Now this is something to think about and one that I think is madness, but hey people have their opinions as we all do. The question is “Is Blu-ray dead really dead? Many sites are calling it the “death spiral” and saying that there is a downfall in winning the HD format.
For those who are not using PS3 Blu-ray players are still paying around the $200 USD mark which is a little steep for just a plain old Blu-Ray player, this means that the PS3 is very cheap considering what you get for your money.
Obviously with the credit crunch many consumers will not rush out and buy Blu-ray players, it has been said that the market share of the Blu-ray product is only four percent and this is why giant like Apple for example is sitting back waiting on better results, basically they want to see where Sony get before they move into the market as well.
Blu-ray and the PlayStation 3 have of course won the battle after the HD-DVD fight, other than the gaming side of things Blu-ray capabilities is one of the main strengths for the PS3 and being an all-in-one entertainment system we can see the PS3 being the most dominant console on the market after a period of time.
Now we know that NetFlix is on the Xbox 360 and that there are high definition download options and licensing costs on the Blu-ray to movie creators, at the moment four percent is no where enough for others to be inspired. Personally the Sony PS3 is in a strong position and can see better things to come, sooner or later many firms like Apple will realize this and get in on it.
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Tags: Blu-ray
21 responses so far ↓
1 PS3Owner // Nov 4, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Spotty 360 owning teenagers that play movies on their old bedroom TV and listen to in from their TV speakers will love NetFlix and the like, but home cinema enthusiasts and anyone with a decent HDTV and expensive surround sound system are not willing to give up their movie collection (or music collection for that matter)for compressed internet streams.
As good as it is the picture and especially sound quality is no where near that of Blu-ray and won’t be for a long time because of the size of the files it would create. Also what about the millions of people that enjoy value-add content like deleted scenes, commentary and making of documentaries? And what if you want to watch something at a friends house, or on holiday or in the car?
There is still a BIG market outside of the Joe Public 360 owners (who happen to be the ones that always promote the death of Blu-ray on their blogs) - no format, not HDTV, not Blu-ray, not DVD, not CD, not even Vinyl would have survived if it was down to the average joe to be an early adopter.
Vinyl is a good example, as there is still a strong niche market for that today, long after Joe Public moved onto CD. In fact it’s seen as somewhat of a premium luxury format now!
Also speaking as someone who doesn’t live in a major US city or Japan, most of the World does not have the broadband infrastructure to suddenly switch to downloading content.
In the UK you’re lucky if you can get more than a 2Mbps connection in some areas, and most providers have harsh capping limits - a 50GB monthly limit would allow you to download one equivalent Blu-ray a month!!!
Mass adoption of HD movie downloads of equivalent quality to Blu-ray on a Worldwide scale is years off, it’s probably about as far off as Blu-ray was when DVD came out, and no one harped on about the “Death Spiral” DVD’s have gotten into by not being HD (although back then there were no Sony-hating bloggers poluting the internet)!
Even when downloads do become there norm there will be a need for a physical format to compliment it, CD’s are still sold in this mp3 crazed society.
The fact Downloads are looming over Blu-ray like they are will probably do the format a favour in the future, when physical formats become niche there will be no incentive to develop a replacement so Blu-ray could end up being around for decades like Vinyl records.
You wouldn’t want to invest in a replacement to CD’s in this day and age for example…
I swear the internet has been clogged up by ill-informed unintelligent 360 fanboys of late. That is the downside of freedom of speech, even idots are entitled to a blog space…
2 VinTheDean // Nov 4, 2008 at 2:31 pm
PS3 Owner . . . . Nice Post
People (Xbox360/PS3/Blu-Ray Haters) see blu-ray sales are bad or spirriling down because they don’t have one.
The one article that I have read which has made sence about the whole blu-ray sales was one that compared the Blu-Ray attachment rate to the DVD attachment rate.
When you compare these two together, you will see that Blu-Ray is doing better.
Follow this link:
http://www.infoniac.com/hi-tech/blu-ray-is-being-adopted-much-faster-than-dvd.html
I bet that these same “people” don’t remember how expensive DVD players where and how expensive the media was.
The same will happen with Blu-Ray as DVD. As time goes by, the price will come down. When it reaches that magical number of $100, you will see it spread like wild fire.
When that happens, you will see prices of the movies go down and Movie Studios only put movies out on Blu-Ray.
The same happened with DVD and VHS Tapes.
Look at history. It always has a way of repeating itself.
3 Mornelithe // Nov 4, 2008 at 4:41 pm
As was stated pretty well by PS3Owner, the world broadband infrastructure is just not ready to support mass-adoption of True 1080p downloads. It would literally cripple worldwide networks. Literally. For those who don’t mind about the true quality of what they’re viewing, sure BR may not be what they’re looking for. But, there are many, many folks out there, who’ve switched over to an HD set, and have spent thousands on a sound system to back it up. Those people, are going to want the biggest bang for their buck out of their system, and the only way to do that is with Blu-Ray. Netflix, Comcast HD, Itunes, etc none of those provide True 1080p resolution with a lossless audio format. None of them.
For me personally, I pick up 5-10 new Blu Ray movies a month. I’ve had the Blu Ray Box Set of Band of Brothers preordered since the launch date was announced. And I will continue to do so, until I have my entire DVD library transferred onto BR.
Morne
4 Doctor // Nov 4, 2008 at 4:51 pm
“Hard” storage will ultimately give way to digital delivery, if only to save our environment.
Let me ask: how much plastic and other production resources have been wasted by the Little Big Planet recall debacle?
But, Blu-Ray is a very good format for the PS3, and even if it died as a video format, it’s still fine for game distribution. It’s not so long ago that each console had its own unique cartridge format. How much more expensive were they to develop on than Blu-Ray?
5 Satsumo // Nov 4, 2008 at 4:59 pm
There are many big differences between the move from VHS to DVD and the move from DVD to Bluray.
The jump in quality and features when moving from tape to disc were massive. Stuff like pausing and skipping to scenes without lots of noise on screen and waiting for ever while you fast forwarded or rewound the tape.
A lot of people dont see enough of a difference between DVD and Bluray to justify the expense (especially in today’s recession) - and paying £20+ for bluray discs is just way too expensive.
DVD could afford to be expensive when it started out - it had NO competition whatsoever. Bluray is competing with downloads and HD set top boxes and HD movies on demand (via Virgin or Sky HD).
I think you are in the minority if you can only get 2Mb download in the UK - Sky’s basic (£10 per month) package is 8 or 16 mb. And it’s easy to get a provider that does not cap download capacity.
Also I think it’s daft to think that bluray will around for decades just because you dont see any other physical medium competing with it - do you really think 5 or 10 years down the line that 50gig capacity will suffice. That’s akin to Gates saying 640k was more than enough memory for a PC!!!
In terms of competition - do you really think memory cards will not get to having 50gb+ capacity within 5 years?
6 DaveBG // Nov 4, 2008 at 5:50 pm
It’s over.
DVD won.
The mass-market is not going to pay for the huge HD TV needed to get the best from 1080p and neither do they care about the high end audio that needs an expensive receiver & speaker package to even hear.
Instead of bashing anyone who does not think Blu-ray and/or the PS3 are the greatest thing ever it might be more productive to realise what has really happened.
Blu-ray won the battle with HD DVD only to lose the war against DVD.
No-one in their right mind imagines Blu-ray can become what DVD is now.
It’s just not going to happen.
The HD market is splintered between many formats.
Blu-ray will just be another minority version.
7 jake // Nov 4, 2008 at 6:29 pm
it may hit a low due to the credit crunch, and downloading is a much more clear root to get files
but the internet isn’t at a speed to handle big downloads yet, with bandwidth caps and all
so the need for blu-ray is there, to get games, hd films and so on
just hasn’t picked up yet due to everyone being used to dvd but that will change
8 Erik Payne // Nov 4, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Blue Ray would do better if the price of movies come down!! I have a PS3 but not ONE blue ray movie!! I wont spend 25 to 35€ for a movie. I can buy 3 movies for that price of one blue ray!! So to me when the price drops then more people will pickk up more and more blue ray movies!!
9 Barnabee Jones // Nov 4, 2008 at 9:43 pm
With anything else that is sold on the market, there are ups and downs. Blu-Ray has already won the HD format war. I obviously own a PS3, but I am still inclined to buy DVDs due to the difference in price. I think once the price comes down, HD TV’s become the standard, and more people own Blu-Ray players – Blu-ray will over take DVD. My guess is it may take another year or so.
10 KKwhateverUsay // Nov 4, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Whatever you say mate, picture quality of my dvds look superb with an upscaling dvd player, £5 or £25
11 Richard // Nov 5, 2008 at 1:30 am
I would be pleased if BD remains a niche market. like Laserdisc was years back.
12 ps3 rules // Nov 5, 2008 at 4:04 am
@DaveGB.. what are you smoking.. hdtv is selling like hot cakes, bluray will eventually take over dvd is just a matter of time and digital downloading will do the same to bluray… but i think that there will always be a market for both formats.. i myself would rather buy a hard copy of bluray movies then waiting to be downloading it…
13 Rich // Nov 5, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Blue rays are great. I was unsure as to the benefits except for the huge storage space on the disks making for bigger games but having now expanded my BR collection to 17 I can safely say that anyone who watches them will be pleased as punch.
As for the dead spiral, where are you getting this from. The market is now embracing BR technology in a way that indicates the studios are getting to grips with the new medium. Their are hundreds of titles per quarter being released unlike say laser disk where you had 20 movies and no one else wanted to bother as it was seen early on as a dead format. I have 20 titles coming out for the rest of 2008 that I would love to own, and I’m pickey over the movies I buy. This does not some like a market in decline to me, perhaps sales are due to the credit crunch, but pre economic downfall the sales were rising still.
14 Mornelithe // Nov 5, 2008 at 6:22 pm
LOL @ Upscaling - I hope it works for you. Because BR movies @ 1080p w/ Lossless Audio (Linear PCM/DTS-HD Master) certainly work for me. IE. Upscale if you’re on a budget. BR if you can afford it. The difference is night and day.
Morne
15 Morney Porney Pudding and Pie // Nov 5, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Night and Day, you make me laugh upscaled dvds and BRMovies, maybe on your 100inch rear projector, or your 60 inch 1080p there may even be a slight difference in quality on a decent 48 ich 1080p, but the acting certainly does not get any better and you do not do any more laughing because you can see the bumpy leather on a mans jacket, so I will have 3x more fun for every blu-ray movie you buy, while you will have super duper quality picture on your $$$20k$$$ home cinema setup.
16 Mornelithe // Nov 6, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Hey, if you can be happy with a weaker sound/theater system setup, so be it. But, those of us who actually work for a living and choose to spend those goods in high quality products, well, we’re enjoying our Blu Ray movies =). I was trying to figure out what your deal was, and…yeah, it’s jealousy.
Morne
17 DaveBG // Nov 6, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Typical, question Blu-ray & the PS3 kids start their arrogant BS about money
(that’s what you get with a gang of fans for an over-priced game console, it’s one of the few - very weak - jibes they can try and make).
I have a very nice home theatre, very expensive audio & the big HD TV, thanks.
I’m willing to bet most of the fans here don’t have the required audio standard necessary to even benefit from the latest audio standards & are just day-dreaming cos a little light came on on their Creative 5.1 $300 ‘receiver’ - or when they flip from Dolby Digital to True HD or uncompressed it sounded a bit louder.
That proves it, it must be better quality, right?!
LMAO.
And it’s not a case of night & day.
Upscaled DVD can look very good (yes, even on a 100″ projector…..like many here would even know).
No-one said there was no difference, the question has always been whether the marginal difference was worth it.
With the majority of HD TV sales (as figures as recent as Sept show) being, by far, 720p sets between 32″ & 42″ the whole issue of how much better Blu-ray is is pretty acedemic.
It’s better but there’s really not a hell of a lot in it at those sizes & spec.
The mass-market certainly does not think Blu-ray is worth it, which means Blu-ray will not be sliding in as the next DVD.
Besides there can’t be a ‘next DVD’, the high definition market is already fractured between several formats.
The winners this time are HD TV services coupled with a nice DVR.
HD on your HD TV all the time.
HD movies recorded directly to a nice big convenient hard drive & ‘video on demand’ to top it off.
That’s what people have been going for - especially at a marginal cost of say $15 per month on top of their existing package.
The other (talk about ‘elephant in the room’) thing the PS3 shouting kids seem to be blissfully unaware of is the coming recession (already causing HD TV production to be slashed & the big Jap CE Co.s to start posting losses).
Mix that with a credit crunch which means the banks won’t/can’t even lend to each other and it just shows perfectly how the PS3 fanboys here are laughably disconnected from the real world.
In a recession people will make more of what they have.
That means DVD etc.
They will not be rushing out to buy an expensive Blu-ray player.
I had expected large HD TVs might hold sales better but even there Samsung are slashing production & everyone but everyone is rteporting sales noteaby down.
Wake up fanboys, your dreams of a Blu-ray future just died.
18 The Future of Sega // Nov 22, 2008 at 6:05 pm
If they would lower the price of Blu Ray movies then the Blu Ray market would skyrocket. Quite frankly I’m not going to pay 20 fucken bucks for a high definition dvd when I can get a standard dvd for half that price. It’s only logical.
Now when Blu Ray dvds drop to about 9.99-16.99 then it’s a good deal. Until then, I’ll pass.
19 fg // Nov 23, 2008 at 12:15 pm
it will take another 10-15 years before HDTV will be the norma in the average hosehold . by then bluray will be a collectors item .
20 Mark // Jan 3, 2009 at 4:53 am
Ps3 Owner you are a joke.
please read.
http://www.slate.com/id/2120440/
Blu-ray is dead
The real question is WHEN.
I can smell blood.
21 JXL42 // Oct 23, 2009 at 3:03 am
Sounds like you are being smart to bring those documents as back-up. ,
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