Analysts agree Blu ray victory will help PS3 outsell Xbox 360
By Dave Parrack
According to analysts, the Blu ray Vs HD DVD battle to become the high definition format of choice has had a knock on effect on console sales. What’s more, now that the war is over, with Blu ray being declared the winner, the PS3 could see a massive increase in sales thanks to Sony’s forward thinking.
You cannot have failed to at least read some of the demise of HD DVD over the past week or so, even if high definition DVDs hold no interest for you. The HD DVD format was already doing badly against Blu ray, and once retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart dropped it, Blu ray had victory almost guaranteed.
Toshiba has now announced that they are dumping the format with production of both hardware and software being discontinued. So where does this leave the console war, which is still raging, and has no sign of an ultimate victor as of yet?
It seems that most analysts agree on the matter: that this will unsurprisingly be good for Sony and the PS3, and bad for Microsoft and the Xbox 360. The Nintendo Wii doesn’t come in to it, as it uses its own optical discs.
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter told GamesIndustry.biz:
“Longer term, I think it’s a huge boon for Sony, as most retail clerks will be instructed to push Blu ray along with sales of HD monitors at holiday, so we should see a large increase in PS3 sales year-over-year at holiday.”
Screen Digest’s Ed Barton and Richard Cooper, agree:
“With the format war over, and the end of the consumer indecision resulting from it, video consumers are likely to purchase the PS3 as the most cost effective, future proof Blu ray player.”
It’s already well known that some consumers have bought a Playstation 3 purely on the strength of it being a low cost Blu ray player, particularly in Japan. Now, people who have wanted to get on the high definition ladder, but have been unsure which format to choose, can buy a PS3 safe in the knowledge that the technology will be hanging around for a while, at least until Direct Downloads become the present future.
So where does this leave Microsoft, who backed HD DVD with an official Xbox 360 drive? First, expect some price cuts, as every HD DVD player is going to be going to bargain basement levels very soon.
Then, you can fully expect Microsoft to switch sides and release an external Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360. They may even now take the plunge and launch a new Xbox 360 model with a Blu ray drive fully integrated, putting it on a par with the PS3. I would say it’s all a question of when, not if.
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February 20th, 2008
Those who are saying that the success of Blu-ray will not have a significant and positive effect on the success of the Playstation 3 are just deluding themselves. Look, I frequent a lot of home theater websites (like avsforum.com) and I can tell you that a whole lot of people have already bought the PS3 for its Blu-ray capabilities, and that was before Blu-ray’s success was a sure thing (as it is now). Many of those home theater enthusiast also reported buying games for their PS3’s, (I mean why not if you already got a game system thrown in for free). Now that Blu-ray’s defeat of HD DVD is virtually guaranteed, we can definitely expect many more people to buy the PS3 for its Blu-ray capabilities, especially since it is one of the most advanced and future-proof HD players available.
And for those of you who doubt Blu-ray’s victory over HD DVD, take a look at these facts:
1. Warner Bros., the largest Hollywood studio, said in early January, it would support Blu-ray exclusively.
2. Best Buy will very soon only carry Blu-ray titles (no HD DVD)
3. Walmat just announced the same thing
4. Ditto for Netflix
5. Blockbuster only carries Blu-ray
6. Blu-ray has nearly all the studio support and the vast majority of the CE hardware manufacturers.
Its over folks, no real argument there.
Like several others have mentioned, I too bought a PS2 partially because of its DVD capabilities. Well, it at least made it an even more attractive value proposition. Likewise, the PS3’s Blu-ray capabilities made buying the PS3 a no-brainer. I also have an XBOX 360 but it really didn’t feel like such a good deal, especially after I got the red-ring-of-death on the second day of owning it. (I have never had a problem with my PS3 BTW) My two cousins didn’t even know about Blu-ray when they bought their PS3s but now they are two of the most voracious purchasers of Blu-ray movies that I have ever seen.
So this idea that so many people have that if you are a gamer you only buy a system for its games is just nonsense. As if to be a gamer you can’t have any other interests in life…sheesh.
And I wanted to make a comment with regard to all the claims that downloading of HD media is going to replace disc based HD media in the near future, well that is just absurd. For a whole slew of reasons.
1. Its inconvenient (10 + hours to download 1 movie off XBOX Live is ridiculous)
2. Lack of sufficient storage capacity. Even with compressed-all-to-hell video quality @ 5-10GB how many movies can you fit on your harddrive? Especially if it is your 20GB XBOX 360 harddrive that already has a bunch of stuff on it? 1, 2, or maybe 3?
3. Current bandwidths could not support it as the dominant form of HD media distribution all over the world.
4. Cost. I mean why would I want to pay $5.99 to rent a HD movie from Comcast VOD when I can get unlimited Blu-ray rentals a month for just $8.99 a month. Or hell, for about three or four times that price I can just buy the movie and own it in pristine quality for all time.
5. And the biggest reason of all…QUALITY! Why in the world would I bother to download a movie if I am looking for superior quality. The downloads look like complete and utter crap compared to the same titles on Blu-ray. They are in 720p instead of 1080p, are filled with digital compression artifacts, and have low quality audio. I can honestly say that my upconverted DVDs look and sound better than those downloads overall.
As for whether the next XBOX will use a Blu-ray drive or will, as some people have claimed, use only digital distribution and a hard drive. Well, it is absurd to think that it will use anything but a physical disk format (Blu-ray or something similar). First of all, XBOX 720 (or whatever it will be named) would have to have something like a 3 terabyte harddrive to even start to have a practical amount of storage for storing games, saves, pics, vids, etc., and such a large-capacity harddrive will likely still be prohibitively expensive in the near future. But even then, your library of games and movies would be limited. Second, not every one has high speed internet and thus would not be able to get games very easily (if at all). No, the next generation of systems will still be using disk based media formats, that is my prediction.
To those that say that multi-platform games always run better on the 360, well thats not really true–it was only mostly true when the PS3 first came out.
Already there are games that look or run better on the PS3, even though since the XBOX 360 released a year earlier developers are more familiar with its archetecture and tend to use it as their base platform. That is starting to change. For example, Call of Duty 4 was widely reported to run smoother and have better lighting than the 360 version. Other games that looked better/ran better on the PS3 are ES4 Oblivion, Burnout: Paradise, and Devil May Cry 4 (among others).
Finally, to all those who say that its all about the games and that only the XBOX 360 has the games, well I just don’t know what the hell you are talking about. XBOX 360 was out for a full year before the PS3 came on the scene so it naturally had a head start in the games department. Nevertheless, in its first year of life the PS3 had just as many great titles (if not more) that the XBOX 360 had in its first year. I would put Resistance, Motor Storm, Heavenly Sword, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank Future, Folklore, Virtua Fighter 5, Warhawk, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, ES4 Oblivion, Half Life 2: Orange Box, The Darkness, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Call of Duty 4, Assassin’s Creed and Unreal Tournament 3 up against Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing 3, Call of Duty 2, ES4 Oblivion, Gears of War (and the other 1st year 360 titles) any day. So what is this lack of games that the xbots are always yapping about? And 2008 looks even better, with games like:
Devil May Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Dark Sector, Battlefield: Bad Company, Far Cry 2, Resident Evil 5 (hopefully), Soul Calibur 4, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Borderlands, Fracture, Bionic Commando, Army of Two, Guitar Hero 4, Prototype, Wet, Brutal Legend, and Mercenaries 2. As well as an awesome exclusive lineup, including:
Infamous
Metal Gear Solid 4
Grand Turismo 5 Prologue
Resistance 2
Killzone 2
Socom Confrontation
Haze
Final Fantasy XIII (maybe)
LittleBigPlanet
The Agency
Motorstorm 2
Tekken 6
White Knight Story
Home (online community service)
Xbox 360 will of course get the same multi-platform games and also has its own lineup of exclusives, which include:
Too Human
Fable 2
Ninja Gaiden 2
Alan Wake
Halo Wars
BanjoThreeie
Splinter Cell 5
(and I can’t really think of anything else)
I really can’t see where the Playstation 3 is so deficient. Both platforms have an awesome lineup of exclusive titles as well as multi-platform titles. To be honest though, I am a little more excited for the PS3’s lineup because it is a little more diverse and has some super exciting titles like Resistance 2, MGS4, and Killzone 2. If I had to pick one system or the other for 2008 I would have to pick the PS3 (XBOX 360 had a great 2007). Luckily I don’t have to choose between the two because I have both systems and can enjoy whichever games I want from either system.
I am just sick of morons bashing the PS3 using completely illogical and untruthful arguments. If most of the games on the PS3 don’t appeal to you, well no one is forcing you to buy the system. But please be aware that some people don’t find a lot of the games release for Xbox 360 to be appealing either. If you worship Halo as your god, or if you just generally like FPShooters then you will probably really dig the 360. But some people don’t really like those kinds of games, and some people don’t give a shit about online gaming. I mean if you take away Halo 3, Gears of War, Bioshock, GRAW, Rainbow Six, etc. you have just taken away a good number of the 360’s highest rated titles. That isn’t to say that the 360 doesn’t have other good titles, it does. But maybe not enough to make it the most attractive option for some people who don’t really get into FPShooters. Other people like myself feel we have to get both consoles in order to get all the games we really want to play.
The point is different strokes for different folks.
The Xbox 360 has an extensive and quality game lineup and an excellent online service. The PS3 is demonstrably more reliable in terms of hardware, has great multi-media features (including exceptional Blu-ray movie playback), and is also steadily building a strong and diverse catalog of titles. It is easy to see (if we are being objective) why either system might appeal to someone. So unrestrained bashing of either system is really nothing more than the signs of rabid fanboyism.
February 20th, 2008
clif, that is by far one of the best comments I have ever read.. ever
February 20th, 2008
Downloads are a FAR cry from the the quality I would want entering my home:
HD movie downloads from XBL and Itunes are 720p not 1080p like blu-ray and have bitrates from 4 Mbps( itunes ) to 6 Mbps (XBL) whereas blu-ray is 40 Mbps. Anyone claiming a 720p HD
download with a 6 Mbps bitrate is the same thing as a 1080p blu-ray disc that has a 40 Mbps bitrate is ignorant. It’s a good thing HD downloads aren’t 1080P with 40 Mbps bitrates because they would take 3 1/2 hours to download even with a 16 Mbps connection and nearly 6 hours with a 10 Mbps connection.
February 20th, 2008
…er, glad you got that off yer chest, dude.. I just thought that it was kinda ironic that every time an ‘analist’ gets involved, the stat charts go F.U.B.A.R! Don’t you find it amusing that yesturday ‘PS£ is dead’ has today turned into ‘Sony made a canny decision’? No-one knows bloody well anything! You are, of course, right in all you say, but if the rumour that Xbox will now use Blu-ray is true, won’t tomorrows header be ‘PS£ to bow to the M$ might!’? Of course it will.. In the mean-time, see ya on Burnout, an’ we can forget all this bull and let the babies have their bottle. My dear ol’ ma has a hi-def tv, and still doesn’t know what the ‘input selector’ is for.. that is the face of the consumer, in a nut-shell. We buy what we are told, coz the kid in the store told us the $50 scart lead is required, but not because it gets his pay up 10%. Viva la resolution! (see what I did there?)
February 20th, 2008
Oh.. in addition, Toshy actualy help to make the PS3, so sometimes, when you lose, you really win! (God, I love that film!)
February 20th, 2008
@ clif:
go back to ur work desk at sony at start earning another bit of money for writing cr@p articles.
Not hard to see that the Xbox 360 has the better games than the poor sh!tstone 3 idiot
February 20th, 2008
raving fanboy is all you are….you should really get a life
February 21st, 2008
Clif that was an excellent post, one of the best i have ever seen.
Doober, white men cant jump is an awesome film.
February 21st, 2008
@PS3_killer
You are obviously a fanboy, that fallows the many other illiterate $ fanboys.
Im just being honest, the 360 has better games out thus far.
However if you look at releases in 2008, the 360 definitely needs some help. 9/10 of the games I am looking forward to are sony exclusives with the other 1/10 being multiplatform. These games extend to all genres too and to all ages.
When you look, you got all the fps coming out, from the multiplatforms to exclusives like Haze, Killzone 2, Resistance 2 (my personal fav), Socom.
You got your 3rd person in MG4, your fighting in Tekken 6, Your sim racing in Gran Turismo, your arcade racing in Motorstorm 2. Your rpgs in FInal Fantasy (which i doubt will hit this year) and white night story, your mmo in the Agency, your action/adventure in Infamous.
You got your freakin mass anyone wants to play LITTLE BIG PLANET, very excited for that.
I mean really please tell me whats not here that the 360 exclusively has?
February 21st, 2008
@ PS3_killer why are you being such a hater is it really that hard to take that the ps3 is doing well and has a good 2008 line-up….jeez..everbody always want to see the ps3 fail….and you cant keep using that “no games bullshit”…cause its getting extremely annoying and old…and maybe you should go back sucking microsofts dick…oh yeah and lick the cum why your at it….!!
February 21st, 2008
At least the PS3 doesn’t break easily also I don’t know why everyone though a company that brings you Windows XP and Vista and everyone complains about the Operating systems but they buy a console made by them. Look at how they release their OS’s I don’t upgrade windows until a service pack is out for it cause Microsoft always puts out crap then fixes it later. I know people on their third 360.
February 21st, 2008
clif, u got it right man the ps3 did hav a good year and will have many more, and to the writer of the main article, the 360 havin blu-ray will not put it on par with ps3 because it still would.y be using blu-ray games
February 21st, 2008
@ micheal
Ive heard of speech impediments, but writing impediments? It makes it so hard to understand people when they are retarded.
February 22nd, 2008
You are obviously a fanboy, that fallows the many other illiterate $ fanboys.
Heh, talk about a bad time to make a spelling mistake, huh Bourne?
February 23rd, 2008
I like bluray and sony… so im happy
February 23rd, 2008
Thank you to Rob, Bourne, and Michael for the kind words.
As to PS3_killer and his comments:
“go back to ur work desk at sony at start earning another bit of money for writing cr@p articles.
Not hard to see that the Xbox 360 has the better games than the poor sh!tstone 3 idiot
# what a pathetic way to spend your time”
You PS3_killer are exactly the kind of mindless XBOX fanboy that I was talking about. I gave examples and showed why I see things as I do. You on the other hand come forward and just spew out a bunch of mindless fanboy verbal-vomit. Notice I never refered to the Xbox 360 using some trendy disparaging bastardization of its name as you did towards the Playstation 3, calling it “sh!tstone 3″. How original of you.
If you have an opinion that you want others to respect you need to demonstrate why you believe what you do. What you wrote is next to worthless. For example, show me exactly how the PS3 is so deficient when compared to the Xbox 360 instead of just saying the ‘Xbox kills the sh!tstone 3′ (or something like that).
@Bourne:
“Im just being honest, the 360 has better games out thus far”
Yeah Bourne, I agree. At this moment, I do think the 360 has a few more must have titles than the PS3. But it isn’t as much as I would expect after a whole year headstart. I do think that the PS3 is doing just as good as the 360 was at this same point in its lifespan. As I said, I think the games that we got in the first year of the PS3’s life are every bit as good and diverse as the games we got in the first year of the Xbox 360. I mean, I bought the 360 at launch and was hungry for the new generation of games, which usually makes me buy more than I would later on in the console’s life cycle, and yet I found only a handfull of appealing titles in the first year. As I said, I would put the first year PS3 games up against the first year 360 games anyday. The launch was kind of sparse for the PS3, but then again so was the 360 launch. Anyway, I just don’t buy into this claim that the PS3 is somehow deficient in the games department. The 360 does have a great lineup of games, but the PS3 does as well–and is quickly catching up to the 360 in this regard.
February 24th, 2008
I will admit that the PS3 is the better system. I was always a bigger Xbox fan. I am not a gamer, I play 2 hours at the most every day. My Xbox 360 broke and I got a PS3 and I never looked back.
March 6th, 2008
Nice post Clif. Well written, and some good arguments. One more thing to add to your list of upcomings for the PS3 though. DualShock 3. I imported a couple and they work great with Drake’s fortune, Folklore, and more recently Army of Two (only 3 games I’ve been playing). Thanks again.
March 18th, 2008
Haha noobs! Physical discs? Those live in my attic in a box.
Who needs a blu-ray player built into your console when you can stream 1080p video directly from a media server or NAS?
I’m not talking about XBL downloads, I’m talking about taking high bitrate 1080p in WMV, MPEG or DIVX format from server. There is absolutely zero reason why you couldn’t encode your video to meet the same perceiveable quality as the original on the physical disk.
I’ve got no beef with the PS3 as a gaming console, it is quite capable and has some good games. But why pay $200 extra for a bluray player when my Xbox 360 streams 1080p video just fine from my 2 TB server? It’s more convenient, easier to browse, and I don’t have to have 200+ DVDs and BDs on a rack. It also doesn’t hurt the I can stream to any TV in the house.
Explain to me again why I need a bluray player?
If you want to talk actual games, then maybe you can make an argument one way or another. But the bluray player in itself is hardly a useful feature unless you are stuck in the past.
Seriously, how many of you still use CDs to play directly from when an iPod or Zune will play lossless audio just fine?