[Intrepid Homoludens]

I agree, Blu-ray was a stupid idea for the PS3.

The Top 21 Tech Screwups of 2006 | PC World

8. PlayStation 3: Late, Expensive, and Incompatible

When it was announced in spring 2005, the Sony PlayStation 3 was going to be the greatest thing to hit home gaming since a hedgehog named Sonic. Then came the delays. By the time the PS3 arrived, it was six months late, and Nintendo's cheaper and more innovative Wii had stolen much of its thunder. At $599 for the 60GB model, the PS3 is twice the price of the original PlayStation 2, yet research firm iSupply--which describes the PS3 as having supercomputer qualities--estimates that Sony still loses more than $200 per unit.

Thanks to manufacturing delays, Sony shipped an estimated 150,000 units for the North American launch, or less than half the number it had originally planned. And the PS3 was incompatible with more than 200 PlayStation and PS2 games, though Sony is addressing that problem through online updates.

The good news? Game-crazed youth are buying up PS3s and reselling them on eBay for double the asking price. And unlike, say, Sony batteries, they don't catch fire--at least, not yet.

Big Mistake: Trying to turn a supercomputer into a gaming device.

Bigger Mistake: Failing to drive a stake through the heart of Nintendo when the opportunity offered.

[Dasilva]

Bigger Mistake: Failing to drive a stake through the heart of Nintendo when the opportunity offered.

What chance was this?

[bysmitty]

I also agree about Blu-ray. I do not watch movies so the benefit of this drive is nil to me. If I had want of a ps3, I would be paying more for something with no benefit to me. MS gave the user a choice with the HD-DVD add-on. I appreciate that, since now I can enjoy my 360 knowing that I didn't pay extra for something that I didn't want. I want a gaming machine, not an all-in-one media center. A gaming machine is what I got in my Wii and 360.

...bysmitty

[Dasilva]

Originally Posted by bysmitty

I also agree about Blu-ray. I do not watch movies so the benefit of this drive is nil to me. If I had want of a ps3, I would be paying more for something with no benefit to me. MS gave the user a choice with the HD-DVD add-on. I appreciate that, since now I can enjoy my 360 knowing that I didn't pay extra for something that I didn't want. I want a gaming machine, not an all-in-one media center. A gaming machine is what I got in my Wii and 360.

...bysmitty

I agree, I never use any console to watch movies, thats why I have a DVD player. Blu-Ray is seriously hurting Sony and thats the only thing thats making the console more expensive. They should of had...

1) A PS3 with Bluray
2) A PS3 without Bluray

That way it would be like a 200 bucks difference probably.

[Litrick]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

I agree, Blu-ray was a stupid idea for the PS3.

The Top 21 Tech Screwups of 2006 | PC World

I think this point of view may be lacking in vision slightly,
here are my thoughts: (not that you want to hear them )

The marketing campaign has started for HD DVD and Blu ray, with toshiba and Sony going head to head currently competing for the videophiles dollar. One will win eventually, and a few years down the track blue ray or HD DVD will replace standard DVDs, the same way DVDs replaced VHS. DVD has always been a stop gap measure, due to the terrible mpeg2 standard they used, and the reasonably limited space.
With the Blu ray drive, assuming Blu ray wins the war, Sony will be in a great position with the ps3.

secondly, and more importantly games. Lets take tomb raider legend and oblivion for example. Installed on PC they take up roughly 8 gigabytes, so we can safely assume they are using the maximum space available on an XBOX DVD. Now are we to say these games have good enough textures, big enough environments? good enough video quality, big enough game worlds etc etc and could never be improved on?
Because essentially on blu ray you could have a game twice or or even triple as big at the same quality, and the same size (gameworld speaking e.g oblivion) at a MUCH higher quality, with more room for textures, higher sound quality, streaming video into gameplay, less compressed video more room for individual characters etc etc, the list is endless for the advantages more space gives you.
How can more space be a bad thing?
take the sega saturn and the playstation one for example. developers complained hugely about the CDs sega had chosen because they had roughly 100 megs less space than the playstation. What ended up happening was the video quality on the saturn was terrible, and it had a huge impact on the overall impression of the saturn which directly correlated to everyone thinking the system was less powerful. And this was a time in which games were no way near as complex and were lucky if the game code/texutres/sound etc would take up the whole CD in the majority of games. So think of the implications in a day and age where we have games which are well over 8 gigabytes.

In a couple of years time i think those who said blu ray was a bad idea will be proven wrong, and i also think microsoft will start using their HD DVD driver for games...

but thats just me

[Aj_]

Doesn't the Xbox 360 support dual layered DVD ROMs? 7GB.
Isn't the Xbox 360 DVD-ROM faster than the PS3's Blu-Ray drive, wouldn't loading more data on a slower drive be slow?
Wouldn't PC versions of games have extra content because they have to support multiple hardware setups?
Wouldn't the texture quality be much more limited to the GPU than to the space on the disc?
Aren't games switching to procedural textures?
Haven't good game developers already stopped using a lot of video?
Isn't the sound on Xbox 360 games better than most PC games, at close to the limits of the hardware?

[Dasilva]

Originally Posted by Litrick

How can more space be a bad thing?

With a price tag of 599$, its bad.

And hardware doesn't make good games, look at Nintendo for example. Resident Evil 4 look mind blowing on the Gamecube yet the other systems were "stronger" hardware wise aparently?

[SoccerDude28]

Originally Posted by Dasilva

With a price tag of 599$, its bad.

And hardware doesn't make good games, look at Nintendo for example. Resident Evil 4 look mind blowing on the Gamecube yet the other systems were "stronger" hardware wise aparently?

Game Cube DID have stronger hardware than the PS2.

[Dasilva]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

Game Cube DID have stronger hardware than the PS2.

It did? I demand proof!

[undeaf]

Originally Posted by Fop

Betamax

Lucky for us, JVC got that monopoly instead.

Originally Posted by Fop

Minidisc

And just how were they going to make CDs disappear? And what was stopping other companies from making a more compact recordable audio format?

Originally Posted by Fop

Blu-Ray are all efforts by Sony to get a monopoly that it could use to its advantage.

I haven't read anything actually saying that sony has control of blue ray, although I hear it being implied all the time.

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

That's not anti-competitive, supporting playback of only their proprietary format and nothing else is. They even admitted it themselves.

They didn't admit anything like that, they just said it kept them behind.

Originally Posted by Dasilva

They should of had...

1) A PS3 with Bluray
2) A PS3 without Bluray

That way it would be like a 200 bucks difference probably.

So you're saying that sony would then have bene able to make a PS3 with a 20 gig hard drive that's $100 cheaper than an equivalent xbox 360? What gives you that idea?

The blue ray drive in the PS3 is estimated to cost $125. Subtract the cost of a DVD drive from that. Also keep in mind that without helping blue ray got an advantage over hddvd, sony would likely not be nearly as willing to subsidize the PS3 as it is.

Originally Posted by Dasilva

It did? I demand proof!

Of course it did. It was a year newer and it had a 480mhz power architecture CPU while the PS2 only had two 150mhz CPUs.

[Dasilva]

Originally Posted by undeaf

Of course it did. It was a year newer and it had a 480mhz power architecture CPU while the PS2 only had two 150mhz CPUs.

Doesn't that kind of prove that the ultimately powerful console is not the winner? So the PS3 might be the best graphics wise and come with all the bells and whistles. But so far by the time Sony actually releases the PS3 in Europe there going to be thousands of Wiis & 360s already in homes.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by Litrick

The marketing campaign has started for HD DVD and Blu ray, with toshiba and Sony going head to head currently competing for the videophiles dollar. One will win eventually, and a few years down the track blue ray or HD DVD will replace standard DVDs, the same way DVDs replaced VHS. DVD has always been a stop gap measure, due to the terrible mpeg2 standard they used, and the reasonably limited space.
With the Blu ray drive, assuming Blu ray wins the war, Sony will be in a great position with the ps3.

First of all, Blu-ray is currently losing big time. Secondly, most people don't care about neither. HDTV penetration is still relatively low, especially outside the US, and most people are perfectly happy with their "terrible MPEG2" encoded DVDs. The only people who give a damn at this point are videophiles and tech freaks. But HD-DVD and Blu-ray are not competing only with each other, far more advanced formats are just around the corner and digital distribution and other alternative methods of content delivery are becoming more popular every day.

secondly, and more importantly games. Lets take tomb raider legend and oblivion for example. Installed on PC they take up roughly 8 gigabytes, so we can safely assume they are using the maximum space available on an XBOX DVD.

They both take up roughly 7 GB. Keep in mind that both are first generation games that don't take advantage of Xbox 360's procedural synthesis capabilities to the fullest. In other words, they could probably be made to fit in even less.

Because essentially on blu ray you could have a game twice or or even triple as big at the same quality, and the same size (gameworld speaking e.g oblivion) at a MUCH higher quality, with more room for textures, higher sound quality, streaming video into gameplay, less compressed video more room for individual characters etc etc, the list is endless for the advantages more space gives you.

But the problem is content creation is the most expensive and most time consuming part of game development today. Budgets are skyrocketing through the roof even with these "low quality" games, which is especially true for PS3, thanks to its more complex architecture and inferior development tools. Development times are also on the rise which was made more than apparent by the sheer number of games that got delayed during the last several months (Warhawk, Motor Storm, Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Forza Motorsport 2, Crackdown, Heavenly Sword, Lair, Mass Effect, PS3 versions of Oblivion, F.E.A.R and Sonic and so on). So just because something can be done in theory, doesn't mean it would make much sense in practice.

But let's say that content creation process gets revolutionized and future titles start requiring more space. There's a perfectly simple solution - distribute over multiple DVDs. It's still cheaper than shipping on a single Blu-ray disc.

Remember when the transition to DVDs started happening? Games had been spanning multiple CDs years before that. Most used to come on at least 2 CDs and some would go up to whopping 7 discs. It was the same with the transition from floppy discs to CDs. And how many games nowadays require more than one DVD? We won't be needing (emphasis on needing) a format with more capacity for at least 5 more years.

How can more space be a bad thing?

It can when you don't need it and you have to pay for it.

take the sega saturn and the playstation one for example. developers complained hugely about the CDs sega had chosen because they had roughly 100 megs less space than the playstation. What ended up happening was the video quality on the saturn was terrible, and it had a huge impact on the overall impression of the saturn which directly correlated to everyone thinking the system was less powerful. And this was a time in which games were no way near as complex and were lucky if the game code/texutres/sound etc would take up the whole CD in the majority of games.

Saturn had many serious problems and video quality and media capacity weren't even near the top of that list.

In a couple of years time i think those who said blu ray was a bad idea will be proven wrong, and i also think microsoft will start using their HD DVD driver for games...

Never going to happen, that would alienate too many people and you don't become one of the world's most successful companies by making such stupid mistakes. Maybe some games will be offered in HD-DVD versions in addition to standard DVD editions, but frankly, I don't see even that happening.

[Dasilva]

Its true, why is everyone having a baby because you might have to have 2 DVDs in a case?

If the space on the bluray disk is the only thing that is what makes the PS3 "better" Then 2 DVDs solve that problem.

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

far more advanced formats are just around the corner and digital distribution and other alternative methods of content delivery are becoming more popular every day.

I hear a lot of rumours about holodisc thingies, but don't see a lot of evidence of their progress.

Reviews of the first Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players were terrible, and they're terribly expensive. I don't have confidence the formats will stay.

I've been wanting digital distribution to take off for a while, and there's no way this won't be the future, but people like physical objects, and it might be slow progress. That's why I don't understand the size of the Xbox 360's HDD.

[Solid Snake]

If Sony was smart enough, it would produce 2 different types of Ps3s one with a blu ray drive and the other one without so the consumers could pick the one fitting their needs.Forcing the consumer to buy a blu ray drive under an "add on cover" is a big pr mistake imo.

[Udvarnoky]

Originally Posted by Litrick

One will win eventually, and a few years down the track blue ray or HD DVD will replace standard DVDs, the same way DVDs replaced VHS.

A decisive win is not going to necessarily happen, and even if it does, I don't see it being all that triumphant. For the average joe hi-def DVDs don't offer enough of a noticeable difference to warrant the expense of a new player, a TV that will make the format worthwhile, and the rebuilding of their entire movie library. Sure, a few years down the line when Blu-ray/HD-DVD players/burners and HDTVs become more affordable they will be in more households, but it's just not comparable to the VHS-DVD jump, which if you ask me won't happen again. Yes, eventually it will become the standard, but it won't be the unexpectedly successful and lucrative transition that DVD was. Hi-def DVDs right now are a market more comparable to laserdisc because, like insane_cobra pointed out, they're things that only technophiles appreciate enough and/or are willing to spend the money on. Maybe that wouldn't have so much been the case had this format war not happened and if technology didn't move so fast, but alas.

[EvoG]

Cobra has the rational perspective on this, so not to repeat but, we (my girlfriend/wife and I) are on the content end of game development that many of you desire so much, and I can tell you, its not like we're just railing this shit out and going "damn, we have so much artwork but not enough disc space! What will we do!!!". The leap in necessary content in 4 years has been exponential...during Ultima X Online, development, we were creating 2000 poly characters with 1 512x or 1024x diffuse texture(w/alpha channel for hair, etc) and calling it a day. This took about a week, with extra time for tuning. Today, on most of our Unreal3 projects for example, characters can range from 7000 - 15000 for the LOW POLY, and then a 1 - 4 million poly zbrush pass for the HIGH POLY just to generate normals maps. Resolution of textures has jumped to 2048x (with a lot of textures being 'authored' at 4096x for source) and now we have diffuse, specular, spec color, gloss(alpha channel in spec or normals) normals maps, subsurface scattering(skin translucency), self-illumination (glowing parts), opacity maps. Lets not forget that now we're creating ambient occlusion maps and other secondary elements that get combined/layered into other textures that may not be extra textures on the release end, but during development they still need to be created. All this can take at least a month, many stretching well into two. So I find it amusing(but understandable) that proponents of massive disc space seem to be under the impression that we'll just be filling that up immediately with all this glorious unique gaming content (FMV doesn't count sorry).

That and as Udvarnoky said, the leap from VHS to DVD in perceived quality was very significant versus DVD to HD-DVD/BR, so its not like the average consumer is going to rebuild their entertainment space unless, as he said, they are INTO the latest trends in technology. I am, and own all that shit, but I and my buddies can't float an entire industry.

Good news though, large screen HD-LCD prices are gonna drop like PS3 prices on Ebay (wah wah wah waaaaaah...go look!), so yea, in a few years this will all be far more important than it is at the very moment.

Cheers

[SoccerDude28]

Just to let you guys know, I'm writing this message using my new PS3

[EvoG]

...wrote mine on my Wii...and I bet I was faster!

[insane_cobra]

I'm writing mine on my PC and I bet I was faster and more comfortable than both of you guys.

But yeah, congratulations on your new machines, hope they serve you well.