Tell me the truth, how many of you PS3 guys actually buy a significant amount of blu-ray dvds. Hardly any. ****Why? Because they cost more than DVDs and don't provide enough of a difference to justify the increased costs. Which is the same reason that MS lost the HD-DVD market position, not solely because of the Blu-ray being included in the PS3, but because of that price/performance problem inherent in the hi-def DVD business.****

Microsoft is enjoying the advantage of getting to drop the production costs of having to support a HD-DVD manufacturing and marketing division. So, they are that much more profitable overall than Sony, in the short term and the long term.

One poster already said it best, but I will tweak it, Sony won the hi-definition DVD battle but lost the high definition DVD war. There are no spoils, just ongoing unrecoupable costs.

Funny, how ironic this is.

*****UPDATE: I think I have been proved wrong about this part of my OP. There is a justifiable difference between Blu-ray and DVDs. But there is a price problem still, in that although there is a definate difference, blu-ray is significantly better, people aren't convinced they should have to pay for it.

As for it being a pyhirric victory for Sony. I think this aspect of the post is valid and should be debated. Blu-ray did shoot up the cost of the PS3 and by winning the battle with MS over high definition Sony has to bear the cost of manufacturing such function. But MS was relieved of having to produce any more HD drives (external of course) so the MS bottom line has improved. Also calculate in the fact that although blu-ray is a growing format, it is not necessarily driving PS3 sales. Rather, stand alone Blu-ray players are growing in great numbers. This puts Sony in a negative position. They bear the cost of a blu-ray player but don't see a great benefit from it. Therefore, winning the battle with MS over high definition was a pyhirric victory.

That is debateable of course, and why I posted it in the first place. It is pretty cool that as of writing this there are 93 posts. Thanks for the information, I have learned a lot. Go ahead and insult and flame me, it's okay: this is the gamespot.com system wars thread, I mean: THIS IS SPARTA!!!!

aussenbagen

***Another UPDATE: WOW, I am flattered to have garned this much attention. I must have hit a hot spot. Some people are personally offended by my original remarks, some are offended by my amended remarks, some are offended because I made amendments to my remarks, others are just plain offended by antything that is written anywhere. Of course, there are some posts that try and actually discuss the issues rather than try and just cherry pick at something I said and snipe at me--I appreciate the effort to make it constructive. But like they say, any press is good press. Look at how much Perez Hilton is making and all of gigs on TV such as the pagent. Maybe there is hope for me too. Thanks, I feel like a rockstar!

News flash, when DVD's first came out there were $30 too. Best Buy always have sales on Blu-Ray's for around $17, the same price as a DVD. So how did Sony lose the battle.....where is HD DVD?CubanBlunt

No you don't know what a phyrric victory is do you? Sony won the battle against MS, yes the HD DVD was defeated by the Blu-ray. But it was a phyrric victory. The blu-ray costs so much that it causes Sony to sell fewer PS3s than if they left out the Blu-ray technology. Look up phyrric victory on google. Then, decide for yourself if you think it was a phyrric victory or not and post again if you like.

[QUOTE="aussenbagen"]

Tell me the truth, how many of you PS3 guys actually buy a significant amount of blu-ray dvds. Hardly any. Why? Because they cost more than DVDs and don't provide enough of a difference to justify the increased costs. Which is the same reason that MS lost the HD-DVD market position, not solely because of the Blu-ray being included in the PS3, but because of that price/performance problem inherent in the hi-def DVD business.

Microsoft is enjoying the advantage of getting to drop the production costs of having to support a HD-DVD manufacturing and marketing division. So, they are that much more profitable overall than Sony, in the short term and the long term.

One poster already said it best, but I will tweak it, Sony won the hi-definition DVD battle but lost the high definition DVD war. There are no spoils, just ongoing unrecoupable costs.

Funny, how ironic this iswinner-ps3

this is so incorrect its ridiculous

Yes, I was incorrect about this "Why? Because they cost more than DVDs and don't provide enough of a difference to justify the increased costs. Which is the same reason that MS lost the HD-DVD market position, not solely because of the Blu-ray being included in the PS3, but because of that price/performance problem inherent in the hi-def DVD business."

If you bothered to read thread you would have seen that discussion. Since then the discussion has moved on. I will edit the first post so people won't just respond to that part.

This is what I thought at first, read the rest of the thread and find out what I may have been right about, and comment on that.

[QUOTE="aussenbagen"]

Tell me the truth, how many of you PS3 guys actually buy a significant amount of blu-ray dvds. Hardly any. Why? Because they cost more than DVDs and don't provide enough of a difference to justify the increased costs. Which is the same reason that MS lost the HD-DVD market position, not solely because of the Blu-ray being included in the PS3, but because of that price/performance problem inherent in the hi-def DVD business.

Microsoft is enjoying the advantage of getting to drop the production costs of having to support a HD-DVD manufacturing and marketing division. So, they are that much more profitable overall than Sony, in the short term and the long term.

One poster already said it best, but I will tweak it, Sony won the hi-definition DVD battle but lost the high definition DVD war. There are no spoils, just ongoing unrecoupable costs.

Funny, how ironic this is.

darthogre

Time Warner back tracked on that proposed testing of download caps due to public and private outcry, including govt threat of intervention. Sorry about your cap though. That totally sucks. I won't say funny how that works out though.

And just because I said "funny how that works out though" and said it was ironic. I did not mean it in a sarcastic nasty way. I own a ps3 and everything else. Not a fanboy, but a fan of it all.:P

[QUOTE="aussenbagen"]

Tell me the truth, how many of you PS3 guys actually buy a significant amount of blu-ray dvds. Hardly any. Why? Because they cost more than DVDs and don't provide enough of a difference to justify the increased costs. Which is the same reason that MS lost the HD-DVD market position, not solely because of the Blu-ray being included in the PS3, but because of that price/performance problem inherent in the hi-def DVD business.

Microsoft is enjoying the advantage of getting to drop the production costs of having to support a HD-DVD manufacturing and marketing division. So, they are that much more profitable overall than Sony, in the short term and the long term.

One poster already said it best, but I will tweak it, Sony won the hi-definition DVD battle but lost the high definition DVD war. There are no spoils, just ongoing unrecoupable costs.

Funny, how ironic this is.

darthogre

I just am picking this post to make a point, there are others that are similar. I realize that you think that I am knocking the PS3. But you can't hear my tone. I am not mocking the PS3 as a platform. I am just trying to understand the economics between the xbox and ps3. I own all the consoles, and PC's and Mac's, laptops, desktops, and all the handhelds.

So, sniping at me about fanboyism is a waste. No need to be defensive about your choice of product. What you are writing in these types of deliberately sarcastic posts tells us that you are actually the fanboy.

And specifically to this post, Time Warner just announced they are re-thinking the download cap pricing tests they were going to roll out due to the public pressure. So, don't be so certain that download caps are an absolute, Funny how that worked out isn't it. (doesn't feel good does it?)

Tell me the truth, how many of you PS3 guys actually buy a significant amount of blu-ray dvds. Hardly any. Why? Because they cost more than DVDs and don't provide enough of a difference to justify the increased costs. Which is the same reason that MS lost the HD-DVD market position, not solely because of the Blu-ray being included in the PS3, but because of that price/performance problem inherent in the hi-def DVD business.

aussenbagen

However, I think this proposition of my original post is not correct:

"Why? Because they cost more than DVDs and don't provide enough of a difference to justify the increased costs. Which is the same reason that MS lost the HD-DVD market position, "

So, why hasn't the PS3 ridden the blu-ray wave to rule the living room Hidefination experience? Or has it? Was it a great idea to include the player? How is Sony doing with it's own stand alone blu-ray players?

Was it really a pyrrhic victory or is it too early to tell?

I didn't make myself clear. This is systems wars part of the forum and I am posting about Sony's PS3 not mopping up due to the inclusion of a blu-ray player. I think one of the reasons that MS is not posting record losses like Sony is because they lost the Blu-ray battle and MS is no longer tied down to the production cost of that HD DVD accessory. However, Sony by having their platform locked into a Blu-ray player has to incur significant additional costs.

From one of the articles posted by another person, as of April 16th: "More importantly, of the 10.5 Million US homes that have a Blu-ray player, nearly 75% (7-8 Million) own stand-alone Blu-ray players, around twice as many as the same time last year. The correlation is obvious - twice as many Blu-ray players equals twice as many Blu-ray sales."

So when I mean they won the blu-ray battle I mean that they did win over MS. But it came at a tremoundous cost. People are not poplulating their living rooms with PS3s but rather they are buying stand alone blu-ray players.

Therefore, Sony won the high definition battle against MS, but they lost the war, because people did not buy PS3's to get to blu-ray technology. It was a pyhrrhic victory because the cost of their consoles is very high and they did not get the benefit of the blu-ray boon that is happening now.

Anybody want to speak to this issue instead of jumping on the popularity of blu-ray itself.

Read my original post again. Thanks everyone.