Long-standing gaming/technology journalist Keith Stuart (The Guardian Gamesblog, Guardian newspaper technology section, Official PlayStation Magazine, Deathray, Edge, PC Gamer, Gamesmaster, you name it) takes a closer look at the high-def format landscape.
What a difference a week makes. At the close of 2007, the high-def format war was still grumbling on, with both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps claiming small victories once in a while to lighten up the gloom. But in the space of a few days it seems the Sony-backed Blu-ray technology has landed more killer blows than Joey Barton on a quiet night down the pub – if HD-DVD isn’t already on the canvas, it’s certainly buckling at the knees and flailing hopelessly.
It all started on January 4 when movie giant Warner Bros announced that, from May, all its high definition home releases would be on Blu-ray format, giving the format a 70% share of the DVD market. “The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger,” exclaimed Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros – you know, only about a year after every one else was saying the same thing. With the Blu-ray ball now rolling, however, things started moving pretty fast. New Line Cinema, owned by Warner Bros parent company Time Warner, followed suit days later, announcing its intention to abandon HD-DVD, as did yet another Time Warner stablemate, HBO Home Video.
This is, of course, all good news for PlayStation 3. Consumers who were stalling on a high-def console purchase until the HD wars were over may now be ready to commit to Sony’s machine. In a recent round-up of tech pundits on Game Daily, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities argued that between 70 and 80% of PS2 owners treated the machine as their first DVD player and that this would hold true with PS3 and hi-def movies. So even those who aren’t even particularly into games may well buy a PS3 now, simply because it has a decent Blu-ray player (complete with the latest Blu-ray 1.1 iteration) and they’ll be able to watch a huge majority of HD movie releases on it.
As for HD-DVD, it now has two studios on board – Paramount and Universal. But for how long? Although both have professed their loyalty to the cause, there are already mutterings that one or both might be preparing to jump ship. “There’s some talk that Paramount (despite just committing fully to HD DVD) has a clause in its deal that lets it go back to offering Blu-ray should Warner drop HD DVD,” says Mike Masnick of influential blog, Techdirt. “Paramount has been denying a plan to switch, but there’s no doubt that there are some pretty intense discussions going on internally.”
Meanwhile, at CES, Sony announced that selected Blu-ray movie releases would include versions of the film optimised for PSP. Owners will simply need to bung the disc in their PS3, connect it up to the handheld and download the content to a memory stick. According to Gizmodo, the movie files are around 1GB each and take about three-to-five minutes to download. There’s no word yet, on when we’ll see these PSP-friendly releases or what kind of DRM will be attached to your downloads, but it’s interesting news all the same.
Also interesting were the comments made last Tuesday by Albert Penello, group marketing manager for Xbox hardware. According to Reuters, when asked the possibility of an Xbox 360 Blu-ray player, he stated, “It should be consumer choice; and if that’s the way they vote, that’s something we’ll have to consider.” However, three days later the exec claimed that his comments had been misconstrued and that Microsoft remains, “totally committed to HD DVD”. Hmm, we’ll see.
So which will be the next big company to defect from one format to the other? Paramount is the obvious choice, but there could be others. “I think the player to watch may be Intel,” says Masnick, who believes the playing field is slanted in Blu-ray’s favour even if the battle is not yet over. “While much of the focus is on Toshiba and Microsoft, Intel has an interesting history in that it’s backed a few standards that ended up losers in standards battles - and one thing the company has learned is when to cut its losses and throw in with the winning party.”
But let’s be clear, Blu-ray still has its work cut out as a movie storage medium. Most tech pundits feel that this messy battle has been detrimental, not just to the two big HD players, but to the whole future of optical media – there’s an argument that internet delivery of movies is the natural mainstream successor to current DVD not Blu-ray or HD DVD. The Warner Bros decision is vital – but would it have been even more important if it had taken place a year ago? As it is, consumers now have a whole bunch of video-on-demand services to play with. The war might be over, but for Blu-ray the peace is still there to be won.
Looks like Sony knew what they were doing after all.. All x360 owners is in the lineup for getting massive pain in the arse.. All this time they’ve bullshitting just about everything with the Ps3. Especially the Bluray-player which was “useless addition”, cus it just raised the price.
Well sir x360, pull your pants down & bend over… Here I come.
Comment by rBerggren — Jan 14, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
I own a 360….I don’t wanna bend over
Comment by JohnSketch — Jan 14, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
The blu-ray drive was never a useless addition to the PlayStation 3. No matter what format wins, it doesn’t change the fact, that next-gen games can’t fit on a DVD, so they had to come up with something. Of course Sony choose whatever format they have up their sleeve.
(And no, consoles that only have a DVD drive aren’t next-gen
Comment by Zta — Jan 14, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
@ Zta - so what does that make the wii, since it doesn’t even have a dvd player?
Comment by Adrian — Jan 14, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
@2: lmfao!!!!!
Comment by msplatter — Jan 14, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
@Adrian: I sometimes ask myself that question..
Comment by Zta — Jan 14, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
VCD for the win!
am reading/updating on my PSP.
whats a Wii? a DreamCast in sheeps clothing. PS3 is the only true next-gen system.
Comment by mobiletone — Jan 14, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
@adrian
er it make the wii the pos we all know it is!
Comment by smashie — Jan 14, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Can Microsoft use Blu-Ray in their next console? Or is it registered for use only under Playstation 3?
Comment by Reza — Jan 14, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
optical storage will be around for at least another 15 years. DVD has turned almost all movie buffs into pseudo-collector’s with all the great work done by studios and publishers in putting supplemental materials onto discs. with blu-ray movies (just themselves) already occupying more than half the allotted 50GB on a disc, how many consumers are prepared to have a collection of 50 movies sitting on their hard drives? even with the advent of a terabyte home server - what happens when 1440p becomes the maximum resolution in 5 years and a high definition movie with lossless audio occupies 40GB? i think digital distribution is cool for rentals and an evening in, but for anyone that enjoys movies, those blu-ray spines and faithful discs along a nice shelving unit are going to be the norm despite what microsoft is convincing itself of.
did anyone ever doubt blu-ray? it had sony’s columbia and tristar, AND disney from the get-go.
PS - universal will the first to jump ship as their contract expires before paramount/dreamworks.
all in all - the most interesting thing about this article is the use of the word “BUNG”
haha.
Comment by daniel — Jan 14, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
@Adrian, #4:
Wii isnt in the next-gen battle.. As usually Nintendo doesnt give a sh*t about whe console war.. They just went their own way, like allways. And thats why most ppl respect Nintendo no matter what.
Comment by rBerggren — Jan 14, 2008 @ 9:09 pm
@rBerggren - Sounding slightly fanboy there! The biggest console wars in gaming history have involved Nintendo directly, NES vs Master System, Gameboy vs Game Gear, SNES vs MegaDrive and even N64 vs Playstation.
I agree that, this time, they have gone a different route but that is more to do with the fact that their previous consoles haven’t grabbed enough market share to fund a huge investment in the current gen console war.
You certainly can’t say this is the norm for them though
Comment by TheShirts — Jan 15, 2008 @ 9:27 am
I think this digital download thing is being hyped way too much, it will be 10 years+ before HD movie downloads become a standard in your living room feature.
Currently VOD HD services (in the UK) are expensive for a 24 hour rental and are inferior in picture and especially sound to Blu-ray. Teenagers in their bedroom may love it, but there is no way someone with a high end system will accept downloads in their current form, just look at Vinyl, that’s still going strong in the high end market and people like that shudder at the thought of playing an mp3 on their system.
It’s just not worth the money and most people prefer to spend something on a physical item - can you imagine a relative giving you a download for your birthday?!
Even when downloads do come, there will still be outlets of physical media. The relationship of downloads to blu-ray in 10 years will probably be similar to the relationship of mp3’s and CD’s today.
The HD optical format is not going away over night, and Xbox fanboys and HD DVD fanboys may like to now play down the whole thing but if Blu-ray officially wins it will be very good for Sony and Blu-ray will have a similar lifespan to DVD, and may even be around for longer if downloads become so prominent that optical media becomes a niche format, as it would not be worth replacing.
Just imagine a World where there are no rental shops, no video or CD or games retailers (think of the job losses for a start), where all your media is downloaded directly into your home server. Imagine the size of the HDD’s you need, the cost of networking all your TV’s and PC’s, the speed of your broadband (how long would a 50GB full quality Blu-ray take you to download today, would you be able to stream it in real time?), and also having no download caps whatsoever (which would be very costly to ISP’s unless costs come down). Now imagine that being available in every household in every developed Country in the World.
Seriously at this stage it’s bordering on science fiction. I believe it will happen, but it’s not going happen over night for the average consumer, it will take a long time and that void will need to be filled by a new physical format like Blu-ray. Look how long it takes Countries like the UK to do relatively minor transitions like 4:3 to 16:9, Analogue to Digital, or even SD to HD. Not even those transitions have fully completed yet, and people think this physical to digital switch over will some how be quicker?
Besides I’m not sure I’m ready to not be able to browse my DVD/Blu-ray collection, I don’t want my purchases to be at the mercy of some remote server where they can be changed/deleted without notice. If in 30 years time I want to watch an old film or TV show I want to be able to pick it up and play it, not to browse the studios server to see if it’s still available to rent for 24 hours or if it’s been replaced on the server for something newer and more popular.
The advantage with Blu-ray is it’s a shiny disc you put in a machine, like DVD is a shiny disc you put in a machine. All you need to explain is that if you have a HDTV you need a different machine and a different type of disc (although it will still play your other discs). That is something I could explain to my parents, setting up a home media server and downloading films off the internet is something I could not!
People need to stop comparing it to the VHS to DVD tranistion, that was a revolutionary change and required you to replace your film collection, which you gladly did for the increased quality and extras and the fact DVD’s last a hell of a lot longer. Blu-ray is evolutionary, no one is expecting you to replace all your old DVD’s, in fact with a Blu-ray player with upscaling (like the PS3) your old DVD’s can look as good as it’s Blu-ray counterpart (with exceptions like the superb Blade Runner remaster), Blu-ray is for new films, digital filmed in HD films. The sooner the public realise this, the sooner Blu-ray will be adopted.
Comment by Apnomis — Jan 15, 2008 @ 9:42 am
@11
I respect Nintendo for what they have done for video games historically, but the Wii just seems to be making a buck out of an untapped market - i.e. girls.
As for the whole downloading thing: there’s all sorts to consider. HD capacities, broadband speeds, piracy, insurance against data loss… not to mention the cultural shift from physical products to ‘virtual’ media. I’d say we’re donkey’s years off downloads being the public standard, which makes the hi-def DVD war vital.
Comment by rooee — Jan 15, 2008 @ 9:48 am
What everyone seems to forget is that although it was an inconvenience that some films appeared on one format and others on another there still existed competition, which in the long run would have forced down the retail costs. Everyone moans baout it but there would have been dual format players.
As it now stands all movies will be heading for Blu-Ray but without competition Sony can pretty much name their price now. The only thing that will bring down prices is the rapidly falling prices of DVD, some now as little as a few quid. At the moment I would still rather pay less for a DVD than £20 for a Blu-Ray.
Competition is good people…
Comment by Terry — Jan 15, 2008 @ 10:21 am
And what people seem to be forgetting is that Sony isn’t the only one on the Blu-Ray bandwagon. Blu-Ray is a standard, everybody can publish their movies in it, and can put whatever price they want. Look at DVDs (it was the only digital disc format, there were no competence), how much costed 6 years back. Now some newspapers give movies on weekends slightly more or less free.
Standards competition is not good and hasn’t been never good. Just imagine if there were two different incompatible standards in communications through Internet, two different IP protocols. What chaos would it be! Yet I don’t see anybody complaining about lack of competition and monopoly on this matter. Au contraire, hardware and software companies have easier lives developing solutions solely for the IP protocol. And there’s competition, of course there is.
The same with Blu-Ray. This is not a sole company imposing its format of choice, it’s a consortium of electronic, media and movie companies that decided on a standard format to ensure that the consumers would be benefitted. There’s still competition, anybody can buy a Blu-Ray player from Samsung, Phillips, LG or Panasonic if they don’t like Sony’s offering. The same with movies.
Painting as good the scenario of HDDVD and Blu-Ray standards competing with the demagogue excuse of ‘competition is good’ is false and misleading, and I don’t know if people that say that does so because of lack of knowledge or simply bad intentions. I hope is the former.
Comment by Omaesan — Jan 15, 2008 @ 11:02 am
A very poor article. Mostly quotes from elsewhere and repeated news articles you can read anywhere from Times On-line to Eurogamer to MCV.
The “one thing [Intel] has learned is when to cut its losses” statement is wrong. They can be very arrogant indeed. Just look at their stubbornness of not letting Itanium rust in peace.
As for BluRay ‘winning the peace’, let’s just hope Sony does a better job than America/UK are doing in Iraq.
Comment by Zed Zee — Jan 15, 2008 @ 11:14 am
However Xbox fanboys may try and spin it, putting Blu-ray in the PS3 was a good decision. Warner Bros move was the final nail in the coffin really. Just got to wait for Paramount to switch now.
Comment by HyperTails — Jan 15, 2008 @ 11:48 am
@9 Reza:
Yes, Microsoft could put blu-ray in their next console if they want but they would have to license the technology from the conglomorate that created it. That would be pretty funny cos Sony would be making money on each Xbox sold
Comment by TheShirts — Jan 15, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
@19 But Microsoft make money on every Sony Vaio as they come with Windoze.
And it even says on the Vaio site that they recommend Vista Business - i.e. actively promoting a Microsoft product. So I don’t think they’ll be too bothered, MS will just want to produce / sell something that’ll make them money.
Comment by Dave Vincent — Jan 15, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
@ Terry, I disagree. This is type of competition is confusing and destructive. Take cars as an example - there are lots of car makers, this is good for the consumer - now imagine there were two competing types of road surface, which meant if you wanted to travel down the M6 you would need one type of car, but it you needed to go down the M40 that was exclusive to another type of car, so the consumer either misses out on certain roads or has to buy two cars (or sticks with their current transport that can still use both). It’s a silly example but it illustrates the point well.
Competition in Blu-ray comes from a) Hardware manufacturers b) movie studios c) retail outlets (Amazon.com already sell many Blu-rays for $15/£7.50). I’ve got 15 Blu-rays now and I’ve not paid more than I would for a new release DVD for any of them, and in many cases the Blu-rays were cheaper, you need to shop around for the deals!
It’s easy to label Blu-ray as Sony’s own standard but it isn’t, it was the original replacement to DVD supported by and voted on by the whole industry. It was only because of a disagreement as to whether or not to use Microsoft’s own codecs and HDi extra feature software that the split occurred in the first place. You could argue that it was Microsoft that caused the whole mess in the first place. Blu-ray remains to be the standard across the majority of the industry.
You have Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Philips and others all competing on price and quality of their Blu-ray machines. Over in the HD DVD camp you have Toshiba, Toshiba, and Toshiba. If you’re worried about lack of competition being harmful for the consumer than you need to hope HD DVD dies quickly as the only monopolistic format in this war is HD DVD with their Toshiba players and Microsoft software.
DVD had no competition, there is no reason for them not to still be £19.99+ today (and they still are in stores like HMV - many new releases start over £20 until they have a sale). What drives the prices down is Economies of Scale from mass-adoption, and retail stores cutting their margins to get a bigger slice of the lucrative market. Until Blu-ray adoption grows, it can’t have the market to tempt retailers (apart from online retailers) to reduce their margins, nor can it produce enough discs in it’s factories for newspapers/breakfast cereals to be able to afford to give them away for free. HD DVD has nothing to do with the price of the technology, if anything it’s presence is causing prices not to fall as quickly as they should.
If HD DVD dies the consumer wins, it’s as simple as that - don’t be tempted when Toshiba start selling their warehouse of HD DVD players for cheaper than the cost of a movie to watch on it!!!
Comment by Apnomis — Jan 15, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
Christ!! even as A PS3 owner I’m sick to fing death of HD V Blu, heres a suggestion Sony, stop giving a damn about the format the games come on and give me some games!!!! This is what I bought a PS3 for to play games.
Comment by Piranacon — Jan 15, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
@22 - Wow! Last time I looked there were about 150 PS3 games available on one particular website - not bad for a console that’s not even a year old in the UK. 6 months ago I could just about sympathise with people saying there were no games, but not now.
Comment by Dave Vincent — Jan 15, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
@21
OK, I’ve been silenced lol
Comment by Terry — Jan 15, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
@22 - Your helpful suggestion to sony is pointless. Firstly, Sony aren’t exactly wasting time on the format, they made it, built it and support it but thats all done now, there is no ongoing ‘timewasting’.
Secondly, Sony aren’t the only ones responsible for making games so don’t blame them too much.
And finally, just to agree with Dave. There is plenty of choice on the console now. Have you played COD4, Uncharted, TimeShift, NFS ProStreet, Fifa, Singstar, Warhawk or any of the fun little downloadable games or PS Eye titles?
Comment by TheShirts — Jan 15, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
@ 24, sorry Terry it wasn’t my intention to silence you, but being able to touch type and being very opinionated on certain subjects tend to combine to make me come across as if I’m ranting a bit!
Comment by Apnomis — Jan 15, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
@21 - Excellent points, well made and have to agree.
@24 - Well done for listening and for completely being reasonable. It’s refreshing to know that some people on this site who have some fair and constructive arguments presented to them have the balls to admit they may have been wrong.
Others, instead of coming up with either some proper evidence to back up their claims, have to resort to digging a huge hole for themselves which they can’t get out of and as a last measure resort to name calling instead…
Comment by Dave Vincent — Jan 15, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
@26
No probs I see your point of view now and admit I’ve got my wires a bit crossed.
Comment by Terry — Jan 15, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
@12, Ok then.. I corrected my knowlege, never realized they were so hard at it back then.. I were just a kid at the GameBoy-era.
@19, My own thoughts is that Sony can go with using Microsoft-items on their stuffs.. But for Microsoft to use other companies products, is a great humiliation to them. MS just have to start a war with everyone, trying to rule every single market. I hate that they joined the console war, but thats just me.. And even when in the war, they couldnt go with Bluray since Sony were going to use it on Ps3.. That would be too comfortabe. They needed to use another format (HD-Dvd) just for the sake of it.. Making it the ultimate war down to every detail. (Same goes for Dvd+R which i recall were made by MS, just to compete with Dvd-R)..
Comment by rBerggren — Jan 15, 2008 @ 5:21 pm
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