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I know some of you aren't into vids, but this piece of technology is interesting because Sony is trying to use it to introduce the Blu-Ray format on a larger scale. They didn't create Blu-Ray, but they're hoping that it'll overtake HD-DVD and it'll do for them what the compact disc did for them years ago.

They've got an incredible amount invested in it, so much that they're losing about $400 for every console sold (the unit costs about $600 now for the best one, $500 for the basic). And that's just in production costs. And it's ironic that people are buying this machine to re-sell it to idiots for double the price.

So has anyone seen the new formats, and do they offer that much of an anvantage over traditional DVDs (aside from more storage capacity)?

Two things:

1) I don't buy into the assertation that console companies lose money on each console. First, it's illegal, second, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for any company except maybe Nintendo (since they make a lot of their own games). I believe that to be a complete myth.

2) People were starting to line up last night at the new Best Buy on Broadway & Houston Sts.

Uber - explain the illegality of it.

And I always thought companies lost $$$ on consoles but recouped it in licensing fees off of the games they sell.

Even beyond that, their marketing point is that it's a cheap Blu-Ray player, but nothing I've read about leads me to believe either format presents a jump in technology as going from VHS to DVD did. And even beyond that, the change is only noticable if you have an HDTV.

Speaking from an accountant's POV, I can assure that "Lose money" is a relateive term. Has to do with how many long-term, fixed costs (property taxes, employee benefits, plant construction/upgrade costs, etc) you want to flow through the P & L for that particular product line. Legally and for tax purposes there are some limitations, but for just announcing and deciding internally if you are losing or making money on a particular product there are much looser regulations. None, really.

I thought that selling products at a loss in an attempt to build a monopoly was dumping and illegal.

And I always thought companies lost $$$ on consoles but recouped it in licensing fees off of the games they sell.

I'm just saying that I don't believe this to be true. For the PS2, Sony spent about $2 billion on R&D. Let's assume this to be about the same. In reality they probably spent quite a bit more since the XBox 360 has been out for like a year now.

They also sold over 20 million PS2s around the world. If they sell about the same number of PS3s, Sony will have lost about 82 billion dollars selling hardware.

Sony's a hardware company, and it doesn't make sense to release a product that loses you 82 billion dollars.

I think I had an extra zero in one of my calculations. The PS3 would only lose about $10 billion.

I actually had some research wrong, too. As of 2003, there were 50 million PS2s sold, which brings the math to a $22 billion loss if the PS3 is as successful as the PS2.

2) People were starting to line up last night at the new Best Buy on Broadway & Houston Sts.

That humors me. People lining up to spend $600 on a game sys....I mean, a "multipurpose computer", as Sony's trying to call it.

As for them losing $400 or so, it's based on how much the stand-alone players are now (which are about a grand), and the relative cost of the new Cell chip they're using in the system. This is Sony using their most popular item to get the player into households.

Someone was trying to convince me that Blu-Ray's storage capacity would make it preferred in businesses, which would drop the price down for domestic players, which is a bunch of hogwash.

They also sold over 20 million PS2s around the world. If they sell about the same number of PS3s, Sony will have lost about 82 billion dollars selling hardware.

Not really, since production costs by that time would have dropped considerably. The $400 would have to be consistent over the life of the machine, which won't happen.

With the PS2, DVD costs in general dropped a ton, so it was a snap for them to make one in the past couple of years and make a bit of a profit (I'd assume).

Anyway, I find it interesting that Sony's putting so much on the line to attempt to win a format war that really, no one wants. People are still quite happy with DVD players and I don't believe the mass populous is ready to change.

Of course, the new HDTV regulations might change everything.

That humors me. People lining up to spend $600 on a game sys....I mean, a "multipurpose computer", as Sony's trying to call it.

It gets funnier when you realize that they were in line on a Tuesday for a PS3 that comes out on Thursday. Weather.com has "Thunderstorms" as the weather forcast for my neighborhood tomorrow. No matter how sick I am, I'm coming to work tomorrow just to be able to see the people in line.

I've been waiting for the P3 release so I can make my decision on which console to buy (Between the Xbox 360 and the P3).

My gut feeling is I don't care about Blu-Ray until it wins the war (if it wins the war).

For starters, I have tons of DVDs and HD Up-convert DVD players. They won't get the full 1080p HD DVD will get, but they go up to 720i or 1080i. I'm not going to invest an extra $200 in a video game system AND start purchasing the Blu-Ray DVDs only to find out I have myself a collection of Laserdisks or MiniDiscs.

Second, every playstation I've ever owned (PS1 or PS2) has had to be replaced once due to laser failure over a period or years and hours of play (since Playstations seem to have about 5 years of life before the new model comes out). Using it as a DVD player will only shorten that lifespan.

Third, I have two HDTVs and neither even does 1080p. they do 720p, which is very good but not 1080p. TV broadcasts aren't in 1080p on the limited selections of HD channels and HD DVD hasn't been sorted out yet, so there's no way I could justify spendard twice the money for a TV capable of that standard. So basically, I'd be going from 720i to 720p in terms of resolution, which is a difference, but not the full capacity of the HD DVD format anyway.

Fourth, the PS3 is starting about $200 higher than the Xbox 360. Xbox now appears to have the better game selection and they've changed the controllers to be less insane than Xbox and much more similar to the Playstation standard.

Fifth, Xbox may actually cut prices in the next month to stave off P3 and that's one of the things I'm waiting for.

Finally (I think), Xbox is planning on offering and HD DVD player for a $250 "upgrade", essentially making the Xbox w/ HD DVD player the same price as the P3 w/ BluRay and I can decide later if I'm interested.

I honestly think Sony overplayed it's hand here and will end up losing it's posiiton in the gaming market to Xbox.

Finally (I think), Xbox is planning on offering and HD DVD player for a $250 "upgrade", essentially making the Xbox w/ HD DVD player the same price as the P3 w/ BluRay and I can decide later if I'm interested.

They are. It'll be a $200 add-on. But really, if there's a "victor" to the format war, it won't happen for another 5-10 years. Within that time, and considering improvements in technology, the PS3 may be considered obsolete.

I think the 360 will also drop in terms of price. There's a deal at Microcenter where you can get $100 off the price of either 360 system. I don't think this is being offered anywhere else.

Where Sony played themselves is that they tried to promote the Blu-Ray player in a game machine, but most people only look at the PS3 as a game machine. And with not many games coming out, there's no real reason (other than Blu-Ray) to get one as opposed to the Wii (can't stand that name) or the 360. Essentially, Sony tried to make the PS3 a trojan horse, but the horse is too big and too bulky to fit in most people's castles.

i dont really care about this debate one way or the other, but i had to comment on bass' beautiful closing metaphor.

i teared up a little...

It was very good.

$600 would be cheap for a PS3, a couple of games and a extra controler. Try more like $1500!http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5303666

As far as 360 vs. PS3, there is no contest. The PS3 will blow away the 360 with graphics. Anytime you have a disk(Blu-Ray) that has almost double the data storage, the graphics, game play, depth and options will blow anything the 360 can offer.

One big plus for the 360 is $$$. You can get a 360 for $199.99 @ http://www.thelastboss.com/post.phtml?pk=1558

One other funny thing......Sony is only shipping half of the amount of PS3's that they promised. People who paid in full, weeks ago at EB Games and Gamestop, will not all be getting there systems until after Christmas.

blow anything, you say?

SOLD.

Shortages.....due to the special laser needed for BR.

This is the best comparison I've seen so far: Playstation 3.

I didn't know the PS3 will do 1080p and the Xbox will only do 1080i for the gaming, but that's an advantage down the road.

The other interesting thing I wasn't aware of (and a real selling point for me) is the free online gaming. Apparently, Xbox charges $60 per year for online gaming.

I've never done it before, but for someone who does enjoy the online aspect, the P3 saves you $60 per year.

I have heard some really, super-huge nerds talk about the core architecture being crafted for better gaming speed on the Xbox despite the 8 processor talking point in the P3, btw, but I don't understand that crap.

I have heard some really, super-huge nerds talk about the core architecture being crafted for better gaming speed on the Xbox despite the 8 processor talking point in the P3, btw, but I don't understand that crap.

I kind of do, but I'm not going to sag the discussion down further with more geek-specific talk. Basically, the PS3 is supposed to be more powerful than the 360, but marginally so.

And the online thing is a bit of a misnomer - You can have "free" online gaming with the cheaper 360, but you're restricted as to when you can go online. People pay for M$'s service because it's one flat fee for the year, and their servers are tons better than Sony's, and they allow nearly flawless play. Yes, the PS3's online is free, but what they're going to do is leave it up to developers if they want to charge online fees. EA has done this and is talking about doing it with games like Madden. So it's similar to playing online games on the PC.

There's also some really shady ish going on where some companies you can buy various "things" in the game (like for Madden, the Eagles' 5th uniform, for example). You can choose to unlock stuff the old fashioned way, or you pay one price and have it done for you. Where the shady-ness comes in is that companies will charge you a flat fee for the game, PLUS the same price to unlock content that you can't unlock in the game because the devs made it that way. You'll be paying more than the price of the game to get everything in it.

In fact, Sony was rumored to have attempted something similar to this with the PS3 - with the BR tech, it gives you much better security against piracy, and what Sony was going to do was to make every game user-specific - one license per game and if you tried to play that game in another console, it wouldn't play. And if you wanted to play used games, you'd essentially have to "re-pay" for the license, which had tons of people in an uproar, as it would effectively end the used games market. So far, it's untrue, but Sony's really gung-ho about combating piracy, so I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this in the near future.

OK. All that was geeky. My bad.

That article is somewhat of a sell piece for the PS3. Notably, the console lasting for 10 years. With the rate that technology goes, that's just not going to happen.

Sony wants it to last 10 years because that's when the format war will be decided. They;ve backed themselves into a corner with this thing. Unfortunately, unless there's a lot more support for it domestically (and the price alone is like saying a battleship costs less than an aircraft carrier), it's going to do poorly.

One last thing, just for FD (since I doubt anyone else cares) - The PS3 does have 8 processors, but they're like a pie cut into 8 slices. They all work as part of the same whole.

If you feel the burning desire to either pay or play your way to being able to "wear" the Eagles 5th Jersey while you play as them during a video game, you really are a strong candidate for Findadeath.com.

Sony wants it to last 10 years because that's when the format war will be decided. They;ve backed themselves into a corner with this thing. Unfortunately, unless there's a lot more support for it domestically (and the price alone is like saying a battleship costs less than an aircraft carrier), it's going to do poorly.

I think when they talk about supporting it for 10 years, they mean making new games and things like that.

One last thing, just for FD (since I doubt anyone else cares) - The PS3 does have 8 processors, but they're like a pie cut into 8 slices. They all work as part of the same whole.

Right...I think the Xbox has some kind of processor core as well, but I don't know the specifics.

I don't know which one I'm going to go with yet. I just can't seem to make up my mind.

Well, Sony said they would release 400k of those units - looks more to be like 140k.

And if you have an older HD set, then you're in trouble:

"As it turns out, gamers who own older HD sets that feature only 480i, 480p, and 1080i resolution input capabilities will have to settle for the display quality being downsized as the game boots in its 480p mode rather than upscaling the image from its more desirable 720p mode to the TV's 1080i."

You'll have to explain that one to me, since I'm not admittedly up to date on HD talk.

That basically means anyone with an HD TV approximately 2+ years old will have a relatively shitty picture quality on the P3.

FD - the specs for the systems are different, but they're supposed to be somewhat similar when all's said and done. Most believe the PS3 does have the edge, though.

I think when they talk about supporting it for 10 years, they mean making new games and things like that.

Yeah, but at that point they may be making games for a system that's outdated.

After laughing at uber watching people line up (in the rain, no less) for an overpriced console, it's not as bad as people getting homeless folks to line up for the system (both in Japan and here), just so they can sell it for a profit (and they're going for more than $1500 on ebay).

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