Playstation Meeting later tonight/early tomorrow (PS3 info almost guaranteed)

Well, I imagine they may have pissed off a lot of BR supporters (like Dell) by supporting HD DVD the way they have. And personally, I see MS caring more about potential revenue streams for themselves rather than keeping some companies happy. If they didn't care about iHD and VC-1, then why bother supporting HD DVD when practically the whole industry seemed to be supporting Blu-ray (including Sony, but also many potential MS partners like Dell)? Funny thing was that I believe the "BR in PS3" had been known for a long time, possibly around the earlier stages of Blu-ray. But it wasn't until most of the industry started pledging support for Blu-ray that MS decided to put its weight behind HD DVD.

Hehe...ok, so the first BR players announced have been "high-end" products (the Pioneer player is from the Pioneer Elite line), yet their price doesn't paint a good portrait for the future of BR? How so, especially since we only know the prices for a few devices (again, all in the "high-end" range)? Seems about the same as what occurred with DVD: put out the more expensive, high-end players out first to sell to the home theater enthusiasts, and follow that up with some more affordable players. Again there's already a $500 Blu-ray burner from Samsung and I now recall reading from a while back that Panasonic will have some Blu-ray recorders available in Japan for about $1000 shortly after launch. The prices for these devices are all over the place, so I doubt any of them really signify BR as being crazy expensive (which the last two items I mentioned seem to disprove). Again, I imagine we'll see these players out first so that the CE companies can get a bit of a premium due to their R&D costs, and then maybe around the holidays, they'll start putting out more affordable players (like the PS3); if a BR recorder is priced as much as a BR player (and both are probably sold at much higher than costs), then I imagine a BR player could be priced below $1000 (close to the $500 range...heck there's a burner at that price too, which is also probably getting a bit of a premium).

From my understanding, I don't believe there is THAT much of a difference in costs between the two formats. I believe the biggest costs for both would be the blue-laser and the hardware required to decode these streams. In both cases, each format ends up requiring the same equipment basically, so the costs would be about equal there. The rest of the equipment probably wouldn't be much different than the equipment inside your DVD player.

The biggest difference seemed to be that with HD DVD, you only had to adjust your manufacturing equipment to make HD DVD discs. For Blu-ray, you'd basically have to scrap that and build something new. So IOW, it seemed like the difference in costs could be associated with the costs to make the discs. From the looks of it, the discs cost about the same (the MSRP for each is in that $25-$35 range IIRC), and apparently BR discs already cost about the same as a DL DVD disc. And with a potential 1B discs being made just for the PS3, I imagine the costs will go even lower. So much for that I guess.

I imagine the costs of developing BR was more though, if that's what you meant (in which case, most companies will probably overcharge a little more, but probably not at the expense of "losing" the war).

If you want to believe that BR costs 2-3 times more than HD DVD simply because the first 5 or so players announced for each format are vastly different in price, then so be it I guess.

Again though, had Sony not included BR into the PS3, Blu-ray would have probably never gotten off the ground. IIRC, at one time, only SP supported BR, while Paramount, Warner, and Universal all supported HD DVD. Even if the other companies stuck with BR (which is a big assumption), BR would be far from where it is today. If they tried to make MS happy, they may have pissed off half of the CE industry and any movie studios deciding to support BR, not to mention increased the chances of losing a revenue stream in Blu-ray. You act as though it would have been easy to gain support without the PS3, but I'm not so sure Blu-ray even makes launch without the PS3. It was that huge to Blu-ray.

See, this is just something I don't get. Sony does something that gains them support from almost every major player involved in this war. Rather than siding with what the industry seemed to pick as the next format, MS seems to bring back the format war. I just don't see why Sony is to blame for the format war when it was MS that made that decision. Rather than blaming Sony for this, I'd rather blame MS for deciding to have a format war (which might kill both sides) instead of having basically just one format.

Well, not to sound arrogant, but I probably do know more than you on this issue. Although FWIW, right now I have a pretty slow speed connection.

For someone who doesn't know anything, you sure seem to know (not "think" or "expect" or something like that) how much the PS3 will cost:

Again, for someone that doesn't know anything, how do you know exactly what BR players cost? In fact, I'm not even sure how you could know how much the 360 premium system costs (unless MS let that fact go and I missed it). I see some reports pointing at about $525, and some pointing to about $715; I should note that the $525 figure I found came from a Business Week article, while the $715 came from "a high ranking friend at IBM." I wonder which one to put weight behind. Even then, I wouldn't put much TOO much behind their estimates, especially since the numbers seem to vary so much. ML thought the 360 would make a profit off the premium package, and that the PS3 would costs $494 to make (only to then revise that 6 months later to $900...which turned out to be an adding error). I imagine no one knows for sure except for maybe MS and their manufacturing partners. FWIW, I think yields on the CPU (and maybe the GPU, but I doubt it) would have to have been absolutely terrible in order for the 360 to cost as much as $715. However, apparently it was the memory chip that restricted supply, in which case I assume yields weren't THAT bad for the CPU and GPU (in which case, they probably didn't cost like $200-$300 each, or something like that).

Now, as for the PS3 costs, I can see it costing $500-$600 to make, although the included HDD makes things interesting (although why would they include a HDD of that size with Linux if it would add that much to the price/cost?). I could explain myself if you want to see an explanation.

As for Sony's online plan, it isn't much of a rumor anymore if you read the updates from this morning. It looks like it has been confirmed that they will offer a "Xbox Live-like" service, including "commerce features" for the 60 GB HDD (have to put something on that I guess). With the PSP supporting PS1 downloads, I imagine Sony will allow the PS3 to do the same (along with PS2 games?), which will be another form of revenue I guess (and FWIW, I prefer this over XBLA, assuming they support it right). And as I've said in the past, if they're relaunching the Sony Connect store for the PSP, I imagine they'll offer the same service for the PS3. So Sony has a nice form of revenue with the PS3 and its online plan as well; MS isn't alone here.

So is this a next-gen DVD issue your talking about, or a Sony/Blu-ray issue? From the looks of it, it seems like most of the industry thinks it is time to move on; if you think Sony is rushing BR, I believe the HD DVD group originally wanted to launch last year; in fact, if it wasn't for the AACS, they might have launched some time back (although the same could be said for Blu-ray).

From what I've read and seen, there are plenty of HDTV owners that are ready for this next step (again, they'd rather watch HBO HD than a DVD). And as with DVD, the BDA/ HD DVD group isn't looking to grab everyone in a year or two (DVD launched in like 1996 IIRC, yet I know I didn't jump on board until my PS2 in 2001). However, if they want to be ready to sell these movies to people in 2009-2010 (when HDTV prices are much more affordable), then they have to launch now. And as with DVD, they will overcharge at first and follow that up with some more affordable solutions. Heck, some DVD manufacturers still overcharge to this day...$20K for a DVD player...or maybe that's how much a DVD player actually costs to make since there's no reason to charge a premium for these devices to those willing to pay that price.

And as I've said before, if you think you must replace your DVD collection in order to upgrade to BR/HD DVD, you are misinformed. Sure, you might want to replace a movie like LOTR, The Matrix, or Star Wars, but there's no reason to spend money on replacing your Veggie Tales collection (especially since it might look better on a BD/HD DVD player anyway). Replace the movies you really want to see in HD, and don't replace the movies you couldn't care less about watching in HD. Simple as that. If DVD/BR (or HD DVD) discs take off, you could also buy those until you get your BR/HD DVD player.

 

Well, the analysts have been wrong before, especially with products from Sony. I don't recall seeing many analysts predict a $299 price tag for the PS2 or a $250 price tag for the PSP; instead we saw $500+ estimates for both. So needless to say, I very rarely trust analysts when it comes to these things.

Haha...actually, I imagine people in Europe are going nuts right now, and in a good way. There seemed to be no way that they'd get it this year (and I kind of wish they didn't). People in the US probably shouldn't care either way since the holidays seemed like around the time the PS3 would reach here anyway. The only people pissed would be the Japanese, who probably assumed they'd get in during the Spring. But screw them, they can play FFXII until then.

Everyone else seems to be getting the PS3 on time, or much, much earlier.

 

I don't think the Revolution has been delayed; it has been pegged as a Fall (or November) release for a while now.

I don't really see this as a big blow to Sony. What they need to do is release in the US before the holidays, which most people assumed would happen if they launched in Japan in the Spring. Well, that launch got delayed, but they're still going to make the holidays here in the US as well as in Europe and just about every other region. If you assumed the PS3 would be out in the US in the Spring, then I guess you'll be disappointed; otherwise, chances are the news means little to you, or it is good-to-great news to you.

Yeah, I don't really see why this would be bad news for people in America. I've been telling people for a while that it would probably come out in the Fall barring some major delay, so this news doesn't really contradict that.

I suppose if you want to bash Sony for missing the Spring 2006 targets, I guess that could be valid, although it sounds like Sony could have tried that in Japan if they REALLY wanted to.

I missed that rumor. It might be possible, although I would think they could just launch the PS3 and then launch the "Virtual Console" later when it was ready.

While I held on to hope of a Spring NA launch long after E3, I never really expected the PS3 to come out in the Spring here. Now, I did think a June launch in Japan was doable, although the "cancelled" February show put doubts in my mind. It looks like Sony is going in a different direction than what I had in mind.

 

I don't recall them saying this was a blow to them (or a "big blow" as I put it). Have a quote?

Now, Ken Kutaragi was apparently apoligizing for the missed Spring launch, but he was doing this in Tokyo to people in Japan who were probably expecting to see the system that Spring. Fortunately for Sony, I doubt millions of people in Japan will now go pick up a Xbox 360; their main competition there will probably end up being the Revolution, which will release at about the same time period. So even though they did delay the system there, it isn't really much of a big blow IMO.

My point was that, prior to this announcement, it seemed like the PS3 would be released in the US sometime in the Fall, just before the holiday season. Now, here we are with Sony announcing that the PS3 will be launched in the US (and several other regions) in the Fall (November to be exact). Nothing changed from our perspective; people in Japan probably won't like this, but everyone else probably loves the news (well, except for maybe Bill Gates, who was dancing just 24 hours ago apparently).

So again, how is this a big blow to Sony if pretty much 66+% of the console market wasn't really negatively affected by this delay? And the one market that was affected negatively probably won't end up hurting Sony too bad, it at all.

 

BTW, here is what the slide at the event said about the HDD:


And IGN has expanded on the online service details:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/696/696075p1.html