen

      Quick Math Lesson:
      3 Sony Studios + 6 others = 9 Studios
      3 Sony Studios + 6 others + Universal = 10 Studios

      9/10 = 90%
      BEHOLD THE AMAZING POWER OF MATH.

      i said maybe closer to 80% because I'm not sure if it's exactly 6 others.
  • skoles, on 10/12/2007, -10/+9It means the PS3 will still play games. Like it was designed to.
    • Lososaurus, on 10/12/2007, -20/+11I thought the PS3 wasn't a game machine?
    • skoles, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10No, it is.

      Haven't you learned anything since the marketing of the Sega Saturn? Don't believe the crap about these machines being all powerful multi-systems when the developers never unlock such features in the systems life (or sell add-ons that fail).

      Even the Xbox had so much more to offer that was ignored until a group of hackers came by and created the XBMC. The 360 now is just grasping at that, and sucks that you need a PC with Windows MC on it instead of loading your own media straight to the HD.
    • Ashkc88, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I believe he was refering to Sony saying that the PS3 is not a gaming machine.
  • nzjrs, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20I dont give a flying $%# about blu-ray or HD-DVD, to be honest I would rather support the one the studios hate the most, because chances are that it will be the best for the comsumer.

    Both next gen disk formats are just Digital Restrictions Management vessels.

    I hope the both take so long to come to market, and shoot each other in the crossfire, that they are replaced by other, electronic distribution means.
    • Smwbigboss, on 10/12/2007, -10/+8Computer companies are backing HD-DVD because Blu-ray is harder to copy to a hard drive.

      Holywood is backing Blu-ray for the same reason.
      Less pirates= More money in their pockets= Less in ours.

      IIRC, Sony is one of the biggest members of the RIAA
    • dizzydigg, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2feel the same way nzjrs...

      Optical media is lame and the sooner it dies the better - flash and HDD can do it all as the technology improves for larger capacity.
  • xenonflash, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3You are do right nzjrs about the new formats jst being a way to bring DRM into our living rooms.
  • Subcide, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10The time isn't right yet for a new format
  • thomasprebble, on 10/12/2007, -12/+6I absolutely despise Sony but don't we feel that if Sony could they should cut and run from Blu-Ray as fast as they can? It's like Betamax or more recently, UMD all over again. And while UMD movies are still available, retailers are slashing prices to get them off the shelf as fast as possible.
    • philipz78, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Sony is too proud to do that.
    • raindog469, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think Sony needs to take the opposite tack, and rather than having it be their baby, make it ubiquitous.

      VHS dominated Beta because JVC licensed it to everyone cheaply and with few restrictions. (Well, that and porn.)

      Minidisc and DCC both failed (in this country) because neither Sony or Philips did that, and then recordable CD's came along, and were cheap and had few restrictions.

      Divx failed not because of us geeks "boycotting" it, but because it was again one company wanting to maintain control over it just as DVD players were starting to be made by every Chinese factory with the capacity.

      UMD wasn't like the above mistakes, because it had no real competitor (the PSP had the DS, but you have to be kind of a tweaker to watch movies on the DS.) Now, two years later, online video distribution is taking off with stuff like iTunes, and for that matter PSP-encoded videos being traded on file sharing services.

      If Sony really wants to rule the HD removable media roost, it needs to get cheap drive mechanisms and cheap decoder chipsets out there and sic the Chinese guys on it. It needs to make it feasible for everyone to put their videos on Blu-ray.... especially porn videos. (Currently, the big porn studios are leaning towards Blu-ray, but since the big studios don't control the market like they do in MPAA movies, the vast majority of the industry is headed towards HD-DVD.)

      I'm not sure their business model will actually work that way, though... it may be those licensing fees that they're counting on to pay for the PS3, in addition to the PS3 developer licenses.
  • Coestar, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9It might just be me, but this article and the site it's posted on seem to report nothing but bad Sony news. And, as dharm said, this article is obviously trying to misuse facts to bias it's message. Marked as inaccurate.
  • Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -13/+6It's unexplainable, but I have a tremendous desire to see HDTV fall flat on its ass.
    • Conglomerate, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Why, cause you can't afford one?

      Go to any electronic store and try to find one that doesn't have mostly HDTV's. HDTV is the future whether you like it or not.
    • Nintendo5, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4The future is 40" of flashing commercials when you just want to mellow out.
    • mjm01010101, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"HDTV is the future whether you like it or not."

      Which HDTV? Which HDMI Spec? Which optical player on which HDTV? Cablecard? encryption? RFID on BR/HDVD discs that invalidate older players ability to play content?

      The market is a mess. I feel terribly sorry for anyone investing in HDTV pre-2008, because it may not exist as it does now 3-4 years from now. It certainly will be much, much cheaper.
    • Nintendo5, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Might as well put a billboard in front of your sofa.
  • copernic, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5Let me get this straight: Sony, a major movie and record studio, proposes a new drm standard and people balk?
  • Conundrum28, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1I don't need to be further convinced that the Blu-Ray is a terrible idea. Every year some company has to come around to convince me I need a new format to go along with 'new technology' that really aren't a necessity for me as a consumer. I wish someone would shoot down Sony, because the direction they're taking the gaming world is a terrible one.

    Even if the article is inaccurate, I hope people read it and understand how ultimately unnecessary it is to have two formats for everything we have in life just so that handful of people can benefit from the income. The MP3 is nice, but somewhere down the line, someones going to convince the world that their ears are tricking them into believing the sound quality sucks, and that in order to really 'hear' music for what it is that they have to buy a newer, more expensive format. If HD had never been introduced to the world we'd all be sitting at home thinking how awesome the idea of color TV is. I can see things for myself, I don't care whether or not my experience is as fulfilled as it would be live, or so they say. Nothing beats being at a sports game or concert live, and a new format won't convince me otherwise.
    • copernic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8HD video looks good if you're a requisite distance away from the tv. Bigger living rooms are probably better.

      40+ gigs on a piece of pastic is a hell of a good idea.
    • geneshifter, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Conundrum28, no worries; Sony is shooting themselves down with the PS3.

      Regarding the PS3, gamers are not the target but rather a very small percentage of people who have to be on the cutting edge of technology. Sony is not a first place contender in the nextgen gaming console race this time around. If there were more exclusive titles, maybe, but not as things stand today.
  • RegisteredUser, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I'm not too concerned with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, but it looks like Blu-Ray is doing better than HD-DVD so far. In the past few months, I've seen a couple of new Blu-Ray movie players, Sony released a Blu-Ray burner for the PC, blank BD-R discs are out, and more movies are rolling out on Blu-Ray. As for HD-DVD, I've only seen that one Toshiba movie player and that's about it.
    • WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7wow at first i thought you were lying about the burner and discs(i dont pay attention, all the anti-ps3 news and daily, usually lame Wii articles on Digg really brought it down), but BR is definetly going better than HD-DVD
      http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,125581-page,1/article.html

      although I believe BR is better, HD-DVD will probably win because of DVD in the name. people will figure its better because they are lamers
  • Conundrum28, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2As noted above, the gaming industry shouldn't rely on these sorts of things. Remember when games where created in single bits? Yeah, and they were incredibly fun and addictive. Some of the best games are those that're found in oldschool arcade rooms around the world.

    My point isn't that a Hard Drive is a bad thing, but that the new side of gaming has become very reliant on selling their new product based on how 'great it looks' and 'how much power is contained inside the shell' as opposed to what Nintendo has done with this generation. I'm not going to hype it, but as it stands, I'm more excited for the ideas Nintendo is presenting to me now than I am about the blunder of a machine that will be the PS3. Who knows, I could be wrong, but to me, gaming has always been about how much fun I stand to have playing the game. To me, the Wii looks like a tremendous amount of fun. The PS3 looks like hours upon hours of, "I just spent 700+ dollars for a glorified DVD player."
  • gxcdesign, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I work at Best Buy, and honestly we don't really sell either or
    • u2wedge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I was in a BestBuy last weekend and they had a whole endcap full of BluRay titles.
  • DivineDart, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7This article is ***** retarded Who cares which format wins choose the system that you want to play the games on not watch movies on. Marked as inaccurate plus we knew which companies were backing bluray and hd-dvd before the players were even hitting the market
  • shenzhen, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I live in China I have seen the Toshiba and about 3 other chinese brand name company HD-DVD players but not any Blue-Ray players but give it a few months and when the coding is cracked and people in China can buy copies on the street for $2USD is when more and more players will arrive.
  • ic349, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Beta Max, Mini Disc, UMD, and now Blu-ray. Sony has a long history of coming up with cool technology and then limiting the crap out of it until the point that people get sick of it. Every single format mentioned here followed this pattern, less Blu-ray since it is just now starting to happen. If Sony doesn't lock it down so bad like it has all of their others, it may have a chance. But what's the expression: "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me"? So what about the third and fourth time??
    • GT35R, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4"Beta Max, Mini Disc, UMD, and now Blu-ray."

      -Beta Max caught on in Europe and Japan from what I understand.
      -MiniDisc weren't suppose to be a replacement for anything, more of a substitute for music players.
      -UMDs were pretty much for PSPs only so they cant really lose a format where when they aren't competing to become a standard over something else.
      -Bluray hasn't lost, in fact its doing better then HD-DVD.
  • totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Whats with all the FUD on Blu-Ray vs HD lately? The fact is, neither standard has made ANY progress yet, but this is the 2nd DISASTER type blog entry in 2 days (iTWire was the other), with ZERO new information or change, just more scare tactics.
  • carve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The RIAA and MPAA always say the content is what you're paying for- not the medium. If I already own a movie on DVD or even VHS, that means I've already paid for the content. If either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray want to guarantee that they'll be an overnight success, they need to take their own advice and realize that lots of people have already paid for the content. If they allow you to trade in your DVD and upgrad to an HD version for a nominal fee (say $5-$10, for the new medium and the extra resolution), their format would win in a heartbeat. I'd go and buy whichever one tomorrow! Sure, they wouldn't make as much money at first as they potentially have (but really aren't in reality, due to the format war), but they'd guarantee they had all the sales for the life of the format. That should be a very long time as I don't forsee a new widely accepted TV standard taking off for at least another 20 years- It is taking long enough to get people to switch to HD.
  • BWhaler, on 10/12/2007, -8/+7Sony's a disaster for Sony.

    Sad, but true.
  • prcpaul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This article is terribly written. For one thing, it has nothing new to say and what it does say is mostly speculative. I see no reason why Fox or Disney would be concerned about the Blu Ray format yet, as their titles have yet to reach the market and make their impact. What a load of crap.

    BTW, I'm an HD-DVD supporter, but this is hardly an argument.
  • u2wedge, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4History repeats itself and I think we might be referring to BluRay as Sony's latest Betamax... if they push it like their MemoryStick, they will always paint themselves into a minority corner.
  • Fraydog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Blu-Ray is technically a superior format, but I am fearful of Sony and their inate ability to take a good thing and royally screw it up.

    The biggest enemy the Blu-Ray format has is Sony and it's extraordinarily poor execution.
    • gwolf, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I wonder why everyone assumes that higher storage capacity automatically translates into better image quality. Your 1080P set is capable of a certain maximum image quality, no more. I doubt any available or proposed HDTV designs will look better simply because they take up more room on the DVD. Blueray may be more desirable as a data storage format but as a storage medium for movies, it’s overkill.
  • wunch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think it's too early to tell. By the time the average Joe will be able to get their hands on a PS3 (probably the middle of 2007), maybe it will be a little clearer.
  • kokojie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Why is sony always pushing their own format, like memory stick, blue ray etc... Why can't they just accept standards.
    • DarkJC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There is no standard for High-Definition DVDs, HD-DVD and Blu-ray are battling to become that standard.
  • gwolf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3While both formats have new and improved DRM the HD DVD camp supports managed copy and the ability to stream content between devices. Like someone said earlier, the format that the studios hate the most is provably the best format for consumers.

    It doesn’t matter how much capacity the new formats have if the average Joe Consumer can’t see a significant difference. I bought an HD A1 and am very happy with it, particularly with it’s upscaleing ability; but that’s me. I can also see why Joe Average Consumer wouldn’t care.

    Sony has misread the market.
  • ASSASSYN, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2No amount of typing on this subject will repair Sony`s poor strategy. It`s over. Sony F.ed up bad. This not a good way to come out swinging with blinders on. You are witnessing how the manufactures and industry in a whole react to unproven technology.
  • daridave, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Note to self: Keep buying DVDs for the next two years and laugh at DRM.
    • carve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Funny you mention that. By engaging in this format war, both camps may be hurting their DVD sales. I stopped buying DVDs a year and a half ago. I figure there is no sense buying a format that will be obsolete before long. So, not only have the studios lost my High Def revenue, but my standard def as well. For the time being I'll just rent & borrow movies.
  • bufbarnaby, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Sony is now the enemy.
    • edrift101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Sony has been the enemy since they started putting rootkits on our computers.
  • fuchila, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It will be sweet when they go up in flames.
  • cer0s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Buried as inaccurate. The first to comment already pointed out the reasons. To see who supports what, here are the links.

    Blu-ray
    http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_information/Section-14009/Index.html
    HD-DVD
    http://www.emedialive.com/articles/readarticle.aspx?articleid=11638
  • Almadiel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1They don't like it eh? Could have fooled me given how much money they are investing in it.
  • P5ycHo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Please mark this article as inaccurate.
    It is.
  • Aust1mh, on 01/10/2008, -0/+0Guess things have changed... CES 08 HD-DVD has died. Sony is the forward thinking Corp.
  •  

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