Warner drops HD DVD.

I hope so. Then we can hate others for more important beliefs like Coke or Pepsi.
 
The winner of the format war was decided months ago when Blockbuster and other retailers decided to drop HD.
 
I'd say when Microsoft decided not to wait for HD DVD to be finished before launching their Xbox 360 to beat Sony to market, they pretty much doomed HD DVD. Toshiba was probably pretty bitter about that, considering MS was the one pressuring them to continue the war in the first place.
 
That was really when it was over. Not even holleywood video carries HD-DVD, which is pretty sad, because they are bottom of the barrel of corperate movie renter people.
 
Halifirien said:
The winner of the format war was decided months ago when Blockbuster and other retailers decided to drop HD.
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Losing blockbuster wasn't that big of a loss, since blockbuster's market share has shrunk drastically due to services like netflix. The rental figures were pathetic anyways, so it wasn't the killshot; warner brothers is though.

So bluray has unofficially finally won(it's unofficial since HD-DVD is still alive, just not going to win), it's about fucking time. They should have won a year ago with all of the advantages they had going for them. With the win, sales on the PS3 are going to plummet as cheaper blu-ray players become available. No longer is buying the PS3 the most cost effective option, so it'll be interesting to see the sales numbers on the PS3 once those hit the shelves.
 
This thread makes me smile :)
 
Well once it is "official" I expect a small surge in PS3 systems as people still on the HD format fence jump for the player that currently has the most features, and is also the cheapest. I wouldn't be surprised to hear some new stuff from CES next week that might be a blow across Blurays bow (High def download services, ect) but I know I am no where near ready for a medialess service. I still like having a media rack and thumbing through my titles to decide which one I want to view. The idea of having a 500GB hard drive full of paid for media, just waiting for a sector to go bad is scary. I get upset when I lose my torrented anime. :P Although once SSD becomes the norm that might not be as big of an issue since it has an estimated lifespan of 1,000,000 work hours.
 
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Sales of PS3 aren't going to plummet, they're going to raise. First there's going to be a short term sales boost, thanks to people who were waiting on the sidelines starting to see the war is over. The prices aren't dropped yet on stand-alones, and the PS3 is still a great value. Next up, gamers with high def TVs will increase their purchasing of PS3 seeing a bigger value with the HDM winner.(this will actually start happening immediately). Long term, as players drops in price, non-gamers will be picking up standalones. Non gamers with a PS3 are mostly a waste as they don't increase software sales which is the ultimate point of increasing hardware sales anyway.

To think this does anything except help PS3 is foolish. I mean yourself, you are a console gamer with a high def TV and you buy high def movies. Does the value of the PS3 not increase to you now that buying it or a standalone blu-ray player is the only way to get movie titles in high def in the long run?
 
I'm just glad forums dedicated to fucking video games will stop being used for pushing fucking format wars.
Fuck you.
 
Firestreak said:
Sales of PS3 aren't going to plummet, they're going to raise. First there's going to be a short term sales boost, thanks to people who were waiting on the sidelines starting to see the war is over. The prices aren't dropped yet on stand-alones, and the PS3 is still a great value. Next up, gamers with high def TVs will increase their purchasing of PS3 seeing a bigger value with the HDM winner.(this will actually start happening immediately). Long term, as players drops in price, non-gamers will be picking up standalones. Non gamers with a PS3 are mostly a waste as they don't increase software sales which is the ultimate point of increasing hardware sales anyway.

To think this does anything except help PS3 is foolish. I mean yourself, you are a console gamer with a high def TV and you buy high def movies. Does the value of the PS3 not increase to you now that buying it or a standalone blu-ray player is the only way to get movie titles in high def in the long run?
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Half the PS3 sales so far have been people buying them because they're the same price(or cheaper as they were originally) as a stand alone player. Now, when the stand alone players are going to be cheaper than a PS3, none of those non-gamers are going to want to shell out the extra money for something they're not going to use.

For the gamers, this decision really isn't going to effect sales at all. They're going to buy the PS3 for the games, not the fact that it can play DVD's, especially when they could just buy the player for less money. It's a gaming console, the DVD playback is a secondary feature, and now that cheaper stand alone players will be coming out, it's not even a deciding feature. Gamers don't buy consoles because they can play DVD's, they buy them because they can play games.

There will be a short-term boost to the PS3 sales, but once cheaper blu-ray players come out(will be a lot faster now that blu-ray has "won") PS3 sales will drop because half the people who are buying them aren't gamers and therefore aren't going to be willing to pay more for features they won't use. The only way for PS3 to see prolonged increased sales would be releasing more games that would actually sell the console. This will see a large increase in the number of software sales, since now everyone won't be waiting to see on the winner, but PS3 hardware isn't going to get a long-term boost because of this.

If I buy a PS3, it's going to be because of the games, not because of the movies. I might pick up a few blu-rays now and then, but I'm still not interested in paying more for my movies when they already look fine to begin with. I'm only going to buy a few movies that I'll really enjoy in HD, the rest I'll upscale and "suffer" with only a great picture and not an awesome one.
 
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Firestreak said:
Sales of PS3 aren't going to plummet, they're going to raise. First there's going to be a short term sales boost, thanks to people who were waiting on the sidelines starting to see the war is over. The prices aren't dropped yet on stand-alones, and the PS3 is still a great value. Next up, gamers with high def TVs will increase their purchasing of PS3 seeing a bigger value with the HDM winner.(this will actually start happening immediately). Long term, as players drops in price, non-gamers will be picking up standalones. Non gamers with a PS3 are mostly a waste as they don't increase software sales which is the ultimate point of increasing hardware sales anyway.

To think this does anything except help PS3 is foolish. I mean yourself, you are a console gamer with a high def TV and you buy high def movies. Does the value of the PS3 not increase to you now that buying it or a standalone blu-ray player is the only way to get movie titles in high def in the long run?
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http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sams...sem/rpsm/oid/190631/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sony...sem/rpsm/oid/196636/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

Blu-ray player= cheaper. Although I agree might as well get the bundled game player as well, but for those that aren't gaming a blu-ray is cheaper.
 
Third time's the charm, lol.

Beta = Fail
UMD = Fail
BluRay = Win!
 
BlueRay won when the PORN Industry backed them in my opinion lol
 
Did they do laser discs too?
 
Bajaratt said:
Half the PS3 sales so far have been people buying them because they're the same price(or cheaper as they were originally) as a stand alone player. Now, when the stand alone players are going to be cheaper than a PS3, none of those non-gamers are going to want to shell out the extra money for something they're not going to use.
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That's a pretty strong statement to make having very little logic behind it. There are over 8 million PS3s out there, if half the the sales are for just blu-ray players, then there are essentially 4 million standalone blu-ray players. Obviously this isn't true. As has been pointed out, there are cheaper stand-alones out there right now, though they don't have all the media capabilities of the PS3, still you'd assume the majority of people buying for a Blu-ray are at this venture going to elect for a standalone to save themselves $100.

Rather what you've got here is overlapping markets. A person who buys video games is highly likely to buy movies as well. A person who likes to buy movies is not so highly likely to buy video games. It's merely statistics here, the movie market is larger, and therefore people are more likely to watch movies than play games. So if you give a random movie watcher a game system with their movie player, they aren't likely to get any value out of it.

Bajaratt said:
For the gamers, this decision really isn't going to effect sales at all.
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Another ridiculous statement. A more accurate would be it isn't going to affect every gamer, but it is certainly going to affect some.

Bajaratt said:
They're going to buy the PS3 for the games, not the fact that it can play DVD's, especially when they could just buy the player for less money.
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All functions have value. Added value is added likelihood of purchase. Yes, later this year you'll probably be able to buy a Blu-ray standalone for $200. That just means the PS3 saves you... $200. Or maybe $100 for you, you bought the HD DVD player at $100 and it wasn't even 1080P... or the stronger format. Now there's going to be more content, more value. Maybe one day for you it's a $300 PS3 or a $100 Blu-ray standalone. The point is that whatever value you'd be willing to pay for the blu-ray player, you can effectively subtract that out of the cost of the PS3 when considering purchasing it. For most people, that value just increased because Blu-ray is now the format war victor.

Bajaratt said:
It's a gaming console, the DVD playback is a secondary feature, and now that cheaper stand alone players will be coming out, it's not even a deciding feature. Gamers don't buy consoles because they can play DVD's, they buy them because they can play games.
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Semantics. It's an electronic device that performs an unbelievable amount of functions. Call it a game machine, call it a movie player, call it a multimedia box... it's all those things. Just because it does one doesn't mean it doesn't do the others incredibly well. If you only value one of the functions, you have to base your purchase on that function alone, however that's not all it does. Just like you can use your computer to play games, surf the internet, type up a spreadsheet, watch a movie or touch up a picture, the PS3 can do many things. The thing it does of the greatest value, is play video games, so eventually only gamers will buy it as there are better alternatives for people who don't... but for a gamer, the added value of the movies is great.

Bajaratt said:
There will be a short-term boost to the PS3 sales, but once cheaper blu-ray players come out(will be a lot faster now that blu-ray has "won") PS3 sales will drop because half the people who are buying them aren't gamers and therefore aren't going to be willing to pay more for features they won't use.
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Nobody wants people to buy PS3s just to use a blu-ray player. Sony doesn't want to sell game systems to people who aren't going to buy games, and wants to sell its movie players as does the other manufacturer for profit. The PS3 was never intended to be a long term leader for blu-ray, just a game system that could use blu-ray's capacity for games, play high def movies and kill HD DVD. It accomplished it.

This is a good thing. There is no value in an increased install base with the additional base not buying games. So your doom and gloom is rather silly. What's worse, is the continued notion that 4 million + of the PS3s are purely for playing movies. If that's true, the PS3's actual game playing base has a higher attach rate than any other system will ever have in the history of gaming. Or maybe what's more likely is there are a few hundred thousand non-gamers, and quite a few very casual gamers who are more interested in movies but own a few games as well, perhaps even just for their kids.

Bajaratt said:
The only way for PS3 to see prolonged increased sales would be releasing more games that would actually sell the console.
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Which has been happening ever since May of last year and looks to continue as PS3 has the widely recognized best catalog coming in 2008.

Bajaratt said:
This will see a large increase in the number of software sales, since now everyone won't be waiting to see on the winner, but PS3 hardware isn't going to get a long-term boost because of this.
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You'll have to define "long term." As long as a blu-ray player aren't free, this will be significant. As they get cheaper and cheaper, it will be less and less. Even now, the PS2 is a DVD player and that adds some value to it. You aren't going to buy a PS2 just because it's a DVD player, but if you're considering buying it as a game system, you might say, "I also want a DVD player in my room where I'll be playing it."

I shouldn't have to explain this to you, it should be obvious.

Bajaratt said:
If I buy a PS3, it's going to be because of the games, not because of the movies. I might pick up a few blu-rays now and then, but I'm still not interested in paying more for my movies when they already look fine to begin with. I'm only going to buy a few movies that I'll really enjoy in HD, the rest I'll upscale and "suffer" with only a great picture and not an awesome one.
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And you can factor whatever value that is to you in your x/y=z equation. I find it a far better value myself as a gamer than buying a 1080i player for $100.
 
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