[QUOTE="ramey70"]

[QUOTE="VladTheImpaler"]$35 is to much for a movie. You can rent it for $5.00, which is the only way to go. If I had to buy all my Blu-ray movies I would not even have one.FragTycoon

I'm not sure where everyone is getting this $35 stuff. Cloverfield is being released on Bluray on June 3rd for $19.95 at Amazon. It's on DVD for $15.99 at Amazon. That's a whopping $3.95 difference. Even not so old movies like 300 are already down to $17 on Bluray. The $35 number is thrown around WAY too much here.

I'm not taken away from you're point at all but I wouldn't buy Cloverfield for $5.

No doubt. In fact, they should have paid me when I left the theater.

If you stick to new movies you'll mostly be alright. But catalogue titles vary a in quality alot. You really have to do your research before buying a blu ray movie. The chance of buying a dud with a crappy MPEG2 encode from a bad quality print is really high.

Gaara79

Some of the best Bluray films are MPEG2 encodes. In fact, MPEG2 can look better than the same material encoded in VC-1 or h.264 depending on various factors.

$35 is to much for a movie. You can rent it for $5.00, which is the only way to go. If I had to buy all my Blu-ray movies I would not even have one.VladTheImpaler

I'm not sure where everyone is getting this $35 stuff. Cloverfield is being released on Bluray on June 3rd for $19.95 at Amazon. It's on DVD for $15.99 at Amazon. That's a whopping $3.95 difference. Even not so old movies like 300 are already down to $17 on Bluray. The $35 number is thrown around WAY too much here.

Not only that, Blu-Ray is only worthwhile if you own a 1080p 40"+ TV Set. Most people don't even own a 720p HDTV, and DVDs don't look that much worse on a 720p compared to Blu-Ray.

Brainhunter

Then why even get an HDTV? Why even get HD programming? The native resolution of DVD is 480i, same as standard digital cable. 720p from a Bluray is going to be much, much better than a native source of 480i material.

If we can expect that next generation will come with an aggressive price skimming strategy, we can expect that our already weakened dollar will not go as far. That means we'll have less money to spend on games. Compound that with rising costs of living and we'll see that the budget for consoles may dry up completely, but forecasts from the previous userbase suggest a much greater demand. The producers over supply, lose billions, and go under.

effthat

I think you're being a bit overdramatic. If a pricing model fails, it will be recognized fairly quickly and adjusted. You're making a mountain out of a molehill. In fact, one could probably argue that limited supply of the Wii has even made it more desirable to have. Humans for some odd reason seem to always want things more that are tad bit unattainable. That's just our nature. Piracy is a far bigger problem them someon making a quick buck on Ebay, and that's where the biggest "thread" to game companies lie.

With the amount of profiteering that has occured, you can bet that the manufacturers and developers will gather up this info and use it when considering their pricing strategy next generation.

effthat

As well they should. In fact, it would be a great idea for them to recoup some development costs with launch premium pricing.

Look at it this way. A guy walks into burger king, buys all the whoppers, and then sits out front selling people the whoppers. Only now, they're cold and there is no way for him to guarantee that the whopper is cooked properly or made properly or won't give you mad cow.

This person is not creating value!

effthat

Because there is nothing to gain. The consumer has alternatives such as another Burger King up the road, McDonalds across the street, or the knowledge in matter of minutes more whoppers can be made. However, if he has screaming kid in the car demanding a whopper at that exact second he might capitulate and by the whopper, cold or not. And such, utility derived.

By the way, Mad Cow is a prion (an altered protein at the molecular level) and cannot be elliminated by handling or cooking at the retail level.

What some is willing to pay is greatly influenced by emotion and perception. The "value" is "created" by constraining supply and strongarming the consumer. Nothing has been added to the product and several things have been taken away. It's no different from protection fees or a school bully charging kids on the playground to not give them a wedgie. There is no real value added.

effthat

Again, you seem to be hung up on the belief that value is entirely dependent on material addition to the product itself. The purchaser believes that the utility of getting Product X day and date with minimal effort is worth it. That's all that's important. The fact is, every PS3 and Wii would have sold out to end users for their respective prices at launch. If anyone is willing to pay a single dollar more than retail to have it day and date without effort then the real value has gone up by a dollar. If somone is willing to pay a dollar more than that person then it goes up by two dollars and so on and so on until we arrive at the market cap of hundreds or even thousands of dollars above retail. People wouldn't pay these prices on Ebay and such if they didn't feel there were receiving worthwhile utility for their dollars or respective currency.

The issue is that nobody wants to add real value anymore. They want to turn a quick easy buck and disregard the risks based on past results.

effthat

It depends on what you consider "real" value. Value isn't dependent on emotion or perception. It's entirely dependent on what someone's willing to pay for what you offer. If that happens to be $2,300 for a PS3+Time+Opportunity+Possession on Dec. 1st 2006 then that's the real value of those combination of product.