Toshiba officially scraps HD-DVD Comments by Robert Purchese

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)

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

No, they really don't.

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.

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

*hopes pay comes in on Friday*

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, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7252...

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.

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.

@ 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.

The future:
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f46/lu...

@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.

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.

"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.

"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.

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.

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.

@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.

@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.

@Les

"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."

Poor comparision.

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.

Also, comparing a DVD to a HD version of the same movie is in no way analogous to next-gen/last-gen gaming comparisons. Comparing, for example, Rez to Rez-HD might roughly fit your statement, but there are other benefits than just resolution.

@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.

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.

@ 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

@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 -

What about live integration, online leaderboards, downloadable content? 'This-gen' is more connected, more integrated. Sure, in terms of infrastructure and intergrated features Xbox->360 is just refinement but PS2->PS3 is a quantum leap.

Let's also not discount up-and-coming games like The Force Unleashed, Alone in the Dark and Fracture. There's no way those titles would work on last-gen hardware without resorting to Katamari-style graphics.

I dont know if you are expecting new hardware to suddenly spawn new genres of game, but that's not how games development moves. Those paradigm shifts happen very rarely and are not necessarily linked to hardware revisions (but often drive hardware upgrades). Improvements in realism is genarally what happens between the advent of new game genres.

Visual fidelity can be a very large factor in how effective a game can be at immersing you in the experience. To compromise graphics for physics or vice-versa so they could run on last-gen hardware would lessen the immersion and reduce the perceived quality of the game.

I stand by my statement that 'next-gen' gaming is, in general an evolution that couldn't be supported by last-gen consoles. It ain't the matrix but to say that this gen of console gaming is 'the same as last-gen with HD resolution' is ignoring all the day-to-day usability features and overall immersion level that we've got used to and probably don't notice anymore.

@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.

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!

@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.........

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... =)

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.

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

"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...

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 .

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 .

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.

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!

:-)

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?

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).

"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?

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?

ah great news,im so glad its official.

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 =(

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

/waits for 2 years

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.

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...

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.

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

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.

/strokes PS3 XD