Toshiba officially scraps HD-DVD

By Robert Purchese Published 19 February, 2008

Concedes defeat to Blu-ray.

Toshiba has finally announced the discontinuation of its HD-DVD format today after several days of intense speculation.

The decision was made in a board meeting in Japan earlier today, with "major changes in the market" - referring to the Hollywood studios and retailers siding with Blu-ray - the reason for its change of heart.

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, big boss at Toshiba.

"While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."

Its efforts will now be focused on improving things like flash memory, hard disks, CPUs, visual processing and encryption technology.

Shipments of HD-DVD players and recorders will slow to a trickle and stop altogether by the end of March, although Toshiba will continue to offer support and after-sales service for products already sold.

It will also continue relationships with previous partners like Microsoft, and look for new ways to work with them in the future.

So far it's unclear what impact the discontinuation of the format will have on the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on. Microsoft has previously said it would announce its plans after Toshiba made its mind up.

The move clears the way for Sony and its Blu-ray technology, and is likely to produce strong knock-on effects for PlayStation 3 console sales.

Analysts have suggested the PS3 will nearly double its installed base by the end of the year.

GamesIndustry.biz keeps Captain Planet happy by recycling fiction into fact.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (152) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Huddy #1 4 years ago

    Glad that's over. Now lets get the last few stuido's across to Blu-ray and roll on the disc releases for 2008

  • XdarXideX #2 4 years ago

    Ugly end... thousands of HD-DVD customers are now pissed :)

  • seasidebaz #3 4 years ago

    @darxide: serves them right for picking the cheaper, crapper option :) hehe i kid i kid...

    this is good news to me though as a ps3 owner, as it means more blu releases!

  • erp #4 4 years ago

    Ooof.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #5 4 years ago

    Ah, balls.

    Never mind, there's still my Blade Runner to watch. Perhaps Transformers will be sold off cheap now.

  • Fallschirmjaeger #6 4 years ago

    I hope that it won't take to long for Universal and Paramount to release their movies on Blu-ray.
    Edited by 2 at 19/02/08 @ 09:32

  • Eighthours #7 4 years ago

    and is likely to produce strong knock-on effects for PlayStation 3 console sales.

    Er... is it?

  • monkeymagik1 #8 4 years ago

    a sad sad end

  • FeralUK #9 4 years ago

    Woo, Glad i sided with Blu-Ray!!!

  • wyli #10 4 years ago

    Gotta respect Toshiba for taking it on the chin like a man, and being gracious in defeat.

  • mcmonkeyplc #11 4 years ago

    Thank fuck for that.

    Microsoft:
    BLu ray add on time

  • JHuxley #12 4 years ago

    @Eighthours

    For people who were still undecided in the format war, I'd imagine the PS3 is now looking a much more enticing prospect (still being the best VFM Blu-Ray player out there)

  • kangarootoo #13 4 years ago

    MS tend to treat customers pretty well when this sort of thing happens. I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of deal might be worked out for people who have bought the HD-DVD add on.

    I'm glad its all over too, but I do feel for those who might feel a bit stiffed now. Mocking them is the sort of thing I'm sure many immature fanboy f*ckheads will now take up as their new hobby. Those among us with more than 17 brain cells will recognise such behaviour for exactly what it is and treat the experience as something akin to a day out at the zoo.

    Edit: Mention of MS bluray add-on previously made. Hmmmm, now if MS granted each HD-DVD add-on purchaser an option to swap it for a bluray add-on come (the now inevitable) release day, THAT would be a PR exercise of great proportion. I shall cross my fingers on your behalf HD-DVD add on owners.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 09:37

  • barnard666 #14 4 years ago

    Its a shame, by many accounts the HD was the better format...although I really have no idea what I am talking about...PS3 was always going to shift the tide, I was suprised that the elite didnt have one built in.

  • zuljin #15 4 years ago

    "Those among us with more than 17 brain cells will recognise such behaviour for exactly what it is and treat the experience as something akin to a day out at the zoo."

    We throw peanuts at them?

  • Xerx3s #16 4 years ago

    And now we wait for two or three years before it becomes mass market...

  • penhalion #17 4 years ago

    @Eighthours

    Yea. A lot of people with HDTV want HD movies to watch on them. The PS3 may currently be a bad bet for games but, it's actually a very good and futureproofed blu-ray player. Even supporting 1080/24.

    Sadly I think Microsoft screwed the pooch on this one. Going cheap by not including the HD-DVD as standard into the 360 is now going to bite them in the long run. Unless they somehow convince us to download 2 gigs of movie each week. Game development wise the 360 is still the better dev choice but, as content grows and dvd space becomes not just a limiting factor but, a deciding one, that too will change. Ho-hum.....better go shadow our PS3 dev guys and start doing more dev on that side I guess...future proof the old skills as they say.

  • kangarootoo #18 4 years ago

    "I was suprised that the elite didnt have one built in"

    I guess that it didn't is very much good news now.

  • DB2k #19 4 years ago

    you wait.. BluRay movies will creep up in price now. They cost fek loads more to make than HD DVD did and were subsidised heavily.. and now there is no other HD disc looking for market share Sony can do what the fuck they want with the price of the discs and the players.

  • systems #20 4 years ago

    Even if MS does release a BR add-on I won't buy it. I bought the HD add-on and it's just too noisy unless you have a new Falcon 175Watt 360. Better to get a standalone or a PS3.

    Glad it's all over anyway. I only wasted about £200 all-in and got my 5 free films.

  • Ihya #21 4 years ago

    On the same day Castro has resigned, its a bad day for the reds :(

  • konstantinos #22 4 years ago

    well, this was (almost) a given from day one for me... no Betamax situation this time around...
    what concerns me though, is the pricing... and as it stands now it's pretty steep... I have purchased just one Blu-ray thingie since christmas (Blade Runner: TFC) and I would love to have been able to do better than that, you know?

    cheers...

  • Darren #23 4 years ago

    Well at least Toshiba did the right thing by dropping it earlier rather than later when it would have had an even larger number of pissed off customers. It has been on life support really ever since Warner Bros. defected to BD at the start of the year and all the negativity surrounding the format wasn't doing it any favours.

    Assuming you keep your HD-DVD player, you can still continue to watch your movies for many years to come so it's not like you suddenly cannot watch them. And they'll drop in price meaning people can pick up cheap bargains before the format disappears from the shops for good. Of course, if you have any interest in HD movies then you're going to have to consider adopting BD at some point if you haven't already but many people will likely have done so anyway since you cannot buy all movies on one HD format.

    Regardless of what you think about Toshiba dropping HD-DVD, it's for the best in the long run as now it means you'll soon be able to buy ALL movies on one single HD format and as long as neither had that convenience then there could have been no absolute winner. And Sony own a movie studio so HD-DVD would never have seen the likes of Spider-Man anyway so, on reflection, BD was always the one most likely to "win" the Format Wars really.

  • Kami #24 4 years ago

    Sucks for Toshiba. But having studios divided between formats cannot have been good for the customer, or the next-gen formats as the widespread format would continue to be DVD - the only format all the studios would publish on. A winner needed to be found to move it on a little. So it's the more expensive Blu-Ray, meh. I know it ain't coming down in price yet to rival DVD but it's an HD standard so it's a start, a step in the right direction. But time will tell... DVD is cheap, DVD players are dirt-cheap. Blu-Ray has walked out of one fight and into an even tougher one, and if Blu-Ray can't compete or come down and rival the humble DVD, then it's still been a waste of time.

    Still. Sony must be thanking whatever Gods exist for this. It's good news for them.

  • penhalion #25 4 years ago

    @Ihya

    Really! Castro.....soooo the guy who kept cuba stable has resigned....ok...not good....assuming it's true as I'm packing for GDC at present so haven't checked any news.

  • Ihya #26 4 years ago


    and is likely to produce strong knock-on effects for PlayStation 3 console sales.

    Er... is it?

    As the PS3 is the best value proposition Blu-ray player I think you are know the answer deep beneath that thick strata of denial, you silly rabbit.

  • kangarootoo #27 4 years ago

    "We throw peanuts at them?"

    Waste of peanuts. I suggest we just watch them fling their own poo at each other, for about 11 seconds, then go buy some overpriced icecream.

  • Paukl #28 4 years ago

    @DB2K

    I doubt that would inspire people to purchase an upgrade for their DVD players though. Which, really, is the problem with the HD format anyway. It can't be advertised on telly as, well, it can't! So unless you're interested enough to head down to Comet or whatever to see it in action then you won't know what you're missing.

    Of course, then you have the problem that, for some reason, virtually every HD Ready TV I've seen in a shop is displaying an SD movie/show on a poorly configured TV, so how are people asupposed to know what HD is? I guarantee there's a significant proportion of people with HD sets who think they're watching HD when they're tuned into Freeview or something, and without someone making a committed marketing push to show folks what the deal is then HD could remian an early adopter niche, in the UK at least, for a long while.

  • kangarootoo #29 4 years ago

    "Even supporting 1080/24"

    What is that?

  • kangarootoo #30 4 years ago

    @DB2k

    Sony are not the only people making bluray players, muppet.

  • DrDamn #31 4 years ago

    @Eighthours

    It actually is doing with amazon.com reporting a spike in sales already.

  • Darren #32 4 years ago

    @konstantinos - Buy online from the likes of DVD.co.uk or import the region-free movies from the US: that way you'll typically pay £18 or less for your BD movies as I do (I bought 2001 A Space Odyssey for £14 for example). That's a fair price given the improved picture and sound quality and it wasn't that long ago that 2-disc DVDs sold at that price in the shops. I bought the 5-disc Blade Runner BD set for just £22 from Movietyme and in time the prices will drop. I also got Ratatouille on BD for £17 whereas Play.com are selling the 2-disc DVD version for £15. So shopping around is the best way to avoid paying £24+ for BDs.

  • kangarootoo #33 4 years ago

    "On the same day Castro has resigned, its a bad day for the reds"

    Microsoft are reds now? Well I've seen everything.

  • LiveForever #34 4 years ago

    Has anyone considered the fact that this Hd crap has been released to soon?
    Standard dvds on the 360 with hdmi or vga cable or ps3 on an lcd look just as good as hd at more than half the price.
    xvid - divx video format plays really well on my 360 anyway - who needs blue ray or hd-dvd? seriously.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 09:50

  • SentientNr6 #35 4 years ago

    That happens if the distributor also controls the media. I guess prices wont come down now either.

  • Mr_Bison #36 4 years ago

    PS3 sales will now go through the roof.... F.U 360 fanboys

  • Darren #37 4 years ago

    @kangarootoo - Provided your HDTV supports the 1080/24p feature, you can watch hi-def movies at their correct 24 frames per second playback speed (same as the cinema) instead of the slightly speeded up 25 fps we're used from watching DVDs.

  • kangarootoo #38 4 years ago

    @Darren

    "I bought the 5-disc Blade Runner BD set for just £22 from Movietyme"

    Is that the new Final Edit thing (or whatever it is called) or something else?

  • hana_fubuki #39 4 years ago

    Toshiba put up a good fight: it took 2 years to reach the outcome that most people had predicted from the beginning.
    I'm just sorry for the people who invested in HD-DVD, and I hope Toshiba (a good company IMO) won't suffer too much from the "defeat".

    Sony apparently sold (not shipped, sold) <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080218/ap_on_hi_te/toshi ba_dvd">10.5 million PS3s</A>. The end of the format war should make it a piece of cake for them to reach their 11-mil-by-March goal. Sony doing well = more good games for us. Colour me happy!

    ...OK, back to Lost Odyssey now.

  • chronom4n #40 4 years ago

    During a conversation with my cousin i predicted that Blu-Ray would win this war. It seems that I was correct. For once Sony have succeeded in going for a format which unlike their other formats e.g. Betamax, Minidisc, has become a major success. There are a ton of reasons as to why Blu-Ray has won but in my opinion I think it is to do with the fact that BR offers a more capavcity than Blu-Ray. Having the ability to back all your music, video, jpegs and whatever else on to 1 BD disc as opposed to having to lug around 2 or more HD discs, I think has made an impact as to how people perceive Blur-Ray. Anyway the other thing to remember is a lot of PS3's got sold hence increasing the user base for Blu-Ray.

    But having said that, this is an example of those people committing to a format which no-one knew if it was going to win or not and only time has told the outcome as to who is the winner. But as Mr T always says "I Pity The Fool!"

  • Steroyd #41 4 years ago

    Good riddance to a pointless war.

    Got to give props to Toshiba though I NEVER expected HD-DVD to last till 2008.

  • konstantinos #42 4 years ago

    @Darren...
    thanks, mate...

    cheers...

  • Dizzy #43 4 years ago

    >who needs blue ray or hd-dvd?

    Movie studios. they want to sell us all their movies again with better DRM this time!

  • Darren #44 4 years ago

    @Mr_Bison - Now that is a real mature comment... the expression"shit stirring" springs to mind with that one! LOL

    PS3 sales may well increase more - they were doing that already - but it'll have little or nothing to do with the games so why bring the Xbox 360 into it? At the moment the £300 PS3 is by far the best value BD player and the most future-proof so it may be an attractive buy even for people not that interested in games. However, it won't always be the case unless Sony plan on dropping the price of the PS3 in line with standalone BD players. Also I'm sure that Microsoft will release a BD drive add-on for the Xbox 360 (rumours say as early as May 2008) so that its owners don't have to buy a PS3 or standalone player to be able to watch BD movies on.

  • penhalion #45 4 years ago

    @Kangarootoo

    1080/24 is 1080p video at 24 frames a second, which is actually what HD movies are supposed to be viewed at.

    Currently a lot of TV's and HD players will actually display the movie at 1080p 60 frames a second. This causes jerky movement as the same frame is displayed for a prolonged period. All blu-ray and HD-DVD movies are actually 24 frames a second. You will see a very noticable difference in smoothness and quality when watching HD movies at the intended speed and resolution. It's one of those cases where displaying the images faster isn't a good thing.

    Hope that explains it.

  • drumbaby #46 4 years ago

    This is huge for Sony. PS3 will sell like crazy from now on.

  • Stormflood #47 4 years ago

    I always thought that HD-DVD would win just because of the name. Everyone knows DVD. A lot of people understand HD. Bish-bosh.

    Anyway, got PS3, nearly got HD-DVD player, am happy.

  • Darren #48 4 years ago

    @Kangarootoo - The 5-disc US Blade Runner BD includes the Final Cut and the documentary DVD along with three other discs which contain the three theatrical versions (US, International and Director's Cut) all remastered in 1080p, another DVD with more extras including 45 minutes of deleted scenes and on the last BD, the rare but sadly damaged Workprint version, also in 1080p, which was the first cut shown to selected audiences in the US. All in all it's a far superior package to the UK one and its region-free.

  • wewillselfdestruct #49 4 years ago

    Let's hope this increases Blu-ray sales sufficiently to drive a cut in the price of them. £25 is more than I'm prepared to pay for a movie I'm afraid.

  • L0cky #50 4 years ago

    I also got Ratatouille on BD for £17 whereas Play.com are selling the 2-disc DVD version for £15

    Comparing the prices to new dvd's isn't exactly a great benchmark.

    £17 for Ratatouille? You're having a laugh...

  • Arwin #51 4 years ago

    I thank HD DVD for making BluRay mature a lot faster than it otherwise might have.

    @kanga: surely he meant that the HD DVD boxes are red, not that Microsoft are a bunch of commies
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 10:04

  • septimus #52 4 years ago

    At last.

  • Darren #53 4 years ago

    @drumbaby - "This is huge for Sony. PS3 will sell like crazy from now on."

    Yes but how many of the current 10.5 million PS3 owners actually buy BD movies to watch on their consoles? Clearly the PS3 has been instrumental in making BD a success, or at least convincing the movie studios and shops to back the format, despite what the NPD survey suggested (i.e. that most Americans didn't even know their PS3 could plays BD movies!!!) but it'll be difficult to say how many PS3 users are actually using the console to watch HD movies on. One thing is certain though... Sony took a huge, huge risk in adopting BD for the PS3 and it seems to have paid off for them with the added bonus that it will be used for games now and in the future (I'd imagine the PS4 and Xbox Next will include it as standard).

  • penhalion #54 4 years ago

    @Darren

    A developer looks at installed base to determine which platforms to support. We don't give much of a damn how that installed base was created. Remember that each 360 and PS3 that is in a home, is a potential customer. I would rather have 50 million potential customers who brought a product for movies and then realised they could play games on it too, than 10 million dedicated games players. Even in worst case scenario mode I could sell to enough of the 50 million to break even!

    For the record most games have a 5 to 10% takeup so if there are 10 million of a console out there we can expect to sell to about 500,000 to 1,000,000 of those console owners. The exception being mega hyped games and franchises like gears and halo. However, if I keep costs down to a few million to develope the game, then I'm looking at a return of installed base * 0.05 or installed base * 0.10

    For the math challenged thats either 5 or 10 million on an average - good game and potentially 20 - 50 million on a AAA hyped to death game. I'm talking pounds so for the wow factor, that's upto 100 million US dollars! The console company would expect to make a further 150 - 200 million dollars by selling to retail and retail will make at least that by selling on to the end user. .

    EDIT: To reel things in a bit, I should point out that companies spend upwards of 30 million Dollars on advertising and development of a AAA title and after the tax man cometh, the final figure is a lot less impressive (though still enough for any average joe to retire to the good life).
    Edited by 2 at 19/02/08 @ 10:16

  • Darren #55 4 years ago

    @L0cky - "I also got Ratatouille on BD for £17 whereas Play.com are selling the 2-disc DVD version for £15.."

    Comparing the prices to new dvd's isn't exactly a great benchmark.

    £17 for Ratatouille? You're having a laugh...

    And why exactly? The movie is great and given the amazing 1080p picture quality over the DVD version, I don't feel I've been robbed because just three months ago I paid £16 for the 2-disc Transformers on DV0 from Play.com! LOL

    Yes, you can buy many DVDs for a fiver only months after they've been released but it hasn't always been like that. However, you can now pick up older BDs for under a tenner now, e.g. the region-free Terminator 2 from Movietyme is £9.99. Dunno about anyone else but I have no objections to paying £15-£18 for my movies on a disc.

  • NeedMoreSocks81 #56 4 years ago

    Can anyone actually tell the difference between an upscaled DVD and a BD... to the extent that it's worth spending the extra money on BD? I can't... I really don't see the point in BD when people already have existing movies collections that can be upscaled and look great.

  • kangarootoo #57 4 years ago

    @penhalion

    Cheers for the info :)

    @Darren

    That is soooo bought by me. Cheers v.much for the lead.

    Just to be double sure, I want to buy this one...

    [link url=http://www.movietyme.com/catalog/product_info .php?products_id=37451
    ]http://ww w.movietyme.com/catalog/product...[/link]

    not this one...

    [link url=http://www.movietyme.com/catalog/product_info .php?products_id=39193
    ]http://ww w.movietyme.com/catalog/product...[/link]

    Right?

  • merc2k7 #58 4 years ago

    Thank god I waited! These format wars are never good for the consumer, I remember buying a laser disk player and a lage collection of disks. Lesson learnt!

  • kangarootoo #59 4 years ago

    @Arwin

    "surely he meant that the HD DVD boxes are red, not that Microsoft are a bunch of commies"

    Ahhhhhhhhh. That would explain a thing or two :D

  • kangarootoo #60 4 years ago

    "A developer looks at installed base to determine which platforms to support. We don't give much of a damn how that installed base was created"

    Truth.

  • penhalion #61 4 years ago

    @Needmoresocks81

    Do you have a 1080p screen of at least 37 - 40 inches? If not then you really wouldn't notice the difference. If you do, then watching a blu-ray or HD-DVD at 1080p is definitely a noticable difference. the detail is just so much sharper. Of course the actors suddenly look a little too real (meaning bad skin etc. etc.).

  • Darren #62 4 years ago

    @Kangarootoo - The 5-disc version is exclusive to the US so I'd assume both versions in those links are the same as the UK only got the 2-disc Final Cut. I'm not sure what 'UK 1-2' means though... perhaps it refers to the fact that it is shipped from their UK warehouse rather than direct from Philedelphia in the States? Does anyone else know?

    P.S. For your information I bought the £21.99 version as the 'UK 1-2' version wasn't there when I ordered the movie but the discs are all region-free, including the two DVDs, so they play perfectly on UK PS3s.

  • kangarootoo #63 4 years ago

    @NeedMoreSocks81

    It really depends on the bluray film in question. Some just seem to be of better quality than others. I would expect that to be a result of some films being upscaled for bluray from a non-HD source, and therefore a problem that will die out as new films are made.

    Example. Casino Royale looks amazing on bluray. The opening snakefight scene is sharp as a pin and so colour rich, it really makes you go "wow". No doubt its ability to show off bluray was a key factor in its production, given that it was the film Sony chose to give away free to early PS3 adopters.

    Mission Impossible 3 on the other hand looked just like an upscaled DVD to my eyes. Nice enough looking, and better than normal DVD playback, but no better than any decent quality DVD upscaled in a PS3 (the DVD upscaling in the PS3 is top knotch, as you probably know).

    I believe there are a few other Bluray films that really show the quality of the format, but a great many won't do that yet. I guess anything entirely CG can "easily" be re-rendered from source at HD resolutions, but any other older films may not look so good. Like I said, give it a few years and many films will be recorded in HD res source and the quality will become more consistent.

  • kangarootoo #64 4 years ago

    "Do you have a 1080p screen of at least 37 - 40 inches? If not then you really wouldn't notice the difference"

    My screen is only 32" AND only does 720p or 1080i, but a decent bluray film is still noticeably better.

    My living room is small though, so I'm only sat about 4-5 feet from the screen ;)

  • kangarootoo #65 4 years ago

    @Darren

    Cheers dude. I'll go for the £21.99 version that has no mention of the UK, as it sounds like that is the same as the version you got, which sounds like the better bundle.

    Yay \o/

  • Ihya #66 4 years ago

    Aye Kangerootoo there seems to be a disparity in HD quality. 300 and Sunshine look fucking awesome in high def but Ghost Rider looked flat out upscaled to my eyes. Perhaps it was because the film itself was so god damn terrible my eyeballs were crawling to the back of my skull for mercy however.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 10:28

  • penhalion #67 4 years ago

    @Kangarootoo

    Your right of course it depends entirely on how close you are to the screen (within reason obviously). I'm going by my own living room, where I recently got a 40inch LE40M87 to replace my 32 inch screen. The painful bit is that I got the new screen from amazon for 740 quid while my old set cost me 1200 a few years back.

    Damned you progress, thy name is mugger!

  • slave23d #68 4 years ago

    only annoyance for me is the fact that Blu ray can now kick in Region coding properly. HDDVD had none , and because of that most blu ray didn't. No competition=region encoding. :(

  • space_ace #69 4 years ago

    aaitch dee dee vee dee was a bad name, blu-ray sounds way better

  • Darren #70 4 years ago

    @Kangarootoo - I agree that not all BD movies look amazing, just as not all DVDs do (I've seen plenty of poor quality examples of the latter over the years). The worst BD movies in terms of picture quality tend to be the older ones but not in every case as Blade Runner, 2001 and Halloween look stunning for 25+ year old movies. I have Die Hard and its sequel on BD and although the picture quality is better than DVD, it's still not as good as, say, Die Hard 4.0 as it looks "soft". The most disappointing BD movie I own picture quality wise is 28 Weeks Later which sometimes look great but often looks little better than an upscaled DVD but that's purely down to the way it was filmed. Most of the ones I own though look terrific, particularly those from Disney, e.g. the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Cars and Ratatouille: I'd say they're benchmark quality myself.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #71 4 years ago

    This is great news.

    Have been on the fence with regard to purchasing a PS3 for a while now. Not enough games that I like to make it a worthwhile purchase and with the uncertainty about blu-ray as a future standard for home cinema, I just couldn't decide whether it was worth buying a PS3.

    This announcement has made the PS3 a dead cert purchase for me. More of the games I want to play are coming out on it, I can convince the S.O. that it will be great for playing movies as it is now the de facto standard for HD films and the price is coming down to what I consider reasonable.

    We should also expect the price of the films to come down as companies do not need to purchase HDDVD stock as well as BD and can therefore buy more stock of BD, hopefully at a cheaper price which, maybe, will be passed onto the consumer.

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #72 4 years ago

    I always thought that HD-DVD would win just because of the name. Everyone knows DVD. A lot of people understand HD. Bish-bosh.

    I'd be surprised if the name wasn't a significant factor in its failure, actually. When even the abbreviation of something is a massively clunky five syllables, marketing it is a nightmare.

    Enjoying all the fantasists who reckon this will cause an explosive growth in PS3s, though. Despite the advantage of having a BD player built in it's only just barely been keeping pace with the 360 (and that only thanks to the 360 being totally dead in Japan), and even if its sales suddenly doubled it'd take two years or more just to catch up, never mind overtake it.

  • Darren #73 4 years ago

    @JohnnyWashnGo - The PS3 does a stunning job of upscaling your DVDs to 1080p too, in my opinion it's much better than the Xbox 360 (certainly quieter), particularly as it has more video options to play around with and has a far nicer BD remote. Oh noes I am teh biased!!! LOL

  • Darren #74 4 years ago

    @Rev. Stuart Campbell - Hmmm, I wouldn't be too sure... the Xbox 360 is only currently selling well in the US and the UK whereas the PS3 will continue to sell well in the US, Europe and Japan so it's only a matter of time before it outsells the Xbox 360. The PS3 is the still most expensive console and is still somewhat lacking on the killer app front so the fact that it's selling well now makes you wonder how it'll fare once GTA IV, Final Fantasy XIII, Gran Turismo 5 and Metal Solid 4 are out really. Maybe it'll see an upsurge in sales as PS2 owners move across to it? I've said it before but I honestly believe that 2008 will be a big year for the PS3, just as 2007 was for the 360. Microsoft need to cut the price of the 360 really, it's been out over two years now and the machine hasn't really dropped in price much... the Premium 360 really ought to under £200 by now IMO.

  • Xerx3s #75 4 years ago

    "as content grows and dvd space becomes not just a limiting factor but, a deciding one"

    Ah, that old argument again. Never played all those fantastic multi disc games eh? And what about compression and pgc? There is no space limit with disc based games.

    "PS3 sales will now go through the roof.... F.U 360 fanboys"

    I hope you realise the irony of your comment.

  • SlackMaster #76 4 years ago

    TBH it can only be bad news for consumers with blue-ray players and discs remaining at a relitively high price... For me though a DVD player with upscalling is fine. Don't need to buy into HD movie playback.

  • bad09 #77 4 years ago

    A real shame that may (I say may) come back to bite us, remember all future proof BR owners own a PS3. Unless the BDA reduce the price of stand alone BR (which is unlikely as they didn't do it with competition in the market so why bother now) that important mass market will remain DVDs.

    This was a very dirty war. Not only did over a million HD DVD owners get burned but also over 500,000 stand alone BR owners because the BDA rushed BR out their players won't work properly with future releases. The only people untouched was PS3 owners, turns out the console was good for something after all!

    I got HD DVD but I'm not bitter I knew it was a gamble. Fantastic tech well worth the price and I was smart enough to choose the cheapest way in (£100 360 add-on) I'll buy the remaining HD DVDs I want and when BR is finalized and comes down in price (probably about a year away) I'll pick up a player. Win some loose some.

    Hell the PS3 might actually become a games console before then and I'll pick on of those up! ;)

    Guys, one important thing to remember if you are going blu without the PS3. DO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST!!!! Players can be as cheap as £250 at this time but they are those old players that are not future proof - be careful!

  • Bumhug360 #78 4 years ago

    Maybe now to make up from the lost income from these pointless stories and the fanboy comments that follow you could report on how much different electricity companies charge, after all we all have to plug our consoles in. Could have Eon fanboys square of against npower fanboys on who gets the best deal and why their provider is the best

  • Moz #79 4 years ago

    I'm a little non plused about this as i've been fairly even splitting my money between BD and HDDVD as to minimise loses for early adoption.

    Still if I can have a swap for my HD-DVD add-on and disks that would be really swell, though I dout it will happen

  • muftak #80 4 years ago

    @SlackMaster

    its better for the consumer now , just 1 format and not having to decide which film companys you perfer.

    DVD upscalling is good but no 24hz option and no way near crystal picture and sound quailty isnt as good , i watched transformers on dvd upscalling and it only had 10 mbps while the latest harry potter on blu-ray ( btw thats the correct spelling not blue in the colour) was running at 40-50 mbps.

    the discs arnt expensive at all in most cases only 2 pound more when i got happy potter dvd was 15.99 from play while the Blu-ray one was 17.99.

    Also do you know what this means STAR WARS in HD , lucas said he will do it once a clear winner has been found FUCK YEAH its gonna be a great year for me.

  • Katsumoto #81 4 years ago

    I love this site sometimes ;)

    "Respected Devs announce innovative new game!" - 9 comments

    "Some bollocks about dvds!" - 83 comments (within an hour and a half)

  • Darren #82 4 years ago

    @bad09 - Re: the rushed BD players comment... while it's true that many older players won't support Profile 1.1 and 2.0 which adds picture-in-picture and online functionality to BD movies, it certainly doesn't mean that those owners cannot watch the movie itself or most of the extras for many years to come. All it means it's that a few features will be unaccessible to them, that's all but not everyone will be bothered by that. ;)

  • pfm #83 4 years ago

    Now we'll go into the same cycle again...
    ...until recording technology catches up and copying becomes massive, we'll have to put up with astronomical BluRay prices

  • JohnnyWashnGo #84 4 years ago

    @Rev. Stuart Campbell

    I don't see why this news won't help increase PS3 sales dramatically. Anybody who has been following the HD-DVD/BD debacle will have done enough research to know that most BD players on the market are not nearly as usable or upgradable as the PS3. They will also know that most BD players are as expensive, if not more so, as a PS3.

    When you factor into the equation that fact that some of the industries most antipated games are coming out on PS3, including MGS and FFXIII, you have to admit that the Sony console is a far more enticing proposition at this moment in time than it has ever been. If Sony managed to get their act together they could really capitalise on this development and sell PS3s to many more people.

    Also, from a personal point of view with a Japanese SO, getting a Japanese PS3 would mean that we can watch Japanese and Englsh language films as well as play games from both our home countries.

  • bad09 #85 4 years ago

    @ Darren

    Of course mate, you can still watch the movie, but why waste all that money if you can't have the next gen movie experience. Which HD DVD had from the start by the way......

  • sharpfish #86 4 years ago

    thank fuck. Hopefully disc prices can come down a bit now so it's actually worth buying a BR player (or ps3).

  • symbiote #87 4 years ago

    You know what, for all the flak they got for saying it to begin with, the 360 and Wii might be in the same chronological generation but AREN'T in the same technological generation as the PS3.

    The Wii is a fucking embarassment to the gaming industry and complete fucking sellout to the masses and the 360 is nothing but a bunch of old, unreliable hardware cobbled with redundant and overpriced peripherals that HAD a couple of decent games on it before it ran out of steam.

    Amen to forward thinking Japanese technologists.

    Tosh to wanabee American contendors and cheapskates.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 11:16

  • RexRunti #88 4 years ago

    OK how long til a Blu-Ray add on for the 360? I reckon an announcement by the end of the week (possibly even today) in shops by summer (or even before) and built in to their next console (unless holographic discs really take off).

  • Darren #89 4 years ago

    @bad09 - Yes, HD-DVD at least included everything from the off - kudos for that - but surely the main reason to buy a movie on an HD format in the first place is to watch it in glorious, superior quality 1080p-o-vision and (to a lesser extent) with HD sound, not particularly for the extras as they're just a bonus that not everyone watches? Admittedly I do watch the extras and listen to the commentaries because I find them fascinating but just because, say, 300 lacked the picture-in-picture stuff on BD, didn't make it any less of a next-generation experience for me since I bought the disc for the movie itself.

    Anyway, BD can now do picture-in-pictrue stuff and soon will be able to access online content so it will offer everything that HD-DVD does except with more space per layer. It's still a long way off being a mass-market product so if it does goes on to achieve that then most people won't even be aware it was crippled in the first place. The risk of a format not taking off or the feature set being incomplete/buggy are just some of the things early adopters have to and are prepared to take.

  • spidermanalf #90 4 years ago

    Well I will probably get a PS3 now, just for the blu-ray and odd game.

    Like everyone says it's a cheap in to a BRay player.

  • oreillymj #91 4 years ago

    @penhalion

    1080p/24 is a bigger deal for the US that in PAL regions as our 50Hz electrical system is closer to the natural speed of film than in the US.

    In PAL regions each frame can be displayed twice = 48 frames and with a subtle speed up fits nicely into the 50Hz TV requirement.
    We take film that was shot @ 24fps and display it @ 25fps. Obviously this speed up makes car chases better ;-) but also subtly alters the sound.

    In NTSC 60Hz regions a method called 3:2 pull down is employed, whereby every 4th frame is displayed 3 times to get 24 frames to fit into 30 frames. This works nicely most of the time, but if you ever look at a region 1 DVD @ 60Hz you'll notice weird effects when the camera pans horizontally. The extra frames being injected make the panning appear to slow down and speed up.

    [link url=http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/24p
    ]http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/24p
    [/link]

  • EffEmmGee #92 4 years ago

    @ Darren "...and has a far nicer BD remote..."

    Are you serious?!?! Its god damn ugly!

    PS3 Remote: [link url=http://tinyurl.com/2lra8n
    ]    http://tinyurl.com/2lra8n
    [/link]
    Xbox 360 Remote:     http://tinyurl.com/2q4z9w

  • bad09 #93 4 years ago

    @ Darren

    I do understand where you are coming from. Yes the main pull is the picture and sound but if that is all you want upscaling does come VERY close to HD and is MUCH cheaper (remember not everyone will take advantage HD sound). As a film buff I love all extras but I do understand it's not for everyone. But watching Transformers, Matrix and Batman Begins on HD DVD has shown me the future of extras in home entertainment and I think everyone will start to take more interest in extras when done in such a great way (I just hope BR keeps up the standard set by HD DVD!).

    True by the time it reaches mass market (if it even does) people might have forgotten the profile fiasco but with Samsung being sued and surely the rest to follow they won't forget any time soon.

  • L0cky #94 4 years ago

    @Darren: I don't feel I've been robbed because just three months ago I paid £16 for the 2-disc Transformers on DV0 from Play.com!

    Again with the comparison :p

    If I tried to sell you a sandwich with extra tomato for £22, then told you the lesser version without the extra tomato was £21.99 would that stop you feeling robbed?

    My point is £15 - £25 for a movie is too much, regardless of the format.

    Though it's really a matter of opinion and personal budget so there's not much point arguing about it.

  • ParmaViolet #95 4 years ago

    @symbiote

    A couple of good games before it ran out of steam? - not sure where you get that from, because it appears to me that we 360 owners have a whole slew of great games coming up this year....maybe the PS3 hasn't run out of steam, but then; you don't have those couple of great games yet

    Obviously, this is going to sell PS3's - but, they were going to have a good year anyway (GT5, MGS4 - these titles were going to sell consoles), but it doesn't excuse the fact that we've been playing great games for 2 years while PS3 owners have had very little thrown their way. Seriously, competition is a good thing - I welcome Sony actually raising the game, it can only be good for all involved.

    For me, all this means absolutely nothing. I bought my 360 Elite to play games and it's never let me down with some of the great titles we've had....this news is not going to get me to buy a Blu-Ray player or PS3.....it doesn't make me think that I made the wrong purchase and it doesn't make me worried for Microsoft - it's all pretty trivial really, still, I kinda expected the PS3 fanboys to start nursing semi's when they read the news

    :-)

  • callum9999 #96 4 years ago

    "you wait.. BluRay movies will creep up in price now. They cost fek loads more to make than HD DVD did and were subsidised heavily.. and now there is no other HD disc looking for market share Sony can do what the fuck they want with the price of the discs and the players."

    I really doubt sony have been subsidising the movies of competing film studios.

  • Les #97 4 years ago

    "I always thought that HD-DVD would win just because of the name. Everyone knows DVD. A lot of people understand HD. Bish-bosh."

    Apparently that was the problem: HD-DVD didn't seem different enough from DVD and therefore less 'advanced' than Blu-Ray.

    This war should never have started, shame Toshiba and Sony couldn't work it out in the past, so it's a good thing it's over.

  • bad09 #98 4 years ago

    @ L0cky

    Whilst I do agree the prices are too high (and always have been), the price of BR/HD DVD is comparable (sometimes cheaper) to DVD when it launched.

    @ callum9999

    Actually Sony has indeed been subsidising BR manufacture for the studios for a while. It was a way to keep them happy and not jump to HD DVD. Although the PS3 price cut help move players so I don't know if they still are.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 11:50

  • smirny #99 4 years ago

    surely by the time blu-ray becomes 'mass market' proper, digital distribution will be in much better shape (than the not too shabby shape it's currently in)

  • Vin #100 4 years ago

    "Yea. A lot of people with HDTV want HD movies to watch on them."

    No, they really don't.

  • Cloudane #101 4 years ago

    I'm just pleased that the 'war' is over so all the (major) movie studios can focus on the one format instead.

    And those who don't think the PS3 will see some sort of surge in sales are a bit delusional.

  • mikew1985 #102 4 years ago

    Finally! One more PS3 sold to complete the current gen, thanks Toshiba for (eventually) making the decision easier.

    *hopes pay comes in on Friday*

  • GamesConnoisseur #103 4 years ago

    Good news for HD Home Theatre crowd and the consumers everywhere who now have a clear standard.

    Although it is interesting that on bbc news, [link url=http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7252172.stm
    ]http://ne ws.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7252...[/link]

    That there were only an estimate of 700k HD DVD player sold and other 300k was X360 HD DVD add on. So out of 18 million or so X360 owners only a very small proportion splashed out on the reasonably cheap add on!

    So how important is HD movie? What proportion of next gen console owners have HDTV and watch HD movies? It would be obvious there ll be more on PS3. However still I have used X360 with HDTV since close to launch and shudders at the thought of people playing HD console on bog standard SD TV.

    So out of 10 millionor so PS3 sold what percentage have HDTV and what percentage watch/play movies evenly or even those who use PS3 as BR player essentialy with only 1 or 2 PS3 games?

    However MS will do BR add on to ensure that owners have option to watch BR movies and this make a lot of business sense for both MS and Sony. Expect an annoucement shortly from MS and Sony declaring that it is great news for consumers. It is.

    I stopped purchasing HD DVD movies except for Bourne after last Summer and concentrated on BR since then and regularly rent BR over standard DVD whenever I can.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 15:50

  • adwol48 #104 4 years ago

    one thing isnt the 360 hd dvd drive made by toshiba anyway? so with toshiba discontinuing manufacture microsoft themselves will either have to discontinue the product or source the parts from another manufacturer who will still produce the drives.

  • Darren #105 4 years ago

    @ L0cky - "My point is £15 - £25 for a movie is too much, regardless of the format."

    That's just *your* opinion though so you have the choice of not paying that. So do I. However, I don't think paying £15 for a DVD or £18 for a BD is too much and that is *my* point. And I'm sure everyone else has different opinions too. It all comes down to what you perceive to be good value for money and what you're used to paying so I think the online prices are fair (I rarely buy anything from the shops anymore, 95% of my stuff is bought online).

    Of course, if you're prepared to wait then you can get anything much cheaper but I'm prepared to pay those prices to get them *now* as are the other hundreds of thousands that have been buying HD-DVD and BD movies over the past 18 months. I think I've only paid £24 for one BD movie, my first purchased one: X-Men: The Last Stand, but I didn't know any better then. Now I don't pay more than £18 for single/double discers because I'm sensible enough to shop around for the best prices.

  • Luvbeers #106 4 years ago

    The future:
    http://i4 4.photobucket.com/albums/f46/lu...

  • Darren #107 4 years ago

    @EffEmmGee - "@ Darren "...and has a far nicer BD remote..."

    Are you serious?!?! Its god damn ugly!"

    Dear me, you are shallow, aren't you? LOL

    I'm talking about ease of use and functionality, which are far more important than looks! The PS3's BD remote is far easier (read: nicer) to use than the clunky 360 remote with its unresponsive rubbery buttons. It doesn't even need to be pointed at the PS3 either since it uses Bluetooth technology (the memory units often get in the way of the 360 one for me which makes it even more unresponsive). Looks are totally irrelevant in this case plus the BD remote matches the others I have for my Sony HDTV and surround sound system too.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 12:36

  • Luvbeers #108 4 years ago

    MS will announce a Blu-ray player at GDC

    Not really sure that will happen. It is a game DEVELOPERS conference, and since a blu-ray add-on will only play HD movies, its not exactly the right place to make that announcement.

  • Les #109 4 years ago

    "surely by the time blu-ray becomes 'mass market' proper, digital distribution will be in much better shape (than the not too shabby shape it's currently in)"

    But not in a good enough shape to make people happily wait out a 50gb download of a movie. Digital distribution is a success in music (and in pirated low quality movies) because of the relativey small file size. But maybe even more important, separating the contents from a physical medium has a real benefit to music: being able to listen to your complete record selection while on the move. The need for a complete film library on the move is much smaller as is the need for actually watching movies on the go.

  • Les #110 4 years ago

    "Not interested in high def films. Just another way for film studios to milk people."

    The exact same principle as releasing a new console every few years to get people to buy the exact same games again, though with higher res graphics... It's called capitalism.

  • Luvbeers #111 4 years ago

    But not in a good enough shape to make people happily wait out a 50gb download of a movie. Digital distribution is a success in music (and in pirated low quality movies) because of the relativey small file size.

    video encoding technology will also improve to where 1080p movies will not require as much capacity.

  • Darren #112 4 years ago

    I read somewhere that digital distribution of content still only account for 0.5% of global sales so that has clearly got a long, long way to go before it becomes mainstream. I suspect that it'll only be of interest to those people now who rent DVDs and don't buy them so those people wouldn't have much affect on disc sales anyway. I'd imagine that many people will continue to buy disc media for years to come. What would people buy each other for Christmas if BDs. DVDs and CDs disappeared for good... getting a voucher that entitles you to download and watch Transformers 3 once within a three week period just wouldn't be the same would it? There's a lot of people who like owning stuff so I can't see digital distribution ever replacing physical media unless it is forced on the masses. And with limited ISPs and the lacklustre broadband infrastructure we have in this country especially, it would be suicidal. Of course, downloading stuff now is extremely popular with the masses because many people obtain it illegally; I doubt those same people would be too happy if they had to pay for it.

  • DB2k #113 4 years ago

    @kangarootoo.. you dillon. Sony own the license which peopel have to pay to make the technoloigy. So sony control the pricing of it effectively. Honestly.. kangaroopoo more like.

  • Darren #114 4 years ago

    @Luvbeers - I believe that digital distribution of content in a mass capacity is at least ten years away if not longer so there's still plenty of time left for another format to thrive. Seeing as the successors to the PS3 and Xbox 360 will arrive in as little as four or five years time, they're more than likely going to use BD as standard for games which will in turn ensure that discs last another decade at least. I cannot see Microsoft releasing the Xbox 360's followup without an optical drive, it would be suicidal as it would drastically limit sales, and it's certainly not going to be DVD again.

  • Darren #115 4 years ago

    @farticusmaximus - "Console gaming is in a much different place thasn it was last generation. True there are some 'HD-last-gen' games out there, however there are also a LOT of games that couldnt be made on last gen hardware."

    I know this is slightly off-topic but I contest that statement. While it's true that there are many current gen games that couldn't be done on last gen hardware to the same standard of graphics or physics, I'd argue that the vast majority of them could be done with compromised visuals or level design, in other words I don't think we've seen anything this generation that we haven't seen in the previous one. Look at the critically acclaimed and "ambitious" Test Drive Unlimited on the 360, that runs on a PS2!!! Are Viva Pinata, PGR 4, Gears of War, Mass Effect and Halo 3 really that different from the kinds of games we had on the Xbox and PS2? The graphics are better, yes, and the levels are bigger but little else has changed IMO, we're still playing exactly the same kinds of games and there's little sign of innovation thus far. Even the Wii only offers a different way to play mostly the same old games.

  • Luvbeers #116 4 years ago

    I still think that flash drives are the way of the future. They already have ones with a higher capacity than BD and without optical drives, consoles would be even cheaper to manufacture while less prone to drive failure.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 13:20

  • FladgeMangle #117 4 years ago

    @ DB2k - Why does everybody keep saying Blu Ray is Sony's format? (Even the BBC are at it) Below is a list of just some of the joint patent holders, a few names there you might recognise. HD-DVD on the other hand was solely Toshiba's format, backed in part by Microsoft

    Matsushita (Panasonic)
    JVC
    Sanyo
    Sharp
    Samsung
    Phillips
    Pioneer
    Mitsubishi
    Hitachi
    ..and Sony.

    There are also companies like Hewlet Packard and Warner Home Video on the list.

    http://www. edn.com/article/CA6354980.html - for the doubters.

  • Olemak #118 4 years ago

    Darren: well, you're sort of right - better technology does not creat new gameplay, it mostly just improves on graphics, size and sometimes speed - mostly. I played the original System Shock when that came out well over 10 years ago, and Bioshock is pretty much just an evolutuion of the same game. Both games are centered on the same ideas, more or less. A shooter is a shooter, and a racer is a racer, and so on - cutting edge technology changes remakably little.

    But then again, Bioshock is of course a game vastly superior to System Shock by any measure. Games actually do get better, more complex, bigger and often more fun as well. Back in the day, pixel perfect platformers were the biggest game genre around, and gameplay was horribly punishing. Today, games are a lot more forgiving, to appeal to a broader audience, and they are better for it. Once, games were about text adventures and 2-D side scrollers, or beat them ups using sprites of filmed artists performing moves in glorious 2 D.

    But then there was Doom, and there was Nvidia and ATI, and then there was Halo 3 and Bioshock and Battlefield and Drakes Fortune and a thousand other things. So games actually do change, a lot, and some times fast.

    I don't expect easry "next-gen" games to really push the envelope. But we've seen stuff like portal, and there are water puzzle adventure shooters (I forget the name) and other things in the making. Physics in general still has a way to go, and AI is still vay underdeveloped. But stuff's happening. From game to game I see small developments, and then once in a while something really novel comes around. Sing Star and other social games like it was perhaps the biggest innovation of the last generation. I have no idea what this generation will bring, but I'm sure it will be special.

    Final note: Doom pushed specialized graphics gards, and that has been pushing gaming towards 3D and HD graphics ever since. So that is one line of development. In the last gen, the Xbox had an internal Hard Drive, and that gave it abilities the PS2 could not match - in this generation, the PS3 has a hard drive, but the Xbox insists on not really needing one even though it has one, so that's weird - but the point is that you can hande data in other ways when you have a HD. Like savegames for Oblivion, whish gets pretty big - you couldnt have that on the last gen (not the PS2, anyway).

    Maybe the difference between the last and the current gen is mostly cosmetic - so far - but when you go 20 years back in gaming, you'll se that the games we play today have fairly little in common with what we played back then, particularily on consoles. It's not just the graphics, but the gameplay basics, even the very genres we play, have changed completely.

  • Monkeyman007 #119 4 years ago

    I'd like to thank microsoft for saving me from buying a HD-DVD player. If my 360 had not have given me the red rings then I would have bought a HD dvd player. Instead I was so pissed off with microsoft and its machine for dying I bought a PS3 and moved into the Blue-ray arena for movies. Thing is Sony have used the PS3 to win the High def war, now with that in the bag it will use High Def movies to win the console war because by their own design the PS3 is still the only real choice of Blue-ray player because it is hardware upgradeable. There aren't many/if any (in UK at least) fully specced up Blue ray players on the market, even from sony, dispite that the fact that full blue ray specifications were agreed and locked in October of last year (or so I am lead to believe) I thought that any Blue ray players sold after that date were supposed to be FULLY functional or at least open for upgrades.

    To some degree you have to admire Sony for having the Balls to take such a gamble with Blue-ray and the PS3, god knows it has failed on more than one occaision before but will costs of players and films now come down, I doubt it, Sony have money to milk and a nice cow to milk from.

  • MilkYMoO #120 4 years ago

    Hopefully I'll get a load of hddvds soon, out of a bargain bucket at my local hmv. Its the only place I could get them. The prices for both blu-ray and hddvds are ridiculously expensive where I live. I never scratch dvds but I've noticed hddvds scratch very easily, so good riddance. I bought my ps3 mainly as a blu-ray and upscaling dvd player so hopefully blu-ray disc prices will come down. If they dont, then the sooner downloadable media takes over completely the better.

  • mkreku #121 4 years ago

    Unfortunately, this means I'm seeing a PS3 in my living room in a not so distant future.

  • Darren #122 4 years ago

    @Olemak - Yes, you're right about games having evolved drastically over the past 20 years, particularly with the transition from 2D to 3D in the md-1990s but this generation, IMO, has really been focused mainly on graphics and online gaming and hasn't seen any real improvement in the actual gameplay at all, although feel free to put me right. And for all the comments from people about how graphics aren't important in games, it's really the main thing that defines this generation from the previous one, at least as far as Sony and Microsoft are concerned, what with all this talk of fancy HDR lighting, bumpy normal mapping and trillions of pixels onscreen. I think the only game that has truly impressed me this generation in terms of scope and ambition is Oblivion but that is really little more than a refined version of Morrowind with better graphics. Not that it stops me enjoying those games but it strikes me that many genres are becoming increasingly stale as graphics seem to take priority over gameplay: RPGs, sports, racing, shooting games... all look prettier but play exactly the same...

    *sigh*

    I must be getting old or something... LOL

  • Darren #123 4 years ago

    @farticusmaximus - Yeah, you make some fair points there but I'm afraid I'm not someone who is into this whole online community thing so the likes of Xbox LIVE don't interest me. It's nothing new or exciting for me since I was playing PC games online a decade ago. Sure things are easier and more convenient now but that still doesn't change the fact that we're still playing the same old shooting, sports and racing games online. Laugh all you like, but probably the best online experience I've ever had was the six months I spent playing World of Warcraft online on my PC; that was immersive and engrossing in ways I never imagined, far more than anything else I've played online and it didn't require HD graphics or fancy physics to achieve it either.

  • Monkey_Chops #124 4 years ago

    If Micro$oft release a Blu-Ray add on for the 360, the only reason I'd have left to get a PS3 is MGS4. Otherwise, it's a done deal. So get on with it, MS!

  • TheVoiceOfRaisins #125 4 years ago

    @everyone...

    really enjoying this debate - at last a multitude of posts with reasoned agruments, without resorting to fanboy banter.

    There must be some people missing.........

  • MoGamer2006 #126 4 years ago

    Ha! Ironic that PS3 was meant to be the Trojan Horse that got BluRay into millions of homes, and now it looks like it'll be the other way around... =)

  • Olemak #127 4 years ago

    Darren:
    "I think the only game that has truly impressed me this generation in terms of scope and ambition is Oblivion but that is really little more than a refined version of Morrowind with better graphics."

    That is absolutely spot-on. However... "this-gen" har brought this sort of game to the consoles is a big way, at a very reasonable price - the consle needed to play Oblivion decently is a fraction of the price of the PC set-up needed to play the same game at decent settings.

    Morrowind was available for the original Xbox, of course - and I guess the boundraries between "this-gen" and "last-gen" is not exactly solid. I think it is more relevant to talk about "next-gen" as well as "next-gen platforms"... and speaking of platforms, I think that the original Xbox was indeed "next gen", whereas the PS2 was (is) not.

    My point, then - and I think we are in agreement, really: there are some very impressive "next-gen games" out there that move the gaming thing forward, and there are a lot of new iterations of "last gen games" as well. A few next-gen games, then, irrespective of platform:

    Sing Star - Simple, social and accessible for everyone.
    Morrowind - Huge, engrossing, expansive, free-form
    GTA III - Freeform, cool, and "lifestyle"
    Bioshock - emotionally engaging, story and character
    Rez - next next gen
    Wii Sports - fun, motion controls, but above all very accessible to casual gamers

    The list goes on, really, byut games like Halo or Crysis dont deserve to be on it, as it is mostly just doing the same thing even better than before. Great games, but not very innovative exept in graphics and to an extent physics.

    The games in the list above have spawned even more evolved version on "this gen" - Oblivion is better than, but still basically the same as Morrowind. GTA IV and Crackdown are slightly upgraded versions of GTA III, basically (well, I guess).

    So - in short I agree that the platforms themselves don't really mean a great leap forward for gameplay development. I think the games will continue to evolve somewhat separately from the hardware. By the end of "this gen", however, we'll probably see some truly amazing games that was impossible to pull off on the last gen. Well, maybe. Most innovation seems to take place on the Wii, which is in my eyes a "last gen" console, technically - and perhaps on the Live Arcade side, which gives room for the idea-driven games developed on smaller budget. But that is a sort of innovation exclusive to this gen, too: the advent of small, reasonably priced downloadable game as a viable business model. We did not have that before, on any platform. People didn't really download (and pay for) small but inventive games on the PC either. So we get games like Portal, Rez HD, Everyday Shooter, Pain and so on.

    The whole DL content business model and online game purchase/distribution (like PSN and LIVE Arcade, but also Steam and Metaboli) is pretty novel and "next gen", I think.

  • Bagpuss #128 4 years ago

    I guess the first tech spec component of the Xbox360's sucessor has just been finalised.

  • Les #129 4 years ago

    "That is absolutely spot-on. However... "this-gen" har brought this sort of game to the consoles is a big way, at a very reasonable price - the consle needed to play Oblivion decently is a fraction of the price of the PC set-up needed to play the same game at decent settings."

    I think we saw that at the start of every console cycle so far TBH. Soon afterwards though, no console can keep pace with PC hardware.

    But I agree something good might come from the DLC this gen. Cheap enough to warrant production of previously unmarketable games. If only they would put less emphasis on rereleases of old games...

  • Diomedes #130 4 years ago

    The PS3 has already lots of great games out :DMC 4 ,Burnout Pardise ,Uncharted ,Ratchet and Clank ,Unreal III ,Resistence ,Call of Duty 4 ,Gran Turismo 5 Prologue ,Singastar Online ,Guitar Hero III ,Ninja Gaiden Sigma ,Warhawk etc etc .Ps3 has more than 35 games rated above 85% on the gaming press ...

    Stupid Xbots ,when the PS3 has 100 good games and 25 exclusives you will keep saying "no cuz Ps3 is cheapo Br player doesnt have teh gamez ..." ...

    As for the news great news for Sony this will push even further PS3 sales .If Toshiba handt been so stupid and arrogant and sat to table to enter the BDA this woulndt have passed and 1 million customers woundlt be screwed right now with the corpse of the inferior and dead format in their hands .

  • Diomedes #131 4 years ago

    The PS3 has already lots of great games out :DMC 4 ,Burnout Pardise ,Uncharted ,Ratchet and Clank ,Unreal III ,Resistence ,Call of Duty 4 ,Gran Turismo 5 Prologue ,Singastar Online ,Guitar Hero III ,Ninja Gaiden Sigma ,Warhawk etc etc .Ps3 has more than 35 games rated above 85% on the gaming press ...

    Stupid Xbots ,when the PS3 has 100 good games and 25 exclusives you will keep saying "no cuz Ps3 is cheapo Br player doesnt have teh gamez ..." ...

    As for the news great news for Sony this will push even further PS3 sales .If Toshiba handt been so stupid and arrogant and sat to table to enter the BDA this woulndt have passed and 1 million customers woundlt be screwed right now with the corpse of the inferior and dead format in their hands .

  • Darren #132 4 years ago

    To be fair, Diomedes, if it wasn't for Warner Bros. defecting to BD at the start of this year then HD-DVD wouldn't be dead now. If the rumours are to be believed, Warner Bros. were on the verge of going HD-DVD exclusive but only if one of the other BD-exclusive studios had also jumped ship. It could so easily have gone 50:50 for both formats and then the Format Wars could have dragged on for years. Thank god it didn't, I don't think anyone interested in buying HD movies wanted to have to buy them on two formats because it's just so stupid when they both offer exactly the same thing and have identical audio/visual quality.

  • ParmaViolet #133 4 years ago

    Seriously, I really don't see why PS3's selling off the back of this is necessarily guaranteeing it's dominance.

    If people now go out to buy a PS3, based purely on it's Blu-Ray capabilities, then this is just another hit for Sony - they sure as hell don't make any money on the hardware. Obviously, they'd be more likely to purchase a game or two once they've got it - but, this really isn't ringing any death tolls for the 360....after all, the 360's attach rate is still way higher than the PS3

    Anyways, I'm glad to see that the majority are still being mature in this forum - I've just been to another site and watched the morons squabble with the typical 'RROD' and 'PS3 Sux' comments.....bravo us!

    :-)

  • SeesThroughAll #134 4 years ago

    If people now go out to buy a PS3, based purely on it's Blu-Ray capabilities, then this is just another hit for Sony - they sure as hell don't make any money on the hardware.

    Right... So they can't still make a profit from Blu-Ray movies, now can they?

  • Calgon #135 4 years ago

    Yeah it wasn inevitable, impact on the console war? not that great, if you are that bothered about HD movie content MS has you arguably better catered for once they bring out a Blu-Ray addon because you also get as it stands now atleast the premier livingroom digital distribution service(compression standards are improving all the time both video and audio along with broadband speeds rising and becoming more affordable so dont talk about 50GB capacities please, that would be mental lol). Blu-Ray or even HD content in general is not going to become mainstream(just think about it from the average joes perspective, Im guessing the mainstream isnt typically technology mad, alot of gamers are though so we sometimes have bias and see things differently) soon enough to help PS3 as much as some are hoping though but should give it a much needed boost(since the games arent there for many people).
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 17:47

  • drumbaby #136 4 years ago

    "Ha! Ironic that PS3 was meant to be the Trojan Horse that got BluRay into millions of homes, and now it looks like it'll be the other way around... =) "

    Homes are going to get Blu-Ray into millions of PS3s?

  • IneptPercy #137 4 years ago

    This is a dark day for disc based media distribution, the ever changing blu ray standard is bad enough but has anybody looked at 2.0?

    2.0 requires an internet connection... and eventually films will require 2.0... So every film you watch will be reported back never mind the fact copying will be a lot harder if that takes you fancy.

    As it is a have a PC drive which plays both so I am looking forward to the HD-DVD clearance sales now.

    Now the PS3 (aka blu ray trojan) has done its primary task do you think it may move onto games now?

  • murphy245 #138 4 years ago

    ah great news,im so glad its official.

  • quantumsheep #139 4 years ago

    151!!!

    Good to have a clear 'winner', I only have a handfull of HD-DVD titles, and have been buying Blu-Ray ones since I got my PS3. Not a great loss for me then, though if you'd spent a fortune on HD-DVD stuff I imagine you'd be pretty pissed off =(

  • Ryze #140 4 years ago

    Now - hopefully Sony will concentrate on their GAMES console. Shame about its spec when it comes to GAMES.

    /waits for 2 years
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 18:58

  • fightman3b #141 4 years ago

    * IMPORTANT * to those who own a standalone hd-dvd player or the xbox360 add-on *IMPORTANT*

    hahahahaha hahahahahaha

    you fucking thick cunts; enjoy your doorstop motherfuckers!!!!

  • Calgon #142 4 years ago

    Haha confounder talks about justifying things? Oh the irony haha...

    / Hasnt got a 360 or PS3 so can sit back and see:
    >>>one side thats always been able to justify their choice here and now(depite worries of RROD because of the games which they like) and
    >>>one side that as far as the fanboys who bought one at launch goes, has been fooled in to paying extra on the "investment" blag...

    Those who just bought the console because they wanted it fair enough but those trying to justyfy it to 360 owners(that says it all right there to me, so why are you doing that then?) you should have waited for a price drop and some games that are anywhere near as good as 360s instead you choice to "support" a brand and eat up everything they told you from day one.

    Yes I expect PS3 sales will rise a bit, but lets be sensible and not get carried away here, remember:

    1) You can get a better Blu-Ray player for less than the cost of a PS3.
    2) While nobody argues theres a clear visual difference/improvement, that completely misses the point about the mainstream not being as easily sold on it given the costs involved for alot of them.

    It could have a big impact who knows? but for Sony to try and use it in the media now would be a bluff, since it might have just a marginal impact(because up untill now theyve been blaming it on the format war, even though Blu-Ray has won its still a long way from successfull yet. There isnt the demand some seem to think there is in the mass market.) ...

    "Ooh Blu-Ray won? They said PS3 is going to sell more this year? Lets all buy PS3s now then or 'jump ship' because I really need Blu-Ray all of a sudden!".
    I've seen all the tricks already and Id hope thats an obvious one for the hardcore market to spot by now, maybe even the casual market.
    Edited by 6 at 20/02/08 @ 00:49

  • Ryze #143 4 years ago

    It's not at all out of the question for M$ to now integrate Blu-Ray to enhance their offering and level the playing field.

    It is however - for gamers, all about the games.

    The casuals are definitely swayed by extras like a movie player - and it's great for everyone to have one built in, especially when it comes to the small and growing niche that is HD content.

    Blu-Ray is almost guaranteed to come to the 360 as a movie format, in one guise or another...

  • Miths #144 4 years ago

    Not that I care particularly much about all the rest of the XBox 360 vs PS3 arguments in this thread - at the moment I'm fairly satisfied using my 360 for around 80% of my gaming, while my PS3 functions mostly as a Blu-ray player and media streamer.
    Alright, so secrectly I wish I could throw out my 360 because I hate the drive and fan noise :p, but that doesn't mean I care much whether someone else prefers one format or the other - and frankly I think it would be best if both consoles remained exceptionally popular (though I am very happy the HD format war is now over, it didn't really seem like anyone would benefit from keeping that one going - rather consumers would lose).

    But I do want to point out what I think is a flaw in this particular statement (from Calgon):

    "1) You can get a better Blu-Ray player for less than the cost of a PS3."

    Everywhere I look - including AV forums where many have little interest in gaming - I still see the PS3 hailed as the currently best Blu-ray player. Cheaper than many standalone players (and that's entirely leaving out the fact that it actually is a gaming console as well - or at least it might be, once there's actually a decent game catalogue ready :p), while still being faster to load up, just as featureful and userfriendly (with the remote) and with support for 1080p24. And last but certainly not least, seemingly still one of if not the only Blu-ray 2.0 future proof player.

    Of course it probabably (and hopefully if we are to see quick hi-def market penetration) won't be long before standalone players drop in price, and feature support for future firmware upgrades. But at this time the PS3 seems to be the best choice if you're looking for a Blu-ray player.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/08 @ 21:09

  • ForburyLion #145 4 years ago

    This certainly makes buying a PS3 to accompany my 360 a more attractive proposition.... once Gran Tourismo 5 hits the shelves that is.

  • IneptPercy #146 4 years ago

    I quick note to people who have a decent pc and want blu ray, You can get a blu ray drive for £100 now... So still not much need for the PS3.

    Loving people bring the console 'war' into this. I still don't care which sells more, my choices of consoles and games suit me so I am happy, if somebody is happy with a different setup etc then so be it.

  • Nephirion #147 4 years ago

    /strokes PS3 XD

  • Calgon #148 4 years ago

    Miths I read different, I can try and dig it up but I remember an article posted a while back about this topic. I read the AV forum alot too and Ive noticed alot of Sony enthusiats there(expected because they do make good TVs despite the pricetags and the brand is well respected by some still). Best player? no way Id beleive that, or somethings very wrong there(would Sony cannabalise their own stand alone players' sales in this way just to save the PS3?... and Im sure for a pure HD movie player from the likes of pioneer and co it would have better playback). Best value? used to be but not anymore according to that article(well the gaming arguement is subjective for some if all they want is a decent peice of home cinema equiment for a fair price).

    What were talking about with the only future proof player comment? Firmware upgrades? Surely theres some out there that allow them... as someone said if you can already buy them for the PC(Id be pretty supprised if any of them at all dont support it), perhaps a decent mediacentre PC with one of those drives is a more suitable chioce for some?
    Edited by 3 at 20/02/08 @ 01:11

  • Miths #149 4 years ago

    @Calgon

    I just spent ten minutes looking around a few "which Blu-ray player should I get?" threads at AV Forums. As far as I can see, the PS3 is still widely recommended.
    It looks like the consensus more or less is that its operational speed (system boot, disc loading, menu system) is second to none, its picture quality is up there with the best of the stand alone players, it supports 24 fps playback, all types of audio (including TrueHD) are covered - and last but not least, the future proof thing thanks to a net connection and harddisk storage (even a few posts from yesterday indicates that there aren't actually any standalone players available yet with profile 2.0 "BD-Live" capability, or the possibility to be upgraded to that as they are lacking that net connection).

    Sure, if we include Blu-ray drives for PCs we might move into different territory (at least in terms of upgrade capabilities, I honestly don't have a clue about Blu-ray software players etc., which can no doubt have some impact on picture quality) - but for many people (even some PC geeks like myself :), though I've moved to consoles for gaming), that means we're not really talking living room suitable setups anymore (or at least not the first choice unless you're really eager to save a bit of money), unless you place a laptop next to your HDTV or run some very long cables from whatever room where you may keep your PC.

    Which means I do still think it's quite accurate to call the PS3 one of, if not the best overall choice among the consumer electronics Blu-ray players.
    But of course I don't actually believe it will maintain that role for very long. It's just a matter of time - and probably not much of it - before we start seeing the first cheap, 2.0 ready, stand alone players.

  • RazorObsession #150 4 years ago

    not having a next gen movie format player drive whajamacallit hasn't hurt the wii, leader in console sales if i am not mistaken, proving that it really is about innovation in the games.

  • BootLace #151 4 years ago

    Best player? no way Id beleive that, or somethings very wrong there(would Sony cannabalise their own stand alone players' sales in this way just to save the PS3?... and Im sure for a pure HD movie player from the likes of pioneer and co it would have better playback).

    If you're using hdmi, then the path from disk to display is purely digital, so final quality would presumable be exclusively down to the quality of your display, making the actual player used irrelevant.

    Any post-processing a player did to give the impression of a better image would diverge from the actual image on disc and it's benefit would be subjective, so I would be wary of including that as a caveat.

    The only other area I could think of a stand alone player being better, is that it may use higher quality components that lead to less error correction. Something I'd imagine unlikely though.

  • Calgon #152 4 years ago

    Ok it seems the article I was remembering was "PS3 No Longer Cheapest Blu-ray Player" and as I said I read the AV Forums alot and I know for a fact when it comes to brands there are people who stick to certain ones, so a pinch of salt is sometimes needed with some recommendations.

    I mentioned specifically Media Centre PCs which would probably be alot better value for a new buyer and they are built from the living room. I can see already you dont want to conceed that you can get a better deal than PS3 already even for blu-ray, but try and be sensible even as a PS3 fan its not wise to get carried away about its importance especially given it might not be the automatic choice for the few who are interested in Blu-Ray at the moment.

    BootLace I dont know where you got that "its digital so it doesnt matter" theory from lol, let me explain to you it does(youd always be using HDMI on a stand alone player one would think, I dont know why you brought connections in to it then), for start its compressed so your disk to screen theory is out the window already: you have the drive speed... PS3s is 2x(this is expected but the bare minimum youd expect from a stand alone player), the quality components of the drive themselves also matter(if you think Sony can afford to put the highest quality parts into the PS3 or would do anyway with what they are loosing on the PS3 then think again) how can you even begin to say its doesnt? This is optical technology its prone to the same problems as DVD and CDs were in some respects so yeah you do notice a little extra quality, why try and argue with that?
    Edited by 3 at 20/02/08 @ 15:46

  • BootLace #153 4 years ago

    BootLace I dont know where you got that "its digital so it doesnt matter" theory from lol, let me explain to you it does(youd always be using HDMI on a stand alone player one would think, I dont know why you brought connections in to it then), for start its compressed so your disk to screen theory is out the window already: you have the drive speed...

    HDMI is relevant as it is an uncompressed transport for digital data, meaning you lose one of the most significant areas for variation between players of previous formats, that being no need for onboard DACs to convert into signals suitable for component, S-Video, etc.

    This leaves only 2 areas for variance assuming you're purely going for a straight reproduction/reconstruction of the recorded media:
    1) the process of retrieving the raw data from the disc.
    2) the process of expanding that compressed data

    For the first, the quality of the optics/drive mech can certainly have an impact on the quality of reproduction; generation of read issues that error correction either can't fix, or only partially resolve, in turn leading to audio/visual glitches when decoded. The reason I stated an unlikeliness for this to be relevant though, is that devices that are required to supply raw code/data as well as compressed audio/video tend to have far more reliable mechanism. You can afford glitches in a/v data, but a single bit wrong in code/data can result in a useless disk (crashing executable).

    As for the actual decompression of the data, this is a defined process, and barring bugs, I'd say the only room for the variation would be if the standards for the codec were vague and open to interpretation, but this would be applicable to both high and low end equipment and not necessarily be a factor of cost to produce.

    PS3s is 2x(this is expected but the bare minimum youd expect from a stand alone player), the quality components of the drive themselves also matter(if you think Sony can afford to put the highest quality parts into the PS3 or would do anyway with what they are loosing on the PS3 then think again) how can you even begin to say its doesnt? This is optical technology its prone to the same problems as DVD and CDs were in some respects so yeah you do notice a little extra quality, why try and argue with that?

    Now Blu-Ray has become the primary HD format, I'd be surprised to see little more than anything but a refinement of the format. As far as I'm aware, Blu-Ray disk movies have a defined max transfer rate of 48Mbit/s (1.5x), so I'm not sure the relevance of the PS3's 2x speed.