HD-DVD Doooomed! Doooomed I say

[Velorath]

Microsoft will never win the console war.

Well no, but mostly because the Wii has pretty much already won this round (accept it).  Besides that of all those franchises you mention that are making huge inroads into NA and Europe, only one (MGS) actually has a game releasing on a console any time soon, one is multi-console, and two of them don't have any PS3 releases planned for them at all.

[stray]

I don't even think the Wii as being in the console "war" we're talking about to begin with.

"TLDR" version: Apples and Oranges.

[Velorath]

I don't even think the Wii as being in the console "war" we're talking about to begin with.

To be fair, the discussion wasn't really about the console war to begin with except in relation to the effect it had on the format war.  Then schild started talking about Japanese game developers and shit.

[schild]

Don't blame me, blame Merusk and Stray.

[Merusk]

Buh?  How did I derail this one this time?  I talked (well, summarized Stray's post) about the format war, the not console war.

 I don't think MS's long-term strategy gives a fuck-all about the X-box as a game system.  They're more intent on making sure it (or ANY MS 'appliance') is in people's mind as an established premier format delivery device (x-box live) by the time digital becomes THE format.

[Jain Zar]

Microsoft will never win the console war. Despite me talking about Japan not being anywhere near as important as they were before, Squeenix, Konami, and Capcom are still Japanese companies first. And if push comes to shove and Microsoft starts making demands - even with moneyz - they'll choose Sony over them as the next-gen competitor every time.

And in the end, those 3 companies still have the best selling games over there and are making huge inroads in Europe and America (specifically speaking to MGS, FF, RE, DQ, and Monster Hunter).

Japanese companies and games aren't making huge inroads.  They are ever less and less relevant to western gamers outside of the anime and hardcore base.  The SNES era where half of EGM could have been called "GAMES YOU WILL NEVER PLAY ROUNDEYE" has long since passed.

In the west its GTA, Madden, Halo, Rock Band, and Guitar Hero.

Nobody in the US except maybe you (and a couple people here) gives a shit about Monster Hunter.  Dragon Quest sells to the same crowd who buys Atlus titles (if they can find them anyhow).  MGS, FF, and RE still have some solid popularity but they are really 2nd tier franchises for the west.

Now Konami has its Soccer games which of course makes them VERY important to everywhere except the US, and its stuff like that which helps them out and they seem to be focusing on a bit more as the Japanese audience demands even more of the same shit, except with more MOE crap in it and not buying anything else.  Of course this means stuff like Condemned gets Sega publishing it, and games like Dead Rising which seem more aimed at making money outside of Japan than in it.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, all those American companies are dominating.  Like Nintindo.

[Venkman]

tldr version: Blu ray was a bonus, not a reason to buy PS3 over Xbox.

Sony won a war nobody but Toshiba cared to fight. MS was on a price hunt so couldn't take HD-DVD. And they don't want it anyway. They want to be the publisher of content, not the middleman format-licensors and the media retailers. Lookit everything they're doing on XBox.

That format only matters if the average consumer gives a shit. And they largely don't yet. To other's points (and as previously discussed), they're just now getting HDTVs, which means they haven't even gotten HD cable TV yet, much less actual home theatre surround. And upconverted DVDs look pretty damned good on the average TV sizes being bought.

I made my point about the PS3 and Blu ray because the format war was won by proxy. People bought the PS3 for games and oh by the way got Blu ray along the way. There's a high overlap between people who buy consoles for their uber graphics (and brand loyalty, or hope) and early adopters of the HD system (TV, surround probably, cable signal, replaced library).

As to the console war: Wii "wins" by attracting players who wouldn't have bought a PS3 or Xbox anyway. To me, the only console war being fought is between MS and Sony.

[naum]

I could give a Oprah's ham about Blu-Ray… …when I purchase new TV, which is soon, going to set a Mac Mini next to it and that will be all in one media player, playing DVDs, streaming video from other machines in the house, including DLs and podcasts and whatever else is on net… …yeah quality will be bad for the youtube stuff but H.264 looks pretty good even on my ancient 10+ year old HDTV…

Sad thing is I have an HDTV that is 10 years old, yet most people still don't have HDTV or they have crappy compressed cable HD… …and DVDs will take longer to deprecate than VHS did, eventually they will wane but that won't be for 5+ years, and then digital will be preferred mode of video delivery, except for the small segment of videophiles, but that market going to be small and thus, only big name titles cut for it…

[Samprimary]

I'm just glad that the 'war' ended because it forces a kind of a paralysis on the ability to adopt the new formats.

[Jain Zar]

Yeah, all those American companies are dominating.  Like Nintindo.

Nintendo wasn't in Schild's examples of oh so important Japanese companies (because he hates them and clearly the fact they are kicking Sony's ass is driving him to take an E Meter test...) and let's face it.  Nintendo is in their own little world driven by nostalgia and getting the people who are frankly sick of the current fratgamer or MMORPG catass bullshit the rest of videogaming seems to have become.

[Riggswolfe]

I wonder if price will play any role in DvD longevity. Everytime I think about picking up a Bluray I can get a DvD for $10-15 cheaper.

[HaemishM]

I wonder if price will play any role in DvD longevity. Everytime I think about picking up a Bluray I can get a DvD for $10-15 cheaper.

Yes.

[IainC]

I wonder if price will play any role in DvD longevity. Everytime I think about picking up a Bluray I can get a DvD for $10-15 cheaper.

DVDs are fine for 99% of the movie watching public. VHS got raped by DVD in a relatively short period of time because a disc offered significant mechanical as well as quality improvements over a magnetic tape. Blu-Ray doesn't have that same advantage over DVD. It's better but it doesn't obsolete DVD in one fell stroke as happened with VHS.

Videophiles and tech-fetishists are not the mass market.

[Merusk]

Think of BluRay as the "LaserDisk" of the DVD era.

[schild]

Think of BluRay as the "LaserDisk" of the DVD era.

That would make the PS3 the Halcyon. Which is just retarded.

[stray]

Oh, I wouldn't say that. Laserdisc was just flat out inconvenient. Probably perceived as being too luxurious at the time too. Nor is there anything competitive on the horizon that's fits it between two media formats, like in the case of Laserdisc. There's DVD, Blu-Ray, and then nothing. Unlike how DVD was right around the corner after Laserdisc, digital delivery still has enough kinks to work out to give Blu-Ray enough time to establish itself in the next 10 years.

..

Blu-Ray discs will more than likely drop in price sooner than DVD's did. I think that's the weakest point against it. The minute it stops becoming a good strategy to soak the "early adopter" market, they will drop. They don't cost much more to make, and there's not that much of a difference in price as it is (especially compared to when dvd's first came out). People are going to eventually want to actually take advantage of their HDTV's as well.

[Polysorbate80]

I think once people overcome the mistaken notion that they have to "buy everything again", it will speed up adoption as well.  Standard DVDs look good even on my relatively low-end Blu-Ray machine.

[Murgos]

There's DVD, Blu-Ray, and then nothing.

Eh?  I have a hard drive, an internet connection and a processor w/ video card that can do whatever needs to be done.

Forget these trivial little proprietary lock in dealies.  Let me pick what resolution I want to watch the movie in, click a button, have an instant remaster from the original, wait a few for the dl and watch it in whatever glorious detail I can display.

All without ever putting my pants on.   

[stray]

Yeah, there's a rudimentary foundation for all of that to work. Maybe you even have a superfast connection. But it's just not something most of the world has the luxury of doing. A lot of people are only now getting broadband, and it's still not fast enough. A comparative (to BD) 1080p vid is at least 15-20gb, I believe. That's not convenient at all. Even waiting on 720p sucks. Even waiting on 480p sucks! 

[naum]

Yeah, there's a rudimentary foundation for all of that to work. Maybe you even have a superfast connection. But it's just not something most of the world has the luxury of doing. A lot of people are only now getting broadband, and it's still not fast enough. A comparative (to BD) 1080p vid is at least 15-20gb, I believe. That's not convenient at all. Even waiting on 720p sucks. Even waiting on 480p sucks! 

It's good enough right now.

I stream stuff from iTunes and it is decent. Many are happily using Apple TV to do same thing and it works pretty well…

[stray]

Looks like dogshit to me.

[edit] Can you even buy their "hd" content yet? Last I checked, you can only rent it. And it's still going to take at least 5 or 6 hours to have it at that. That's lame.

[Murgos]

I don't know what you are smoking but I DL 720p movies on my XBOX 360 in about an hour.  I don't have an AMAZING pipe or anything, standard cable.  If I had my brothers fiber connenction I'd have the movie downloaded before the popcorn was done popping.  Who the hell is talking about the rest of the world?  Since when has, "rest of the world" been relevant to next gen tech purchases?  You said, "DVD, Blue Ray, then nothing."  Which, as I pointed out is just entirely untrue.

The REAL 'next gen' media is the one that will mean there will never be another 'next gen' buy your whole library again brouhaha.

[Polysorbate80]

But we all know the holodeck means the end of human existence!

[stray]

I don't know what you are smoking but I DL 720p movies on my XBOX 360 in about an hour.  I don't have an AMAZING pipe or anything, standard cable.  If I had my brothers fiber connenction I'd have the movie downloaded before the popcorn was done popping.  Who the hell is talking about the rest of the world?  Since when has, "rest of the world" been relevant to next gen tech purchases?  You said, "DVD, Blue Ray, then nothing."  Which, as I pointed out is just entirely untrue.

The REAL 'next gen' media is the one that will mean there will never be another 'next gen' buy your whole library again brouhaha.

I'm talking about the rest of the world in the span of 10 years (I made the timeframe clear above). Many will still be in a bandwidth ghetto until then, and physical media will still be a desirable option for them.

Not to mention that that will be at least how long it would take for the majority of movie watchers to mentally switch from a "physical media" paradigm to a digital one. Right now, they prefer to have their stockings actually stuffed with something.

Ultimately, of course, there is a step beyond high capacity discs... I'm not arguing against that. But right now, it's practically "nothing". There aren't enough customers for it, or even a good catalog of movies for that matter. And quality wise, it isn't a comparable product to what you can cram on to a blu-ray disc.

[Lantyssa]

How many suffering in the "bandwidth ghetto" now are going to care about DVDs in a few years either?

[stray]

Most people who have HDTV's, but don't want to or can't deal with downloading big files time and again will buy blu-ray movies instead. Just because they don't have the capabilities or inclincation to download 15gb movie files doesn't mean they don't care about hd movies. Those are two seperate concerns.


And for the record, just about all of us (yeah you!) are in the bandwidth ghetto when it comes to this shit. You need more than standard broadband to make it practical.

[Sky]

I'm not really interested in downloading movies, I like physical copies. But with the high price of players (and media), I'm not ready to jump into bluray yet. And DVDs basically being obsolete (imo), I've stopped buying movies. So....good job, movie industry!

[Lt.Dan]

I don't know what you are smoking but I DL 720p movies on my XBOX 360 in about an hour.  I don't have an AMAZING pipe or anything, standard cable.  If I had my brothers fiber connenction I'd have the movie downloaded before the popcorn was done popping.  Who the hell is talking about the rest of the world?  Since when has, "rest of the world" been relevant to next gen tech purchases?  You said, "DVD, Blue Ray, then nothing."  Which, as I pointed out is just entirely untrue.

The REAL 'next gen' media is the one that will mean there will never be another 'next gen' buy your whole library again brouhaha.

I would suggest that you are not dl'ing 720p movies in an hour.  HD video uncompressed are a 21Mbit stream...either your cable connection is ~60Mbps or you're bullseyeing womp rats with your T21.

[Venkman]

Didn't we have this argument on page 4, except it was, err, Trippy vs Murgos or something?

Ultimately, the size of the file does not matter. Digital distribution is not about downloading a huge ass file to your even huger-assed storage medium. It's about broadband to it's logical conclusion: the infinitely ludicrous storage capacity behind streaming. Doesn't matter a whit where the movie is stored then. You don't need to "own" the media on your drive any more than someone needed to "own" the DVD they've long since started renting from Netflix.

It's about what you need to do at that exact moment, and the support infrastructure behind it.

And I say that within the next 5 years the folks who bought BD-ROMs two years ago will be the first folks living the purely streamed HD movie life.

And yes, a wrench in that is the portable devices. But WiMax should get around that. And if not, well, the masses aren't going to download a 1tb file, down convert for their iPhone, load it on through iTunes and then take the bus. Nah, chances are the bus will have Wifi at least and they'll just stream there too. Heck, the stupid shuttle we rent had an access point in it.

[stray]

The problem I'm pointing out isn't storage, it's speed. Even streaming 1080p in local networks isn't that smooth unless you're using gigabit. But that's kind of a two steps forward, one back scenario if you want to be wireless.

Point being though, if there problems like this being posed just on a home network level, then the idea of some magical VOD LCARS fairy land doesn't seem too close on the horizon. It'll be awhile.

Anyhow, I don't understand the fuss. What the hell do you guys have against disc drives? 

[Jain Zar]

^^ I guess some folks just don't want to own things.  They want disposable culture and all that hellish rot of suck.

[Righ]

Hmm, not owning things gets rid of the disposal aspect, and that's the upside. ;)

You're all fooling yourself with this HD download stuff. Just as audio went from CD to SACD/DVDA to BD DTS HD MA with ever decreasing relevance as people flocked to low fidelity compressed MP3s so it will be as people adopt video downloading en masse. The future is sure to be dominated by mass market tinny audio and low resolution video that can be experienced on $50 cell phones and crappy instantly obsolete laptops which will fill up the landfills at an alarming rate. Future old farts (and by that I mean you, dear 20 year old reader) will continue to pay more and more for high fidelity/resolution software as it becomes marketed in short publishing runs as "limited editions".

Can't wait for the new Opeth vinyl. :)

[naum]

^^ I guess some folks just don't want to own things.  They want disposable culture and all that hellish rot of suck.

Comes to a point where one is overflowing with stuff. It becomes clutter. Then, in 5-10 years, you got to go out and get the same stuff in another format.

Some things are keepsakes, that you want to have physical presence forever.

But most stuff is just stuff that serves a temporary, fleeting interest, and after a few rounds of consumption, is not worth keeping.

Lately, been trying to get rid of stuff, and having it in electronic form makes a whole lot easier.

Yes, digital download video quality is awful compared to Blu-Ray or even uncompressed (not the cable company variety though, at least from what I've seen) HDTV.  But it works and it's watchable unless you're a videophile purist — today while working I was watching ABC shows (in their lame browser plugin) and they looked really good on widescreen 24" monitor…

[Sky]

But if you've got an overflowing shelf of physical content, you can donate it to the library and the less-fortunate in your community can all benefit from your disposal.

:)