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

Just got a load of BR disks from Play, in the 3 for 2 sale... which makes them pretty reasonable priced.

I wouldnt replace my DVD collection with bluray but im certainly replacing my best movies on BR when they come out... the quality is so much better, its a bigger difference than i thought it would be (I got my PS3 for games originally, but now using for movies too).

I put on Rambo and I-Robot the other day and the quality was amazing and worth the cost. THe only thing that would kill BR is if movie companies put bad transfers/same quality as dvd to BR. At the moment i havent purchased or come across any.

Thsi MS guy sounds like a muppet, really poor PR from all these so called big wigs.

@ makeamazing

I'm with you the quality is amazing! Like you I'm not replacing everything but certainly replacing my favourite movies (the war is over movie industry, where the hell is Aliens, Star Wars, Star Trek and LOTR????!!!!) and all new movies are of course blu.

Also, even on HD DVD, I love PIP and all the little extras you get.

Does that prove a 33 year-old (lol) troll?!

Please dont let teh evil blueray be in xbox Mr Gates! :D

Just thought I'd add that 20% of Iron Man's sales have been on Blu-Ray, so even though it might not ever hit the heights that DVD did, it's a long way from being a failure.

cartridges are the way forward

/yawn

/waits for Blu-Ray 360, while playing GAMES on DVD 360

edit: Firesale HD DVD FTW!!! £2.99 now!!!!!!!!!11one!!!!

Why do people here seem to like personally attacking the man. He's a PR man - if he is asked a question about bu ray, hat else can he say - "it rules and our product badly needs it" - of course not. He's just doing his job.

yeah! one of the primary reasons that 360 has outsold ps3 is because of the price cuts and a couple of RPG's but aside from that nothing much IMO. What i still do not get to this day is that why have they not clicked onto the fact that price is a massive issue. now that a 360 can be bought for about £100 is just amazing. Let's just see if the 360 can keep up the momentum going.

Protesting too much doesn't even begin to cover it. Twatberg, more like.

Digital distribution is already here. The Wii, 360 and PS3 all use digital distribution - the PS3 is a trailblazer in this regard due to it having full games available via download (e.g. Warhawk). The PC market is also now heavily into digital distribution (Steam etc). So there is no doubt in my mind that next gen consoles will not use optical media for games.

As for movies, again digital distribution is already here, but it's currently more of a replacement for the rental market. This may change as broadband speeds and compression technology gets better. You may then 'own' a film which sits on a central server ('the cloud') ready for you to watch whenever and wherever you want.

Optical media is on the decline and it's debatable how much of the market Blu Ray can get from DVD before the physical format dies a death. Not much I suspect. 1080P is overrated and the higher quality audio wasted on most peoples sound systems (i.e. the TV speakers in most cases).

If they believe the future lies in digital downloads why did they bother with the HD-DVD? Clearly M$ are miffed about losing the format war and are sticking their bottom lip out and saying "shant...shant shant shant!" whilst stamping their foot.

As a 360 owner the lack of Blue-Ray support is important. Marketplace is not a great place for films tbh and my hard disc is only 20gig (5gig free).

Once I get my hands on a nice high def telly I'll get a PS3 so I can see some top stuff on it.

I thought he had a point!

@bad09 Aliens box set, I already have the special edition box set, but would certainly get it again. Alien looks amazing on DVD, what it would be like on Blu-Ray... wow ... that is something I would definately get :D

@moggsy - yes Digital download is here already, but its far from perfect and far from being the number1 format. Even in 3 years or whenever MS decide to do the next console they will still do media, that would be a massive mistake if they didnt. In the uk the ISP's complained and wanted money off the BBC because the I player was killing the network. We still have crappy copper wire, seriously though, anyone who thinks that optical media is gone because download is here is very much mistaken. With games getting larger and networks already struggling (add to this normal network traffice, movie downloads and every thing else) there is no way the network is ready for the "Digital download" level that MS is talking about. Maybe 10 years if we are lucky.

>Once I get my hands on a nice high def telly I'll get a PS3 so I can see some top stuff on it.

In terms of video footage - you'll notice bugger all difference (unless you get a shit tv that doesnt display lo-def properly)

Trust me.. I've stood in a SONY shop watching a dvd/blueray comparison on a HUGE f-off tv, from the distance i sit from my tv at home.. I could notice MARGINAL improvements..

Sound is better imho.. but you'll need a decent sound system to cope.

High def is noticable in games though

Well Trust me Smelly when i Say... I have a 32 inch HD TV and there is a significant difference in quality between DVD and Blu-Ray... So I dont know what you saw, but everyone I know says its a big difference.

Edit - Ah well perhaps its the size of TV and the distance.. my tv isnt that far away, but then again why would it be.

@ makeamazing

Yeah my lovely girlfriend got me that boxset back when it was £70. With BD live, pip, digital copies etc. I bet an blu boxset would be wicked! :)

/ strokes his awesome Bourne/Matrix HD DVD set

@ MrWonderstuff

HD DVD was a stop gap for MS before it could get it's videostore up and running.

@ makeamazing

The Virgin cable network is already fibre optic to the street (as far as you need to go really). 50Mb broadband will be here soon.

Meanwhile BT are rolling out ADSL2 and upgrading the phone network with 21CN which will both make 24Mb broadband available to everyone over the next couple of years.

"The Virgin cable network is already fibre optic to the street (as far as you need to go really). 50Mb broadband will be here soon.

Meanwhile BT are rolling out ADSL2 and upgrading the phone network with 21CN which will both make 24Mb broadband available to everyone over the next couple of years."

Good for them, I still like my boxes.....

@ bad09

Some people still like their vinyl too.

"We believe that we shouldn't force consumers to pay for things they don't want. We also believe that the future's digital, and that's why we've invested in a massive library of entertainment content."

Okay, say I want a copy to keep on my shelf and not stored temporarily in my console? What format you going to provide me with?

"Let's say right now we're not sure if it's the next UMD or the next DVD," added Greenberg, suggesting "it got Blu-rayed" will be the expression for future products in this perceived grey area.

The Xbox got blu-rayed?

EVeryone keeps calling Greenberg a dick by adding " HD dvd got pwned" etc. I mean stop making fool of urselves. He aint a dick. I didnt have an HD Dvd and wasnt intrested n getting one. I bought a console. its what he is saying and he's got a point. Now, if you are that fcuking stupid to understand that who's fault is it and why should anyone care.

Yeah Sony is pointing the gun in ur fucking head like one of you said cause you cant pay any less to avoid the Blue Ray and dont tell me you need it. Why? to install ur games? To brick ur consoles? For slower installations? For worse game quality than the xbox version? lol How fucking sad is that really?

Now stop being the dicks and let them enjoy it. Yeah if i were them i'd be mocking Sony as well. Shove the BluRay up your asses while i play games. Its THAT simple...

Still don't want Blu-Ray, sorry... just not worth it really. Ask me again in another 6 months.

Like it or not disc formats will be here for a long time yet. Joe public drives sales and joe likes to be able to go to hmv or asda and buy a disc off the shelf, as well as renting them from blockbuster. Of course Blu Ray isn't the new DVD, it's a high def format for those who are interested in top quality pictures and audio. It will continue to eat into DVD market share but will never overtake it.

@davisrole


I mean stop making fool of urselves

I didnt have an HD Dvd

Yeah Sony is pointing the gun in ur fucking head

Perhaps you should stop spending so much time playing games and learn how to write a sentence. I know being a grammar nazi is annoying, but your post is truly, truly awful.

Yeah, Im with him, 4.7 gig is better than 25 per disc, You will sell more disc as games get bigger!
Also if the digital market is going to be bigger in downloading, why have you only cut the price on arcade, no disc and if you want one you will have to pay M$ money for it (meaning their 120 GB cost as much as a 1 TB you can put in PS3)!!!

@ IronGiant

How about wondering into HMV or Asda and purchasing a code which allows you to download a game? Or purchasing a game online after which the code is emailed to you?

yet another week end of hardcore gaming, starts now.

See you Monday.

@moggsy yep I know that some cable is getting faster and BT are going ADSL2, but in the case of BT, part will still be going down copper, which means there is still a major bottle neck unless you replace it all with Fibre. There are a couple of companies putting fibre through the sewers, but its still pretty much small scale. Im sure the number here is UPTO... as with many complaints about current broadband, eg 8MB isnt 8MB for many people unless you live close to the exchange. In fact I read a report which said the average speed people got is between 2-4MB on broadband.

One other thing is that though speeds are getting faster, more people are getting online, and also more services in your house will use it (EG Cable is phone, computer and potentially TV live streaming (or thats the intention)... so even though people get faster speeds they will eat it up :D. Thats why even faster speeds and replacing copper exchanges and getting broadband to people who dont live near an exchange all add to the problem that optical media isnt going anywhere. I dont see the UK Government spending £15 billion on Fibre when they are having trouble keeping the banks going ;)

Getting back on topic, I dont understand the MS guys seemingly overtly negative comments about Blu-Ray... Sony or MS have not been perfect in this release of consoles and having a go at a format that the industry needs isnt really helpful to anyone.

@bad09 my wife forced me to get her Evil Dead 3, and the quality conversion is fantastic... very impressive, colourful and crisp.

I thought swapping discs would be bad, but then I played mgs4 with it's "hey,let's install every level before you play it" and thought maybe swapping a disc isn't that bad really.

Hate the idea of digital distribution though since I'm living in Germany and won't be able to fucking play anything,since I won't be able to import banned/censored games

Lol they are still very sore about HD DVD falling flat on its arse aren't they! I love microsoft, "we wont force people to buy what they dont want" apart from all the bits you HAVE to buy before your xbox will play games!!!! Once films are fully made with blu-ray in mind its gonna be bigger than the dvd, alot bigger i think. Yes digital is great, but you still need to buy hard drives, memory cards, a pc or something to play from etc.. and a HD film download is gonna be pretty big in terms of memory usage, which will take along time to download, and if your PC crashes you could lose all your films. I would have paid £500 for the PS3 without a Blu-ray player in it, it was just a very very happy bonus!

These threads are so funny. If it wasn't in the PS3 at least 50% of the people here wouldn't give two shits about it. As it is though it gives the fanboys another bullet point to argue about.

As for the people who say MS are bitter about HD-DVD failing. The main reason they released the add-on was to counter the Blu-ray selling point of the PS3. As it is HD-DVD came from Toshiba and MS had little interest in it beyond saying our console can play HD movies too!

I would have paid £500 for the PS3 without a Blu-ray player in it

Seriosuly, why? I wouldnt pay 500 notes for any console.

He's right though, the future is digital downloads, just look at what's happened to the music industry.

The jump from VHS to DVD was massive, just like tape\vinyl to CD before it, but DVD to BD is insignificant by comparison. MP3 has a worse sound quality compared to CD, but do the masses care ? No. They tried Super CD, but no one was interested because, like BD, you reach a point where the picture/sound quality is acceptable to all but the dedicated audio/visual technophiles and we have that now in CD and DVD.

We are not there yet with films (the 360’s films are in stereo for f**ks sake), but with the level based nature of most games it doesn’t take a massive leap of imagination to see how they could be split into smaller, episodic and easily downloadable chunks.

@makeamazing: "Well Trust me Smelly when i Say... I have a 32 inch HD TV and there is a significant difference in quality between DVD and Blu-Ray... So I dont know what you saw, but everyone I know says its a big difference. "

Are you comparing dvd and blueray on the same tv? Or blueray on the hdtv and dvd on a normal tv?

A lot of "hdtvs'" dont display normal tv/dvds properly.

I noticed the difference on the Planet Earth boxset, and I've only got a 720p TV. That's all I'm saying.

Anyway, this guy comes across as a bit of a twat. He has a couple of semi-relevant points, yet manages to make himself sound like a tit anyway. I mean, I agree digital distribution is where we're headed, but not in this generation. So why not offer a Blu-Ray add-on in the meanwhile? I mean, weren't you all for giving the consumer a choice when you were touting your HD-DVD add-on? Whatever happened to that?

Oh...it's a competitor's format and you don't particularly want to promote it. Got it. Why didn't you just say that?

"Still don't want Blu-Ray, sorry... just not worth it really. Ask me again in another 6 months."

Well you dont actually have a choice regarding the 360...

As this generation goes on, I can see more people trading in their 360's for PS3's like some of my mates and other people I know, especially those 360 owners who have suffered the RROD (which will be a fair proportion).

PC owners can play the 360 shooters on their PC, and get the genuine exclusives on the PS3.

"A lot of "hdtvs'" dont display normal tv/dvds properly."

Is that true? I try to up with what's going on in the a/v world & I've never came across any comment like that before. Any links?

When I replaced my kick-ass sd tv with a mediocre hd one a few years back I've gotta say the only difference I noticed was in black/contrast levels.

@Vic(toria)

"and get the genuine exclusives on the PS3."

What, you mean like, Tekken 6, RE5, FFXIII, GTAIV, SCIV, Ridge Racer, Assassin's Creed, DMC4, Virtua Fighter 5, Fatal Inertia, Beautiful Katamari, etc, etc... Yep, gotta love those Sony exclusives, lol

But of course you're right Vic, why would anyone want a 360 when it's cheaper and plays all these games with superior graphics. It's much better to spend twice as much for poorer quality, and then you can spend another £600 on a PC in the hope of a few of the 360 FPS getting a release a few years in the future, makes perfect sense...lol

I so want to bitch slap the next cock choking exec that tries to tell us digital downloads are the future. Yeah, the future of suck. I'd hate to have to rely on digital downloads for any of my standard def video viewing, let alone 1080p.

Dear lord Microsoft shouldn't really say.

"We believe that we shouldn't force consumers to pay for things they don't want. We also believe that the future's digital, and that's why we've invested in a massive library of entertainment content."

The first part is a tired old they've been a broken record for many years now, but guess what, the Xbox 360 is selling as badly as PS3 regardless.

And they're putting all their eggs in one basket Sony is offering PS3 games through physical retail AND DD, they're taking it one step further on PSP, while Microsoft is still selling... Xbox originals, you've been saying DD is the future since 2006 but Sony is actually doing it.

Some people still like their vinyl too.


^^yeah. 2-times sales boost for vinyl records over the first half of 2008 in germoney...for example.

"But you are quite happy to force consumers to swap discs when playing titles like Final Fantasy and other titles that span several discs? "

unless you're really lazy that's not an issue. No more so than having to install to a console.

Stupid comment but I suspect he's right to an extent. I don't think it is looking likely to replace DVD as a main stream movie format - not for a long time anyway. Probably has hobbled the PS3 putting it in this gem (by price.. though it allowed Blu Ray to win)

shows you the differance in companys dosnt it

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

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

DD is a totaly waste of time who wants all there films in poor resoultions and poor sound quality all on a hardrive or all there games having to download play and delete when the disc is full then wash rinse repeat to play them again .

Then comes the fact if you HDD goes belly up thats everything lost or if you console fucks up everything lost.

Then we hear but virgin have lines ready for 50mb you still wont get that speed and it still will take hours to download something

Box version FTW , id rather have the product in my hand that on a HDD

"What, you mean like, Tekken 6, RE5, FFXIII, GTAIV, SCIV, Ridge Racer, Assassin's Creed, DMC4, Virtua Fighter 5, Fatal Inertia, Beautiful Katamari, etc, etc... Yep, gotta love those Sony exclusives"

okie who said any of those were exclusives only FF13 was ever said to be one , get your facts right jackarse plus VF5 was a timed exclusive

This guy's an ass. Nobody's saying Blu-ray will be the next DVD, as even if it were to become the next reference format, it'd take quite some time to get there. Then he's saying Blu-ray's failing and that they "don't want to give the consumers something they don't want" when their company supported the more-than-ill-fated HD-DVD format... how's that for hypocrisy? Plus, maybe the fact that Sony isn't promoting Blu-rays so much at the TGS nowadays has something to do with: 1-it has no rival in the HD format war now, 2-Blu-ray software is selling well, there's not such a need to promote it... at a games fair.

Also, I don't really think digital downloads will be the standard way of distributing most content in the future. Whether this guy likes it or not, most people like having what they buy in a physical format. At least I do. That doesn't mean I wouldn't buy smaller, cheaper games in DD format but there's no way I'm paying the same price to download a game than to buy it in-store.

@muffcack

"okie who said any of those were exclusives only FF13 was ever said to be one , get your facts right jackarse plus VF5 was a timed exclusive"

Oh really? Are you sure about that, fuckwit? Try using Google and type in 'PS3 lost exclusives'..Fucking imbecile, it's you who needs to get your facts straight, KTHNXBYE.

Microsoft were all for a physical format when it suited their purposes. They couldn't say enough about how great HD DVD was at the time, although their actions such as actually including HD DVD in an XBox 360 left a lot to be desired. But with HD DVD now dead and buried it sounds ever so slghtly hypocritical and disingenuous to claim physical is dead with it. Of course Microsoft were never really interested in physical to begin with which might explain the lack of internal HD DVD. Indeed it seems obvious they were using HD DVD as a way to prolong a format war against Blu Ray while pushing a digital alternative.

Will Blu be the next DVD? I don't think so since it requires HD for starters but it will take more and more share as the world goes HD and it will become the dominant physical format. Since BD players are backwards compatible I still think DVD will continue since the costs associated with many niche titles and SD content will not be justified by using Blu.

Unfortunately the digital alternative is STILL not there. Not from Apple, or Microsoft, or Sony, or Amazon or any other wannabe. There is nothing that comes even close to what Blu Ray (or HD DVD) offers. Nothing offers HD content all the way up to 1080p at such high bitrates. The quality of digital downloads is much lower, the resolution is lower, the audio is inferior and there are zero extras. And to cap it all, every solution of the many around are proprietary, incompatible, tied to a single provider, DRM'd up the wazoo and restricted to specific devices. Laughably there isn't even any cost benefits since a digital copy typically costs more than if you just shopped around for the DVD and ripped it and not much less than Blu either. There is also the threat that a store could die, or discontinue its key servers and you are left movies that you can't transfer or play anymore. Frankly you would have to be STUPID to buy a movie for your iPod or your 360 or your PS3 or your TIVO with such high prices and strings attached.

Digital is fantastic for casual rentals because DRM doesn't matter. There is an excellent value proposition to rentals where the alternative might be traipsing down to a store to get a disk. But it is nowhere close to offering an alternative for ownership while so many issues remain. The digital industry really needs to get their shit together. They must rally around a single digital format, a single rights management platform, a single format that plays back on countless devices and platforms. A system that lets users purchase movies from ANY online store, manage them on any PC or device of their choosing and play them on ANY compliant device without worrying that the key servers will die. Perhaps when that happens Blu may really will be in trouble but that day is still a long way off and there are plenty of hurdles to overcome first. Even broadband caps could scupper digital for years to come.

So no, Blu Ray is not in trouble and wont' be for years. In the meantime, it will continue to grow as the world moves HD. When it does fail (as all formats do eventually), owners still have the content to rip or do with as they please.

I'm going to guess consumers wont take to Blu Ray simply because it seems too much like a new format (which it is) not offering much more than the last. People took to DVDs not just for picture quality, but because they didn't need to rewind tapes any more, could get extra features, can select scenes, change language etc.

All Blu Ray offers over that is a better picture. Sure high def images look great, but to the average person it's not enough for a new format. If someone develops a disc that will not only store HD content for a HD player, but will also play on a standard DVD player (it can be done) and simply label it as a DVD with a sticker on a box saying "can also be played in HD" then people will buy them all up - mostly without even knowing it.

I like having blu ray on my ps3 but swapping disks is an unbelievable non-issue! We did it for all the Final Fantasys up 'til 9? STOP BLOODY MOANING!!

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

Hmmm, have you used some of the great features on some of the better HD DVD/Blu releases. Trust me it's more than just a better picture.

Even my girlfriend was impressed with the U-control stuff on Bourne Trilogy and she doesn't really do the extras on DVDs.

Buying a download code from asda just aint gonna happen anytime soon. Why do you think the supermarkets still stock cds? Because a helluva lot of people like a physical copy, Physical formats are here to stay for a long time yet. It's not legal downloads that are hurting cd sales it's the illegal ones, DVD sales are very healthy and Blu Ray are increasing all the time.

Anyway what MS thinks isn't the main factor here it's what the movie studios think and they're pressing ahead with Blu Ray and adding more and more extras to them. Personally im really looking forward to the Dark Knight Blu Ray which has a very cool feature:

"For the Blu-ray Disc however, while most of the film will also be presented in the 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio, the scenes that were specifically shot in IMAX format will be presented at 1.78:1, which will fill the frame and will thus recreate the IMAX experience at home. This is not via seamless branching (you can't turn it off). But trust me: It's very cool. It's not gimmicky at all, it really adds something to the film - an extra little bit of 'oomph' to the action scenes, so to speak. So there you have it. It goes without saying that we obviously can't wait to get our hands on the discs."

I like my media physical and DRM-free. As far as I'm concerned, Blu-Ray can go and die as well.

When people compare SD and HD video, the methodology of the comparison is often very flawed. The quality of SD video on a HD display depends heavily on the scaler. So when you see a very badly scaled SD signal, and afterwards a native-res HD signal, of course HD is noticeably better. (Unfortunately, most TVs have really crappy scalers. So it's best to feed them only native res signals.) With a high-quality upscaled SD picture and native HD, the difference in quality is rather marginal, and certainly not worth the increased price and DRM.

I recently bought a good upscaling DVD player, and I think I'm set for the next 10 years or so. I won't invest in Blu-Ray. At some point in the future we'll probably need a new medium for physical distribution, but I predict it won't happen unless:

- it doesn't compete in a format war
- it comes light on DRM (think CD and DVD)
- it will be noticeably, tangibly better than DVD in real customer use (no gimmicks like HD, PIP and online content)