Blu-ray already dead? – Digital downloads future for Xbox and PS3
There’s been a lot made of how the death of HD DVD and the emergence of Blu-ray as the high definition format of the future will help Sony and the PS3 in the battle for console supremacy. But according to Microsoft, discs are dead, and the future is going to be entirely made up of digital downloads.
We have reported the twists and turns of this ‘will they, won’t they’ debate over whether the Xbox 360 will now, or ever, get a Blu-ray drive. Last week, Jonathan revealed that Aaron Greenberg, product manager for the Xbox 360, had categorically denied the claims of talks happening with Sony to that end.
If that wounded the hopes of any Xbox 360 owners, then the latest quotes from Vice President of Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Europe Chris Lewis, has killed them stone dead. He told GamesIndustry.biz:
“Going forwards, digital downloads is really where it’s at,”
“More and more people’s ongoing and ever-increasing downloading of music and movies is becoming the de facto. Before very long we will look back wistfully at shiny discs as something that was somewhat a historic phenomenon in a way that we kind of think about vinyl or VCRs today.”
“That’s the future direction, and I think that’s going to be the case in the next 12-18 months,”
“I think we’re going to be talking much more about that than anything else. I do not think that [the demise of HD DVD] will have any material impact on our console velocity. And I think other factors, specifically our architecture around downloads, is far more advantageous and important for the future.”
The guy has a point, and I certainly think downloads will have a very big part to play in the future. But, that doesn’t mean the use of discs will die completely. The biggest reason is that consumers like having a physical disc in their hands, both in terms of having something solid to use, and in case of hard drive failures, which are as common as anything.
Unless there is going to have a back up of everything held somewhere, I can’t see many people being happy to have their whole DVD or game collection subject to the whims of some hardware, particularly Microsoft hardware, which we know is prone to breaking easily.
There’s also the fact that while broadband speeds are gradually increasing, download limits are being squeezed, so that could easily harm the future of digital downloads.
Also, I can’t help thinking it’s strange that up until a month ago, Microsoft were harping on about HD DVD being the future. Then it dies in the face of Blu-ray, and all of a sudden disc based media is a thing of the past. Hmm, that’s a strange coincidence don’t you think?
Maybe in a few years time, digital downloads will take the place of a lot of the need for discs of any kind, but right now, Blu-ray is where it’s at. The Playstation 3 is the only console to offer the format, and that has got to boost sales over the next twelve months.
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37 Responses to “Blu-ray already dead? – Digital downloads future for Xbox and PS3”
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March 16th, 2008
I can’t wait to DL a 50 gig file, and have it corrupt.
Physical media will NEVER die.
March 16th, 2008
I do believe that downloads are the future, but not for some time. As the article stated, consumers like to have that physical thing to purchase and use. We have to make some long strides before we get all of our media strictly as downloads.
March 16th, 2008
Not all people have high speed internet, and more people than not have dsl! digital downloads will die quicker than they come about! ever try to download a whole “hd” movie? try it, and then if you want to watch it again in two or three weeks, you have to pay again! physical media will be here for ever!
March 16th, 2008
I do believe that dload will become more popular. But come on are you telling me that when your favorite movie comes out you are only gonna want a dload version. I mean what if ya want to take it to a friends house. I believe that there is to many people that collect movies like baseball cards I mean for them it’s a hoby. And besides really dload media is just for a nich group. I know that alot of people that dont have the net and love movies in (HD). So no way is blue ray gonna die yet, until the next wave of hard copy media is available.
March 16th, 2008
It’s alot quicker to just go down the shop and buy a movie instead of downloading it and there’s something not right about not owning something u can’t carry without sticking it on a USB, Johnson is right physical media will be here forever. Besides even if the 360 did get a BD drive it doesn’t put on par with ps3 like people claim it would, having a BD drive does not mean BD games which will be big for the ps3 this year, few games haved used the power of ps3 and blu-ray even remotly but with strong ps3 sales and analyst predictions that the ps3 will storm ahead in sales more developers are investing more money in ps3 games and are able to use the power of DB and ps3 which will become evident with it’s exclusives this year an onwards
March 16th, 2008
Sorry this is a little extra thought. The only place that downloadable media could kill off hard copy versions is in the rental business. I mean when it’s late and you want a movie or the blockbuster is out of the new realease then dload may be better but never if you are buying for keeps.
March 16th, 2008
Bullshit Digital Downloads can take too much memory it won’t ever raplace Blu-ray Disc not for a real long time. Xbox 360 future is Digital Downloads not PLAYSTATION 3 so believes in quality not so Digital Download sucks now.
March 16th, 2008
I love seeing these articles they must really hate blu-ray. I am one of those people that want to own the movie not have it on a Hard drive that may crash or get full. Downloading HD movies is the dumbest ideas I have heard.
March 16th, 2008
“come on are you telling me that when your favorite movie comes out you are only gonna want a dload version. I mean what if ya want to take it to a friends house.”
.
Wow, how short people’s memories are… Have you forgotten the biggest selling tech product over thelast 5 years has been the ipod… yes, that little thing that has virtually killed music CD sales. People dont seem to be that fussed about having thir entire catalogue of music on one little drive, rather than just on their shelf.
I’ve got a 1tb external hard-drive that i plug into my ps3 or xbox 360… It stores 1,200 divx movies on it…. Why bring a few dvd’s to your friends when you can bring 1,000 on a small external drive??
.
“Digital Downloads can take too much memory it won’t ever raplace Blu-ray Disc”
.
10 years ago we were salivating at the thought of a 10gb hard-drive.
5 years ago 100gb was a hell of a lot of storage.
Now we have 1TB harddrives at our disposal for only £100… only 4 times the cost of a bluray movie, and able to store 20 times the amount of data.
In another 5 years we will have 100tb hard-drives, able to store 200 full bluray discs.
March 16th, 2008
Bluray will **not** die to digital downloads. That is a fact, and anyone who says otherwise is poorly educated on the needs of the average consumer. Besides, ONE HD movie can be upwards of 50 gigabytes, which will quickly max out most modern hard drives. I want to OWN a movie, not be restricted to watching it ONLY on my computer screen or ONLY on my TV.
Not to mention the fact that hard drives can crash or get infected by a virus. What then? Oh right, you’ll have to redownload everything.
March 16th, 2008
Blu-ray is certainly not going to die at the hands of Digital Downloads. Over half of game system owners dont have highspeed internet. I would also rather go buy a disk at the store than to buy somthing you download. What happens when you want to bring a movie over to a friends or let someone borrow it? You cant, unless you want to bring your whole 360 over. What about the people who dont play games and dont want to buy a 360? I personaly like having disks because i like all the extra stuff thats on them unlike a digital download which is only the movie. I also like owning the disks way more than having to download a file. Microsoft is done in the movies department. Most studios are supporting blu-ray excusivily. So there are only a few title that you are able to download. And blu-ray is not just for movies. It is also for games on the PS3 because they hold lots of space. MGS4 has already filled a blueray disk which is 50 gbs. the highest a normal dvd can go is 14 gbs. The people who dont think that blu-ray is useful for games are stupid. Most 3rd party titles are held back because of the lack of blueray on 360. For Microsoft to stay in the game and movies department they need to trash the 360 and move on to a brand-new system with a blu ray drive included or they will be beat out by Sony again.
March 16th, 2008
If physical media dies out and people start using downloading features then their are still parts of the world that people use dail-up connection and not everyone in the world has DSL. So that would be a major flaw if that way the system are used for.
March 16th, 2008
To all the people who think downloads is the future, How about actually trying to download a “hd” movie???? I have! and i use dsl( you know, the most used internet service in the world) most people live in areas that you cannot get cable! It took me 2 days to download a 720p movie!!!
March 16th, 2008
Blu-ray is not the only technology to consider. Like I carry around a USB Flash Drive today, Solid State Drives will offer a lot more storage over Blu-ray and no DRM…. Eventually they will be affordable…
March 16th, 2008
Yeah, I bought a large flat-screen 1080p HDTV so I could rent crappy compressed 720p movies to watch on it.
People who post articles like this obviously think “good enough” is good enough. He probably buys wine by the box too.
March 16th, 2008
John
“Wow, how short people’s memories are… Have you forgotten the biggest selling tech product over thelast 5 years has been the ipod… yes, that little thing that has virtually killed music CD sales. People dont seem to be that fussed about having thir entire catalogue of music on one little drive, rather than just on their shelf.
I’ve got a 1tb external hard-drive that i plug into my ps3 or xbox 360… It stores 1,200 divx movies on it…. Why bring a few dvd’s to your friends when you can bring 1,000 on a small external drive??”
To compare digital dloads of music to movies is ridiculous. For one people need there music to be portable as we listen to our music on the go, hence the success of the ipod. Consumer like the fact that they can listen to any track they wish to at any time. Film viewing is however a different matter, why would you want your HD media to be portable, the strength of HD media is based on being able to watch it on a large full-HD TV in a “Home” so unless you carry your 52inch lcd or plasma around with you forget the ipod argument. Furthermore songs are like 5-10mb not 10+ GB and for your information most countries in the world have fairly stringent dloading caps. I’m from Australia which is a nation which would easily rank in the top 15 world wide markets for HD media. Dloading 40gigs in HD movies would most likely kill of our entire monthly dloading cap so physical media is always going to trump digital so long as ISP’s enforce these restriuctions, and trust me they wount be loosened anytime soon, well at least not to the extent where dloading movies becomes viable.
Well thats just my 2 cents.
March 16th, 2008
I agree with the majority here. As a rural netizen, I have an expensive wireless high-speed solution with modest speed and a usage cap. Downloading movies instead of renting or buying is not in the cards.
In Canada, I was on the notify list for ISDN, DSL and the new Bell wireless solution, and after waiting for 20 years+, only have my current solution from a third party. Cable will likely never come to my neighbourhood.
Unless their is a magic new technology comes in soon, Blu-ray will have a long life in my home.
Scott
March 16th, 2008
I trust microsoft like i trust the devil
March 16th, 2008
ok, this is stupid. Theres no way that downloads will kill blue-ray for at LEAST 5-10 years. (closer to 10). Why? DSL is just too slow right now. First dsl needs to get faster, which could take a couple more years to devolop…then it needs to become cheaper, and more widely avaliable to people. (i know too many people that live too far out to get dsl.) THEN hard drives need to get much larger… another 5 years…plus, again become cheaper to the consumer…add that up and you have roughly 10 years.
March 17th, 2008
Microsoft is just being a sore loser, thats all. You fucken loss to Sony assholes, GET OVER IT!!! Sony puckered up to Immersion and got their rumble back, now it’s time for Microsoft to cut the crap out, and give fans a true High Definition experience!!!
March 17th, 2008
lol @ 1000 divx movies. divx is typically used for illegal distribution of movies and hasn’t been used for legit distribution of movies at all. once you have divx movies @ ‘hd resolution’ watch that 1000 number dwindle down to maybe 5 or 10, assuming you don’t have an o/s installed.
i am not interested in downloading movies exclusively. music sure, not movies. i do not want a digital collection of my movies ala my music collection. can you imagine a family having to keep purchasing external hard drives to house all these downloaded hd movies?
not practical from a consumer’s standpoint. microsoft fails again for failing to see what is easy for the consumer, not even appletv has succeeded and it sells digital movie downloads. hint hint.
when apple fails at something, don’t bank on it.
March 17th, 2008
he has a point. one of the features of bluray players is online connectivity, requiring a bb connection. so, if you are already connected to limitless movie selection via the ‘net, where’s the draw to buy disks when you can rent them from bb or netflix, thus removing the monies made from disk sales. i don’t think bluray will die at the hands of d/l but the money making potential is nowhere near that of dvd and poised to get greater as bb expands it’s footprint in NA. At the onset of dvd there was no online competition on the level there is now. Given sony’s mercenary tactics of RAISING standalone bluray players pricing since the death of hd dvd, online retailers stand a very good chance of broader distribution in the hd movie biz, from what i can see.
March 17th, 2008
well i’m going to do what the internet community do best and repeat what most people think just to try and voice my usless and unnecessary opinion across and say i am with blu-ray. i dont think it would ever be as big as DVD in its what i think could be a 5/10 year lifespan. It will however be better than Digital downloads. the quality of these compressed files just doesent come close to blu-ray and ontop of that i like physical media, just walking home from the shop looking at my newly purchased film i’v been waiting for. I can get back slot the disk into the ps3 or standalone players out there and enjoy without worrying about the data corrupting or the HDD failing in some way which if used regulary could happen, never move a HDD about as there very delicate so moving it to your friends house is a no go. and you dont want to leand them it has the HDD has film you want to watch on it, and being a bit lazy can’t be f****d to copy it over. Point explanned. Ps3 browser limites me to this lol.
March 17th, 2008
If I really need some of my HD movies on my Mac, I’ll just go ahead and buy an external Blu-Ray drive to connect by FireWire. The cost isn’t important, considering that I can buy a Blu-Ray movie for $25 and have it physically and virtually. I pretty much saved sixty hours of my time, upscaled from 720p to 1080p, and got an additional copy. I’m thinking Blu-Ray beat downloads this time.
March 17th, 2008
Since High Definition is about the size of the file sent means that yes you can get High Def quality whilst streaming.
The problem is that the infrastructure for broadband means that depending on where you are from the exchange determines your max download speed. A house near the exchange may get 6.5 Mb whereas a house far away may get 1/2 Mb – ignoring contention ratios. Since it takes 4Mb as a minimum (I say minimum, not recommended) it is easy to work out that many people will not be able to stream HD.
Now to download – which again depends on the site providing the content determines how long the download will take. At present most sites providing films to the masses the download speed can take anywhere from 4 hours to 2 days, so no thinking I fancy watching a quick film which one will I download.
Digital downloads are a thing of the future – yes they are coming but for the UK… not yet!
March 17th, 2008
Since High Definition is about the size of the file sent means that yes you can get High Def quality whilst streaming.
The problem is that the infrastructure for broadband means that depending on where you are from the exchange determines your max download speed. A house near the exchange may get 6.5 Mb whereas a house far away may get 1/2 Mb – ignoring contention ratios. Since it takes 4Mb as a minimum (I say minimum, not recommended) it is easy to work out that many people will not be able to stream HD.
Now to download – which again depends on the site providing the content determines how long the download will take. At present most sites providing films to the masses the download speed can take anywhere from 4 hours to 2 days, so no thinking I fancy watching a quick film which one will I download.
Digital downloads are a thing of the future – yes they are coming but for the UK… not yet!
March 17th, 2008
Since High Definition is about the size of the file sent means that yes you can get High Def quality whilst streaming.
The problem is that the infrastructure for broadband means that depending on where you are from the exchange determines your max download speed. A house near the exchange may get 6.5 Mb whereas a house far away may get 1/2 Mb – ignoring contention ratios. Since it takes 4Mb as a minimum (I say minimum, not recommended) it is easy to work out that many people will not be able to stream HD.
Now to download – which again depends on the site providing the content determines how long the download will take. At present most sites providing films to the masses the download speed can take anywhere from 4 hours to 2 days, so no thinking I fancy watching a quick film which one will I download.
Digital downloads are a thing of the future – yes they are coming but for the UK… not yet!
March 17th, 2008
TeaJay said:
“come on are you telling me that when your favorite movie comes out you are only gonna want a dload version. I mean what if ya want to take it to a friends house.”
Then Johnboyo said:
Wow, how short people’s memories are… Have you forgotten the biggest selling tech product over thelast 5 years has been the ipod… yes, that little thing that has virtually killed music CD sales. People dont seem to be that fussed about having thir entire catalogue of music on one little drive, rather than just on their shelf.
I’ve got a 1tb external hard-drive that i plug into my ps3 or xbox 360… It stores 1,200 divx movies on it…. Why bring a few dvd’s to your friends when you can bring 1,000 on a small external drive??
“Digital Downloads can take too much memory it won’t ever raplace Blu-ray Disc”
10 years ago we were salivating at the thought of a 10gb hard-drive.
5 years ago 100gb was a hell of a lot of storage.
Now we have 1TB harddrives at our disposal for only £100… only 4 times the cost of a bluray movie, and able to store 20 times the amount of data.
In another 5 years we will have 100tb hard-drives, able to store 200 full bluray discs.
So I must say:
Downloads would be awsome! Beautiful, Great, WOnderful, Amazing, but its not around the corner.
Sure the technology exist, there are hybrid cars, but you dont see everyone drive them.
Its not whether it is avalible to us, but whether us, the consumer will be able to use this. I dont think people are ready for downloads. Damn, I love Technology, but even I have limits in what really out there terabits, I know no one that uses a terabite drive, to be honest (I’m ashamed) I didnt even know that it was avalible.
People must understand that physical products is what consumers want and it will be that way a very long time, until we can educate the public with new data transfers.
Why is the ipod such a success? because Physical CDs were dying out before the Ipod Creation, not to mention that the data files for each track is small, making them very acessebile.
Downloads are the future, that future is not here now, or anytime soon.
Yes, its something beautiful, like poetry to the ears, but we’re not ready for it. You may be, not everyone.
It only goes to show that technology should take there advancements carefully, but it will confuse and fustrate the consumer.
-Angel Of Dark Thoughts
March 17th, 2008
PS- I love to collect my movies, please to take that away from me… Hahaha!
I notice my bad grammar, please excuse me.
March 17th, 2008
This is a classic case of the ignorance of technology.
Fact1. Game data sizes increase year over year by almost 2 fold. Network bandwith _doesnt_.
Fact2. Due to game sizes it costs exponentially more and more to develop a AAA console title – exposing this game to a SMALLER market (digital download only) is business suicide.
You’d have to be mad to think that digital ditribution is going to overtake fixed media. For the ppl that think this is the same as ipod, you are utterly wrong. Music sizes are _fixed_ and essentially wont change for the rest of eternity. However game sizes increase at far greater rates than network bandwith by a huge margin. Unless something magical happens to our networks, fixed media is here to stay for a long time yet.
To put it all in perspective have a look at current games on PC. Many games fill a DVD and install to a good 10GB. Certainly not something you would download currently. Think in a year’s time, this will have doubled (purely because assets become more complex, more animation, more textures and so on..). Do you really honestly think in the same period your network bandwidth will have doubled? Maybe increasing fractionally (20-30% faster) but not doubled. And that rate of increase for game data sizes has been occurring like so for years.. graph wise.. the network bandwidth increase curve is far behind the game data increase curve…
Eventually this will even effect current network released titles, as their assets get too large for the network. So in fact, digital distribution, while something the publishers want (so they can make more money off you) is a big ‘going nowhere fast’ idea.. until network bandwidth is solved.. its all bs.
March 17th, 2008
Ask the record companies if people would be unhappy having their movie collection stored somewhere other than on the entertainment unit. I haven’t purchased a actual CD since buying an Ipod 1 year ago. Everything I buy is from Itunes and stored on My computer. If I had a cable box with a 5-600 gig HDD I would be more than happy to never buy a physical DVD again.
As for MS switching from HD-DVD being the next big thing to it suddenly being Digital Downloads …did it occur to you they were never fully behind HD-DVD, but instead supported it so to stunt the growth of Blu-ray giving digital downloads time to take off.
Bandwidth is the only thing holding back digital downloads, as soon as thats overcome (FIOS anyone) your Blu-ray collection will be obsolete.
March 17th, 2008
LMAO
Look at all the little Blu-ray cheerleaders whining that their beloved new format can’t possible fail.
Wrong.
Besides being used in your PS3 game consoles that’s about as far as BD will ever go.
No-one else cares about it or is interested in what they are charging for the small improvements it offers – and we couldn’t care less about uncompressed audio and all the rest of that BS either.
Carry on looking down your noses at the general public for not liking what you like or seeing the sense in spending fortunes on the a/v kit.
That’s just tough, and the true reality of the situation.
High def simply doesn’t excite the general public the way it does the Blu-ray cheerleaders, not at the price they want for it.
March 18th, 2008
Until I know 100% for sure that my hard drive has no chance of being corrupted, I want my movie especialy a hi def movie on a disc. Why?Even if it’s free I am not going to wait 3 months for my entire movie collection is re-downloaded to my hard driive. You see we back up stuff by putting it on a disc. It is a smart thing to do. They are trying to save you time. Just buy the disc…go on…I know you want it….Yes!! Take IT!! Oooooooooooooooh….Pretty Blu Ray
March 18th, 2008
No storage device is 100% safe. Disc’s get scratched, drives fail, lasers die. The company I work in, uses flash drives and cards (16GB) for portable storage, optical drive media is considered as disposible storage.
March 18th, 2008
Sorry ‘disposable’ (long night on COD4!)
March 18th, 2008
I know it’s not 100% safe but a standard DVD is so fragile compared to a Blu-ray disc which can stand up to steel wool!!! I’ve scratched my share of games and movies trying to clean them, and at $50-80a game that can add up. I am confident I will never have this problem with a Blu-ray disc from the wear I throw at them.
March 21st, 2008
You know people are ranting about how Blue Ray is going to last in the future, or if Blue Ray is going to die just like Hd DVD. And all I have to say to that, is that I’m an American…and I can suck my own cock.