That's true, I find it amazing how many people don't in the States considering what is happening in 2009, the market is gonna drop like mad when the digital switchover occurs I suspect though
BluRay wins?
- Thread starter Wibble
- Start date
That's true, I find it amazing how many people don't in the States considering what is happening in 2009, the market is gonna drop like mad when the digital switchover occurs I suspect though
i have a PS3 so this is great news
I don't know if this has already been mentioned but i Just read this on gamespot.
HD DVD dropped by Wal-Mart, Toshiba?
Megaretailer goes Blu-ray-exclusive as competing format's creator is reportedly ready to throw in the towel.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted Feb 15, 2008 8:09 pm GMT
It's been a rough year for Toshiba's HD DVD format. After spending 2006 and 2007 locked in a heated battle with the Sony-backed Blu-ray for high-definition, high-capacity disc format dominance, HD DVD has suffered a series of devastating setbacks in the first two months of the year.
Warner Bros. kicked 2008 off by going Blu-ray exclusive in the first week of January. An apparently panicked HD DVD camp canceled its Consumer Electronics Show conference in response, and reports quickly surfaced that HD DVD holdouts Paramount and Universal were looking to switch to Blu-ray.
Bad news for HD DVD fans is continuing to snowball this week, as Best Buy and movie rental service Netflix both said they would back the Sony-supported format going forward. (Best Buy will still stock HD DVD, but its salespeople will advise prospective customers to go Blu-ray).
Two more big names came up as abandoning HD DVD today. This morning the official Wal-Mart blog confirmed that the massive retail chain is going Blu-ray exclusive by June, and the Hollywood Reporter is citing "reliable industry sources" for the news that Toshiba itself is ready to drop its own format.
A Toshiba representative denied the news to the film-focused trade newspaper, but left plenty of room for people to infer there is some truth to the report.
"Given the market developments in the past month," the rep is quoted as saying, "Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players."
A source "close to the HD-DVD camp" told the paper that an announcement could be made in a matter of weeks, but that it is definitely coming soon.
HD DVD dropped by Wal-Mart, Toshiba?
Megaretailer goes Blu-ray-exclusive as competing format's creator is reportedly ready to throw in the towel.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted Feb 15, 2008 8:09 pm GMT
It's been a rough year for Toshiba's HD DVD format. After spending 2006 and 2007 locked in a heated battle with the Sony-backed Blu-ray for high-definition, high-capacity disc format dominance, HD DVD has suffered a series of devastating setbacks in the first two months of the year.
Warner Bros. kicked 2008 off by going Blu-ray exclusive in the first week of January. An apparently panicked HD DVD camp canceled its Consumer Electronics Show conference in response, and reports quickly surfaced that HD DVD holdouts Paramount and Universal were looking to switch to Blu-ray.
Bad news for HD DVD fans is continuing to snowball this week, as Best Buy and movie rental service Netflix both said they would back the Sony-supported format going forward. (Best Buy will still stock HD DVD, but its salespeople will advise prospective customers to go Blu-ray).
Two more big names came up as abandoning HD DVD today. This morning the official Wal-Mart blog confirmed that the massive retail chain is going Blu-ray exclusive by June, and the Hollywood Reporter is citing "reliable industry sources" for the news that Toshiba itself is ready to drop its own format.
A Toshiba representative denied the news to the film-focused trade newspaper, but left plenty of room for people to infer there is some truth to the report.
"Given the market developments in the past month," the rep is quoted as saying, "Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players."
A source "close to the HD-DVD camp" told the paper that an announcement could be made in a matter of weeks, but that it is definitely coming soon.
Can't see Toshiba and Microsoft wasting anymore money trying to promote HD-DVD now, clearly Blu-Ray has won the war.
There goes another nail, bang.
Microsoft is in a little bit of an interesting situation here.
Microsoft is in a little bit of an interesting situation here.
So if Xboxes only play HD DVDs, and HD DVDs stop being produced, surely Microsoft are going to have to change Xbox to adapt it to Blu-Ray?
Thank goodness I bought a PS3.
I'm not so sure. They didn't have any desire to put a HD optical drive in the box this time, so why bother doing so next time? Microsoft want to go completely to direct distribution (downloads) and would I'm sure have preferred it if HD optical media never existed. They will need to include some form of optical media in their next console (if they actually still want to bother), and HD-DVD would probably suit them quite well. Not only will it stop piracy, the lack of people with PCs etc with HD-DVD drives, it will give reasonable storage capacity for games whilst promoting the direct download services for other media.
Looks like Toshiba are going to withdraw its HD-DVD. Finally a win for Sony.
Just one thing, Blu-ray is not Sony's product, although they have a significant share in it. I don't think that they are the largest owner of the patents that go into making it in terms of percentages. They were the first however to do blue laser stuff on a large scale with several different products before Blu-ray was even conceived.
The media always tout it a a Sony product because they have the most visible product that uses Blu-ray. Also, Toshiba pissing them and Philips off over what became DVD might also have something to do with it, as does Betamax.
Finally it appears Sony's rather strange strategy a couple of years ago of bringing out a PS3 with no games to back it up has paid off nicely.
They might have lost the battle with Wii in the short term but it seems like PS3 will be the winner in the long run.
DMC4 is out, MSG4 should be soon, even Square Enix seem to be getting their act together with FFXIII.
They might have lost the battle with Wii in the short term but it seems like PS3 will be the winner in the long run.
DMC4 is out, MSG4 should be soon, even Square Enix seem to be getting their act together with FFXIII.
He he!
hahaha I knew it would be all over before the summer. It's another victory for Sony and Blu-Ray - the future is BLU !
We're having a party over at blu-ray.com !
We're having a party over at blu-ray.com !
I think it was inevitable when the PS3 came out.
The final nail was Warner Bros deciding to only back Blu-Ray.
Now can we have the Bourne films in Blu-Ray please???
The final nail was Warner Bros deciding to only back Blu-Ray.
Now can we have the Bourne films in Blu-Ray please???
Article
These reporters really need to stop calling BD a high definition or next generation DVD. It's not a DVD.
Sit back and watch PS3 sales figures go through the roof now people!
So many people have been holding fire on buying a PS3 because they didn't want to be lumbered with the HD equivalent of the betamax.
That isn't even a possibility now.
This is good news for Sony and very bad news for Microshit.
So many people have been holding fire on buying a PS3 because they didn't want to be lumbered with the HD equivalent of the betamax.
That isn't even a possibility now.
This is good news for Sony and very bad news for Microshit.
It's tosh though isn't it? Many of the standalone players that do not support firmware upgrades may fit into that bracket, but the PS3 and others are capable of having their firmware updated. The PS3 is already BD1.1 and will become 2.0 when it seems reasonable to the Blu-Ray Association for it to do so. Those people who bought BD players without the ability or the hardware to support the updated features only have themselves to blame IMO, they maed the choice. And in any case, BDs that have the extra features should still be playable for the main content on any BD player, just without the interactive content. I think that the majority of people only want the main feature in any case. Do that many people care that their player cannot do the picture-in-picture director commentary supported by BD1.1? Are they really bothered that much that they will never have the online interactive capability of BD2.0? I think not, I think most people just want a well encoded main feature and extras in high definition. Some may be a little peeved that they cannot access these extra features, but it was the player that they chose to buy (many audio and videophiles are snotty and would rather spend 1000 quid on a standalone player rather than a PS3 - stupid really as it's always been up there with the best of players up to now), and surely they cannot be as peeved at this moment as those that bought HD-DVD launch units that are soon to be gathering dust.
This is also bollocks. Players that are BD2.0 are now coming into retail, and within a year the number of BD2.0 compliant players will outstrip those that are not. False argument, it only takes a PS3 firmware update and you have 11 million BD2.0 players in consumer hands tomorrow.
So, what does this mean for the 360 exactly?
I don't think it will have any impact to be honest, Microsoft will probably just phase out their HD DVD hardware over the next few months and could release a Blu-Ray add on soon.
I think that it has the impact that this now means that the PS3 is much more attractive to the general consumer. They don't need to produce a Blu-ray add-on, but they will try I'm sure to keep people from buying PS3s. It depends on how much the Blu-Ray Association may allow them to sell one for however.
...
To be fair, this was always going to happen the second Microsoft got involved. A lot of people resent the company, whether they know why they should or not (it's kind of like some people on this site and the way they 'hate' Liverpool), and as such there will always be a huge swing away from whatever technology they push.
Do you think that more people dislike Microsoft than dislike Sony?
I wish someone would swing us away from Windows.
I wish someone would swing us away from Windows.
Yes. They've done a lot more damage to computer standards than good, let alone the more public reasons to hate them (like shitty apps, machine, etc).
Won't happen for a while yet. People can always run Linux, but most won't even know where to start and there's just too many flavours for anyone to casually try.
We need an Amiga revolution!
Oh yes!
I wonder if they have sorted that legal problem out yet?
What is needed is also that Sony let any OS hit its hardware. If they are really serious about a single device running the home or at least being the hub of it all, it might make a little sense to at least let it do what people want. Do they not realise that they are actually paying money to Microsoft to use Windows Mobile on the phones that they manufacture? Do they think that Microsoft is not trying to place Windows into the living room that runs on any generic deivce and runs a virtual XBox environment?
If I were them, I'd go and pay the few tuppence it would cost to buy Amiga OS 4 and pre-install it on every PS3 with access to RSX. Open it up for god sake.
Well, they made steps forward with the Net Yaroze and PS2 Linux programs, so maybe they have something planned. Or maybe the PS3 architecture isn't right for opening up, but they'll perfect it with the PS4?
Who knows, but for certain things won't stay the same.
They will not let Linux touch RSX, because they are too afraid that games will be produced for "PS3 Linux" and they will not get any royalties from that. This means that you have 256MB to run Linux in basically - yes, the whole sheebang (no 3D acceleration). Cell reads from RSX memory directly at 16MB/s.........
It's not big, and it's not clever.
It's not big, and it's not clever.
I was referring more to the fact they are trying things outside the box.
They are trying things outside of the box, you only have to look at the box to see this, it's a total departure to what they did before (crazy Ken). I have a feeling that it actually wasn't totally SCE designed, but rather Sony Electronics Inc. pushed. SCE will become a software publisher, nothing more IMO, the hardware is now too much of a mainstream consumer electronics device.
This will be good, and it will be bad, and I'm as sure as hell it will not be open. God bless Ken and his mad ideas, PS3 was supposed to be a computer, he got sacked, it's not. Usable, but could be so much more so.
This will be good, and it will be bad, and I'm as sure as hell it will not be open. God bless Ken and his mad ideas, PS3 was supposed to be a computer, he got sacked, it's not. Usable, but could be so much more so.
I'm not talking technical terms, more letting people have a little access. They'll not open it up, that would be plain silly, but they have explored ways and means to get a strong community. Hell, from a developer standpoint the Yaroze was a success, a hell of a lot of good guys went on into the industry and directly for Sony. The Linux kit was, of course, different, but once again it was a nice gesture - though I never bothered with it myself.
Nowadays all three are opening their machines up if you want to pay a couple of grand and prove you can really do something with it, which again is nice, but it's not reachable to the masses.
I'm thinking of having a look at this XNA myself. Have you tried it?
Game creators tend to be shit, no matter how they are dressed up. However, this one does look interesting, so I'll look in to it this week.
I'm yet to actually start on my little project (lack of time), so something like this *may* come in handy. I'll let you know when I've got it and had a proper look.
I'm going to have a look at it myself. I have VS 2005, hopefully it works with that. I also have a very talented graphics artist friend that wants to do this type of stuff - he can do both pixel and 3D stuff.
Example, drawn by hand on an Amiga and then had the mane added in Photoshop on a PC:
Again, drawn by hand, pixel by pixel, effects added later...
Example, drawn by hand on an Amiga and then had the mane added in Photoshop on a PC:
Again, drawn by hand, pixel by pixel, effects added later...
Some good stuff there.
I like the idea of XNA, however they need better distribution methods. Also, I'll need to look at c#, though I doubt that's a problem.
If you need another hand let me know, I have a ton of designs and ideas up my sleeve and can always draw in new artists (I've got a top artist/animator near me who's been in the industry for a few years who would love to work in a team scenario). XNA might be a decent platform for a small group to pull of something impressive.
I've got a few files to hand of a Gamecube beat-em-up me and two other guys designed/created/demo'd and pitched in just two weeks if you want an example of my work. (didn't work out, because the publisher we had went into a few problems just like the whole british industry around that time early 2000's)