Microsoft's Greenberg lays into Blu-ray Comments by Robert Purchese

Bluray is nice, no doubt, but I agree in with the article in the sense that, over DVD, it offers only a limited range of benefits. It is, after all, still just a digital disc (albeit in a nicer case). VHS to DVD was a physical leap AND and significant ergonomic leap. There just isn't that marked change from DVD to Bluray.

Digital download, however, offers a new experience akin to what has happened with the music business. If the price is good and broadband speeds can provide the modern consumer with the immediacy they demand, people WILL go digital.

There's some way to go though.

Distributors don't (although I think they're learning) appear to be making digital distribtion the more enticing option in terms of pricing. People are willing to forgoe a physical medium if they feel they're saving a bit of cash. Charge them broadly as much and limit their experience in any way and they'll turn the other cheek. And until we can get to the point where Joe Blogs can download and start to watch an HD movie within 5 minutes of paying for it, there will always be too great a degree of inconvenience built into the expereince to make it broadly appealing.

Interesting all the movie comments on this.

I'm not sure why though.

If you're *really* serious about movies then you either have a huge DVD collection (like me) and/or you have a HTPC with enormous disk space (also like me) to play stuff anywhere in the house.

There's no way I'll ever start building another huge library of fecking disks, of any type - if I can't get it on the TBs of disk storage I have then forget it - it's 2008 already ...

For Microsoft to embark on the digital download journey, would they not have to ditch the "this is a pure games machine" line they are going for and start heading down the path of making the 360 into more of a front room media centre type thing?
Or is that heresy? Because apparently doing things other than games is apparently a massively bad thing.

"All Blu Ray offers over that is a better picture. "

Yeah.

Thats why color tv failed
And why Sky Digital Failed
And Why Sky HD Failed
And Why dvd failed

Lol

davisorle: "Yeah Sony is pointing the gun in ur fucking head "

No. Noone forces you to buy a console. Noone. Not even Sony. Freewill is what makes you do it, which is all part of consumer excitement/ greed/ avarice.

You get Blu-Ray as a benefit of making the choice, not as a punishment.

Twerp.

Quote : ""All Blu Ray offers over that is a better picture. "

Yeah.

And Why dvd failed "


DVD offered LOADS more over vhs than just better picture quality.

- smaller, able to go straight to chapter, commentaries, no problems with "tracking", etc etc etc.

Sony fanboys call competition names while making "lalalalalalala!" noises with their fingers in the ears whenever someone points out how Blu-Ray isn't really doing that great.

THIS IS WHAT BIG-DUMB-DRIBBLING FANBOYS AND HATERS DO.

Thats how you fix a post people!. ;)

Meow, snarl, hiss!

The jealous cat has spoken.

Been to Japan - bluray over there nobody really seems to cares about it. Movie bluray are usually shoved in the smallest corners of the shops...Also with super hi-def as on PC's the next big thing, it seems bluray is more of a stop gap. It's almost been 2yrs and now major impact with BR. In a few years super hi-def will be hitting us (As seen on PC's), with Pioneer, Samsung, Panasonic, Jvc, Apple all already seeing this as the real hi-def future.

It's also true the jump from dvd to br is not that big, hardly the fuss Sony made about it. Super Hi-def will have 16x plus resolution then what blu-ray offers at it's best.

Yeah why would X360 need a Blu-ray player? Pff.. It's so great I have a full-hd television but can't really fully use it because of Microsoft's bitterness in losing in the format race, so no watching 1080p movies! Thanks Microsoft, really liking your console right now!

Man, idiocy abounds in the comments.

BIG CORPORATION IS

A) STUPID
or
B) EVIL
or
C) THE WRONG ONE, COS THE OTHER ONE IS MUCH BETTER IT'S NOT EVIL (or all three)

+ added logical fallacy, pointless belligerence, fanobyism et al = fucktarded mess.

"Sony/nintendo = japanese shows respect and wont slag off other companys off.

Microsoft = Amercain dosnt show respect ,wants world domination ,slags off everyone."

It's just mind-numbing how short the selective memory of some people here is. Goldfishes have better memory than some people on here. :/

Xerx3s, you're right but be careful, you know you can catch teh bad AIDS if you venture too far into the comments section without protection! :D

Its funny how many *ahem* people are against Blu-ray.

When HD DVD was here, I'm sure most 360 owners were saying 'Yeah but its great that MS is offering us the choice'. Now its 'Sony is forcing us to rebuy our DVD collection!'

Digital downloads are not a viable proposition. Who the hell is going to buy a film off XBL for a high price, when you can download the film at the same quality, with the same content for FREE from a torrent site? Blu-ray at least offers you the extra content and 1080p resolution.

Who the hell is going to buy a film off XBL for a high price, when you can download the film at the same quality, with the same content for FREE from a torrent site?

People who aren't thieves? I mean, why would I pay to download a PS1/PS2 title from PSN when I could just use a free emulator? I'll tell you why, because I'm not a pirating scum bag who steals what he wants and shows a blatant disregard for the industry ;)

You may aswell say "Yer but why shud i liek buy teh porsche wen i kan just teef it LULZ"

My brand new Incredible Hulk Blu with it's UControl special features pokes two fingers up at Greenberg and his crappy downloads.

/ wait impatiently for it to get dark!

Dickhead.

Hardly the same thing is it? Most 360 owners are chavs anyway; attaracted to the 360 by price, and not turned off by its unreliability :D.

Cocklover!

Sorry, tourettes...

How is it not the same thing? You're asking who will pay for something when they can just steal it, you make me laugh, you come out with a statement like that and then have the audacity to call other people 'chavs'..LOL, hilarious! :D

No Kryon, it should be pretty simple to understand.

There arent many people who will go out and steal a Porsche.

But there are plenty of people who will happily download a film for free, especially when MS is charging a fortune for films with shitty bitrates and crappy 2-channel sound!

Download a film for free? You mean download it illegally. So Vic, how many movies and games have you stolen lately? You see, I'm not a thief so if something is out of my price range I would save for it or just live without it. Maybe if you did the same, Sony would make a bit more profit and could spend more on developing decent games? VicTheChavlol. Do you also try and sell clothes pegs by the side of the road?

Loads :D

People don't seem to realise that the uptake for Blu-ray is actually faster than the uptake of DVD.

http://www.smartbrief.com/news/cea/story...

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/16/...

I think people need to start comparing Blu-ray to the same period in the DVD life cycle rather than looking at what DVD is like now.

@Vic

Is it mostly gay porn that you download illegally? Yeah, I thought as much ;)

Oh come on people statistics can be used to prove anything is great... use your eyes, your ears and you head pehaps?, Blu-Ray isnt going to be the next DVD, its going to overtake it for new releases sure once everyone has HDTVs(its deffinately going to be slower for that reason... who cares how fast the Home theatre crowd have taken to it... its not mass market yet thats a different crowed than you're seeing now) but DVD was much more than new releases there were more reasons to buy old realeases again with DVD(already been listed here)... can many people who arent blinkered Sony fanboys really say Blu-Ray offers as many incentives to do the same again?