Video Games and the Hi-Def Format Wars

Pika the Mad writes "Reuters has a concise but interesting article up about how video games will help decide the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD. According to industry analysts "What Sony and Microsoft decide to announce publicly or to dealers at E3 next week will be key." So this year's E3 could very well be a deciding factor in how you view your movie library for years to come."

Have you seen the difference?

[rootofevil]

Upconverted dvd playback vs HD playback? I can barely tell the difference. Dont believe me? Go checkout a demo at your local bigbox retailer. Just dont pay attention to the "HDDVD vs Standard DVD" demo. Try to check it out next to a 720p upconverted player.

Re:Blu-Ray will win

[creepynut]

You say that, but I can't think of one single person, aside from reading on the internet, who has said the PS2's DVD player sucks. No

I know that it is certainly not top of the line, but I've never had any issues with it myself and it has been my only DVD player for nearly 2 years.

If it plays it, it works. Real people don't care about 1080p and other "jibberish" to them, they just want to play their movies. I might know what the technical details mean, but I don't care, I just want to sit down on the couch and watch the damn movie.

Re:Sony's strange plans, two-many-formats wars

[saboola]

The PS2 was cheaper than most DVD players when it came out. DVD players in turn dropped prices to compete with the PS2. Now, you can get a DVD player with a happy meal. Heck, one of the big reasons the PS2 beat out the dreamcast in Japan was not because of games, but the DVD capability. When the PS2 came out in Japan the most popular title sold along with the PS2 was not a game at all, it was the Matrix on DVD.

Re:Sony's strange plans, two-many-formats wars

[Traiklin]

How would the other Blu-Ray players react to this? Who would want to buy another Blu-Ray player if the PS3 is the cheapest one and it is also a next-gen console, allegedly the most powerful of all?

How did the industry react when the PS2 was released? they were still selling $500 DVD players that did just about the same amount (just they could play VCD's) as the PS2, the only problem I ever had with the PS2 DVD Player (which was my first) was the audio on the launch models were extremely low, I remember having to turn the volume up to 20 half the time just to hear people talking at a normal volume.

once I got the remote and it updated the firmware though I never had a problem with it after that, But DVD players were $50 at the time so I just got a stand alone one that did 10x as much as the PS2.

What will help with Blu-Ray is since every game on the PS3 will be on a BR Disc the BRDA can say "We have sold 30,000,000 Blu-Ray discs world wide" when in actuality it's more like 10mill for movies with the rest being games world wide, That way it makes BR look better in sales cause they can also count the PS3 as a BR Player so you can chalk up 1mill Blu-Ray players sold in America! when it's more like 750,000 PS3 and 250,000 stand alone BR Players.

I don't really see how the 360 fits into this equation, the 360 doesn't come standard with a HD-DVD player, it doesn't play HD-DVD games, it's just a game console that plays DVD's, sure around the end of the year they will sell an HD-DVD add on but from past experiences, Add-ons don't exactly sell well (atleast not enough for them to consider it a success).

Are they still planning to release yet another level of the 360 with the HD-DVD player pre-installed or did they drop that idea? I tried to look at TFA but apperantly it's been slashdotted as has the CC link.

Re:To be completely honest

[westlake]

I can't imagine that half the people that buy HDTV sets can even see any actual quality difference between an HDTV version of a movie and a standard DVD version without buy a television so large that few if any can afford it.

RCA 52" Widescreen Projection HDTV, HD52W59 [walmart.com] $ 894 USD

HD-DVD managed copy

[tepples]

What the media is sold on I dont give a crap about except insofar as the format has to allow easy transfer to the mediaserver. And it appears neither of these obsolete-before-they-hit-the-shelves formats are going to deliver.

HD-DVD allows the owner of an authentic disc to make a so-called "managed copy" on a conforming (proprietary) media server.

Re:To be completely honest

[ThomHamilton]

Perhaps you can try again. The listed TV actually DOES include the DVI-HDTV input.

For those who don't know the nomenclature, DVI-HDTV is the proper name for a DVI input with HDCP support included. It is fully compatible with HDMI via use of a simple adapter cable from HDMI sources, or can accept direct DVI sources, both with HDCP 'protection'.

Re:I still watch Beta

[Detritus]

It took a long time for color TV to become commonplace. The first RCA color TV sets were sold in 1954. It wasn't until 1972 that color TV reached 50% market penetration in the USA.

Re:To be completely honest

[Dhalka226]

Where do you live that it costs $20-45 per person to go to a movie theater? Are you spending $12 on popcorn? Er--since you used the $45 mark in your calculations, it must be closer to $35 in popcorn and drinks. Maybe if you cut back a bit you'd save money AND lose weight!