Azrael said:
Paramount's switch narrowed the gap between the two formats, while Warner's switch widens it. The effect that has on the format war is opposite.
Excellent way of condensing the importance of Warner's decision here.
Azrael said:
I do think it will have some positive effect on the PS3 insofar as consumers who were interested in high-def movies but didn't want to pick a losing format become more confident that Blu-ray is here to stay.
Yep.
Azrael said:
Here's a question I've been thinking about for a long time, and I don't have an answer for it. Let's make a few very conservative assumptions.
1) If the PS3 had included a DVD drive instead of a Blu-ray drive, HD DVD would have won the format war with Blu-ray.
2) If the PS3 had included a DVD drive instead of a Blu-ray drive, it would have been much more successful.
3) Blu-ray will win the format war.
Here's how I look at it:
1) Absolutely true
2) Doubtful. "Much more successful" is stretching it, I think. How much more successful it would have been is highly debatable.
The problem with the PS3's first year was not
only cost (which is the main thing you could blame on Blu-ray's inclusion) but also lack of good games that showed off the power of the console.
The cost issue was greatly narrowed (compared to a similarly-equipped 360) within this year for the most part. The greater issue with the PS3 was, and somewhat still is, the games.
The Cell processor wasn't going to get easier to program for without Blu-ray. So the slow ramp-up of PS3 games development was still going to be there, regardless of Blu-ray.
If anything, some might argue that the Bu-ray drive at least gave PS3 early-adopters some entertainment to enjoy while they waited for the games.
3) Agreed.
Azreal said:
In the long term, was it better to sacrifice marketshare this generation to make Blu-ray a success, or would it have been better for Blu-ray to fail and the PS3 to have been more successful?[
Like I said before, I think the PS3 was going to have a slow roll-out due to the complexity of the programming architecture leading to a slow roll-out of quality software anyway.
Now that Blu-ray is looking like the winner, it is an added asset to the system, as you indicated in your second paragraph here.
So, since PS3 was kind of destined to have a slow 2007 anyway while programmers got up-to-speed with programming the beast, and that's the amount of time it took for the format war to seem to sort itself out, the timing seems to have worked out. If Sony takes the opportunity to basically consider 2007 almost a public beta for the PS3, and takes this new year by the horns in full-on relaunch mode, they might really have something to roll with here. By all indications, the games are now coming. Blu-ray is going to win and is now a real sales point for the system. The cost of the machine is dropping. Things don't look that bad at all anymore.
What would be interesting is if Microsoft quickly announces a Blu-ray add-on player for the 360 at CES. While that would require some major pride-swallowing from MS, that move could steal some of that momentum back really quickly. It would be pretty fun to watch if they did it.
