Sony's in a "bag of hurt" because of Blu-ray

I hate how they make u buy the Blu-ray in a combo pack. I don't want the damn DVD. That is all

@Couth_: exactly people should rather pay $2 for Blu-Ray than $1 for standard DVD. Thank you Sony

It's sort of amazing to me that DVD is still around. VHS died pretty quickly when DVD came out. That's just not happening with blu ray.

I don't understand that, either. I don't even care about the digital copy, let alone the crappy dvd.

Yeah I can believe this. I think I own like 10 blu-rays, and I haven't bought one in at least two years. Most of my movies are still on DVD and they work just fine. The new movies I buy I just download them.

Physical is the way to go......can't believe people don't like to have a physical copy TBH.

no chance of this happening with these shit internet speeds we get in the usa.

It depends on the movie and how many/what discs come with the movie. Unless I REALLY need to see it the second it's released (since I really don't go to movie theaters anymore), I will wait and buy used for 10 or less.

We're still a few years away from digital taking over physical sales. Bluray certainly wasn't the wrong choice.

Even next Gen, I personally still want a physical option. PC gaming is the only one that I support being totally digital.

You guys are focusing too much on the games side of it. If it was just games then Sony would be fine since they make much bigger profits from a digital sale of a game on PSN than a physical copy.

Just because blu ray won the format war doesn't mean it's a success. Blu rays success is all about movies.

Blu ray will never come close to the success of the dvd. Digital ppv through sat and cable companies and netflix streaming will prevent any chance of that.

The people who are saying physical media is the only way and digital is crap, your' kids will laugh at you.

You really need to get used to things changing.

In my life time alone I've seen TV's go from predominately black and white to the advent of 4k and tagging hard on it's heals will be 8k. I've seen music go from 8 track to cassettes to CD to DVD. I've seen the advent of video tape and the battle of Betamax and VHS (VHS won in Europe btw ;) ) then on to CD's, then DVD's and then Bluray (nearly another round of Betamax/VHS against HD) and now we have digital, be it streaming or downloading. It's here, it'll stay and big media companies will embrace it or die off. Most will embrace it because they make far more money per copy from digital.

About the only media format that has, so far, survived is vinyl records (even if it's mostly in a niche market now). General music, video and gaming will be 100% digital in the not so distant future. Look at PC for instance, we accepted digital as a medium a long time ago and out of the hundreds of games released on the platform ever year, it's the smallest section in every high street games retailer (actually this where the 'PC is dying' nonsense comes from). My prediction for the gen 9 consoles (if there is one in the same way as this generation) would be for digital only and you'll need to get all the material through Xbox Live or PSN.

MS nearly done it with Xbox One this gen but they completely misjudged the console audience. Over the next 5 - 8 years watch both Xbox One and PS4 move more and more towards digital as MS and Sony groom you all for a digital only future. Probably the only possible way for them to destroy the second hand games market as well.

Bluray's quality craps on digital. I even bought Skyfall in HDX from vudu just for comparison's sake, and it still looked a lot worse while being a near 30 gig download.

The majority of the time the bluray is either the same price or like 2$ more than the digital version, I actually don't understand why someone would buy the digital only version.

Digital isn't replacing blu ray but it surely is taking a huge chunk of business.

Do a google search to compare redbox earning today vs Blockbusters earnings during it's heyday.10 years ago physical rentals were at least 4-5x what they are. Blockbuster revenues in the early 2000's destroy Redbox revenue today. Also remember that when Blockbuster was thriving there were also lots of mom and pop rental stores, plus other franchises like Hollywood video.

Blu ray expanding in stores just means it's popularity is gaining ground over dvd but Blu ray will never come anywhere close to the popularity dvd had.

You didn't mention the biggest thing hurting blu ray which is digital ppv. Almost every home in the civilized world has at least one device that's capable of it.

Vinyl is still around because it is superior to the formats that followed it. Blu ray is also superior to digital, though that won't still be the case when internet speeds get faster and and storage becomes cheaper. Until that time, though, blu ray remains the superior method of watching a movie, and while digital is better than dvd, it is crap next to blu ray.

I haven't bought a dvd or blu ray movie in nearly 3 years. Having Netflix, Hulu, Redbox, and Amazon as movie resources, there is no need to pay for an overpriced disc. As a matter of fact, I sold all the dvds and blu ray movies I had because they were taking up space. There really is no need for it. Nostalgia is the only claim I see in this thread, but most of you probably go to the redbox more than you pay $50-$60 for a game at a store.

Skyfall on netflix streaming easily rivals blu ray.

Most people don't want to buy a movie, most would rather rent.

I'm all digital with everything except 3D Blu-Ray movies, which I resent not being able to rent or stream.

Absolutely, vinyl is still around and popular because it is better and a lot more versatile for certain music genres but go into most houses these days (certainly among my friends) and you're far more likely to find an ipod dock than a record player. With digital you need a hard drive to store 100,000's of songs or even movies not a wall cabinet or an entire room.

Mostly digital will be shoe horned because of massive first party company profit, you need a server farm to provide the world with digital anything. No shops, staff, trucks, entire production chains going all the way to the guy who produces polymer for a disk or makes the ink for a till receipt.

This is the best point I've seen in this thread. There is a local shop here that makes tons of profit off of buying used games, movies, music, hardware, and they sell it cheaper than larger stores. If digital truly takes over that place will become nothing but a vintage shop.

optical medium is for n00bs

Honest question, guys. Do you really want to buy a game on disc and have it come on a stack of DVDs or a single blu-ray?

Blu-ray has been a positive force for gaming both last generation and this generation.

QFT.

I'll only suffer with digital when there is no alternative for my Plasma and 7.1 surround system. I also enjoy the features like commentary, deleted scenes, alternate endings as well as the sound and visual boost offered with Blu-Ray.

Blu Ray was shit last gen. Woo longer load times and 5GB installs on PS3 multiplats! Woo lets stop every couple hours in MGS4 to install AGAIN! Even simple games like Fifa took forever to load on PS. Poor.

However I do very much appreciate the movie playback. I have 100+ Blu Ray movies and a couple TV series and still use my PS3 to watch em. Disney movies never looked so pretty :D

All you dumbsh@ts that made such a fuss with the Xbox One digital plan, hahahahah digital is the future fools!

@Desmonic: yeah man there is piracy on both sides.

i just love ridiculing the optical medium because i find it totally unnecessary! I installed windows from a usb stick, there's a gaping hole in the front of my PC where one would expect an optical drive. don't miss it at all.

looking at this gaping hole in the front ... well, it just makes me wanna:

The problem was not the blu ray format. It was the slow read speed on the PS3's blu ray drive.

100% true and agreed.

The faster drives this gen are completely awesome.

The PS3's Blu Ray remains poor tho.

i was buying blu-rays rapidly in 2010-2012

but now my spending went downhill.....first of all...i refuse to buy blus until they are 10$....i only pay premium on my most wanted movies or disney.

i think ive only bought two blu-rays this year... (no holds barred,far and away,buffalo 66)

last year i bought maybe like 10. in 2010-2012 i bought like 250 blu-rays.

most of my favorite movies have already been released.

I can't speak for 1080 ppv but netflix super hd streaming is on par with blu ray.

The audio is not as good, and the video is slightly worse. It's not bad by any means, but I would never use Netflix to stream a movie that I had handy on blu ray.

How is vinyl superior?

@Desmonic: essential a few years ago? i don't know man. installing from usb has been an option for ages. a while ago on a computer (which is now dismantled), i used another computer's optical drive to install the OS, then removed said optical drive - and that PC was fine, never needing optical again. This was when I lived at my parents house so we're going back ... minimum 7 years.

i cannot find data regarding the first incidence of USB boot - but i'd be very interested to know!

one thing i always concede - the quality of blu rays is unmatched by steaming. if someone is after quality then blu ray's for them. also all that stuff like 'behind the scenes' - although i never watch that myself. yeah a new media format will need to be developed for 4k, because the 'Blu Ray' format is limited to 1920x1080. but yeah i get what you mean.

i find discs an inconvenience. buying them, keeping them in the right case, storing them all, looking after them, getting them from a video store (physical or mail), sending them back. i find a proper streaming service far far more convenient. just two days ago a man came to my door, informing me that VDSL2 is now available in my area - i signed up immediately (was on ADSL2+).

i don't miss discs, and with my internet getting faster - i think i will "don't miss them" even more.

i actually made a thread on this a while ago, and i was quite interested to see about a 50/50 split between optical medium acceptors and rejectors.

I will always buy physical copies of the games i want. Take for example Minecraft, i really wanted to get it on the PS3 but it was digital only, so i waited and now they are going to release physical copies of the game. I voted with my wallet.

I don't know if Bluray was a mistake now that I am sitting in 2014. That kind of question is beyond me. I have no idea how much it cost to develop the technology or how much it has made so far. (I would however be shocked to find out that it wasn't already quite profitable.) I am merely pointing out that while sitting in 2005 a whole lot of people knew digital was going to be the next big format, that it was going to happen soon, and there wasn't much reason to repurchase their movie libraries yet again.

As for your talk about file size and network strain, Holy Kittens man do you realize you are talking about computers? In 92 my computer had 4 MB of ram. In 2002 it had over a hundred times that. While it was true that every internet geek (who wasn't accessing their school's T3 connection) was downloading about 5KB a second from Kazaa and Napster when they first installed it, they also knew that in under a decade that speed would be multiplied by at least a hundred. It isn't rocket science, it is a basic familiarity with computers.

And for the record, lots of people were downloading movies in 2005. They were already going all ape poopie over piracy then: http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/27/technology/grokster/

So we have finally broken away from the monopoly of the cable providers to embrace an all digital future where the bandwidth of our freedom is owned by (and doled at at premium).... by the cable providers...

Yay, progress!

$15-$22 launch week for combo packs (Blu-ray/DVD/DD). It goes to $20-$35 if you want 3D Blu-ray combo packs (3D Blu-rray/Blu-ray/DVD/DD). Then you can wait some weeks and get them cheaper, all the way down to $3-$8 in bins after a few years.

Assuming you love a movie and don't want to wait a year for the cheap deals, the best deals are buying the week they the Blu's release if you don't want to wait, as you also get the cheaper $15-$22 pricing before the normal $20-$25 kicks in the week after.

i empathise with the situation over there. sorry to hear.