Jay

lordjedi said:

And yet Amazon reported record sales.  Only normal retail has reported sales being down.  Black Friday actually had high sales, but they were lower than expected, so everyone has reported that sales were down.

And Blu-ray hardware sold fine during the holidays, just like everything else. Sales weren't slow at all. Now, prices have returned to where they were and things are slowing down. A totally normal November/December/January sales cycle.

Uh, wrong.  I don't expect anything to be cheap.  I expected player prices to be high when there was a format war.  That ended in January or February.  Player prices dipped slightly after that and then went right back up.  Prices showed no signs of dropping until Black Friday.  Retailers have been offering steep discounts on everything else except Blu-ray players.  Games, clothes, movies, etc, etc.  Everything has had steep discounts except those damn players.  Even Sony didn't drop the price of the PS3 going into Black Friday.  The XBox got a price cut though and saw an 8% increase.  Nintendo didn't need to since they've been selling like mad anyway.

When there's no competing format, I want it cheaper sooner, yes.  When dual format DVD burners appeared, burner (and media) prices started to drop significantly.  Burners went from $300 (dual format) to under $100 within a year.

You expected player prices to decrease with no format competition? Seriously? It's precisely because of the format war that you can even find $250 Blu-ray decks. Without HD-DVD, $400 to $500 would be the current price--and much better for the consumer electronics companies trying to turn a profit.

You do understand that the companies making these players need to turn a profit in order to stay in business, right?

And you also understand that a barebones BD drive for a computer is a totally different animal from a self-contained, standalone deck with more materials, hardware decoders, software programming, more parts, more engineering and QA, and higher manufacturing and shipping costs, right?

Finally, you understand that the US dollar is weak at the moment, right?

Of course you do, because these things are obvious to any reasonable individual who understands that there are costs to doing profitable business in a down economy. Unless, of course, Wal-Mart has conditioned you to think you deserve much more for much less.

Maybe the reason you didn't see steep discounts on all those Blu-ray players is because they're already selling close to cost.

We also didn't have to worry about getting DVD players that couldn't play certain "future" content due to different profiles.  Every DVD player released with the logo had to be able to play all the features in the spec.  Even the players that did have problems were updated to work via firmware or by mailing the player in.  A Blu-ray profile 1.0 or 1.1 player won't be able to play 2.0 profile content.  The only thing I'm aware of that was added to the DVD spec later was mp2 audio since most of the cheap software used that and then those discs couldn't be played on earlier players.

This argument is getting stale. Everyone acknowledges that buying a Profile 1.1 deck means you might not be able to watch some stupid PIP window during playback.

By the way, those DVD players you mention? Buggy as hell and more expensive at this point in their life cycle than Blu-ray decks. DVD hardware buyers back then had to tolerate high prices and sometimes shitty performance. The main difference is that firmware updates didn't come every other month and the shitty player you bought in January was still the same shitty player in December.

And it sold 13.5 million DVDs.  Still looks like a niche compared to the DVD market.

Please read this topic at AVS. It's the most even-handed debate I've seen regarding Blu-ray's relative success or failure. Of particular interest is the discussion centering around the absurdity of judging Blu-ray's success against DVD, which is the most successful and most quickly adopted consumer electronics product of all time. Interesting point to note: the adoption of color TV and its speed in overtaking black and white would be considered a failure today if held to the same standard.

These debates with you are endless. You expect more for less, have no appreciation for the economics and costs of doing business involved in marketing this type of product, and you make invalid comparisons to other formats and hardware products that have no bearing on the relative success or failure of Blu-ray as a format.

In short, you don't get it. At all.

lordjedi said:

Then you're not paying attention.  Blu-ray units moved pretty well when the price was under $200.  Now that most places have the players back above $200, sales have slowed again.

It's called "the holidays." It's a time when things often sell very well at a reduced price and then slow down afterward. Add the economy into the mix and it's not exactly the best environment to be pushing a new media format.

I understand that you take part in the mass expectation--actually, mass entitlement may be a better description of the national condition--that the products you buy should be cheap right out of the gate. You've been whining for as long as I can remember about Blu-ray being too expensive. Nevermind that Blu-ray hardware is cheaper sooner in its lifecycle than DVD was while offering superior A/V quality and interactivity. You want it cheap, and you want it now. Wal-Mart and McDonald's.

The Blu-ray version of The Dark Knight sold 600,000 copies on its first day and 1 million after its first week. No laserdisc ever came close to that, not even after 16 years on the market. Not ever.

Blu-ray may never achieve the same market penetration as DVD in an age of HD on demand and iTunes, but comparing it to laserdisc is asinine.

C3PX said:

But why the slam against FPSs?

Because it's the sidescrolling platformer of this generation. It's the 1-on-1 fighting game. It's the genre that has a few outstanding titles surrounded by a sea of trash. And Americans love them, even if they're complete crap.

People know there are good games on the PS3.

Then why do I keep hearing it has "no good games?" Because 360 fanboys like to perpetuate that myth, that's why.

The comparison to the Gamecube is appropriate in some ways. The PS3 is the most powerful hardware from this generation, but it arrived too late in the cycle. That's mostly because MS pushed the 360 out the door with inferior specs and the most horrible engineering in a console since the Saturn, but they're ahead, so whatever.

The fact is, those few good games that are PS3 exclusives don't weight up to the 360's much larger library, and much cheaper price tag. When you consider both systems side buy side, the PS3 just doesn't hold up in most regards yet. In this day and age when you can play games online with your friends, what your friends own matters.

It's easy to be cheap when you keep pushing hardware with a 35% failure rate and morons keep buying it.

And the 360's online "community" is a great reason not to buy it in my opinion. Lots of 12-year-olds playing Halo and shouting obscenities at one another.

Another interesting antedote...

Two games, one of which received a vastly inferior port on the PS3. But the 360 has many more owners, so it's not surprising that the 360 version of common games sells out before the PS3 version does.

I think as time goes on the PS3 will start to pick up, the price will come down, and the library will grow, and sells will increase. But it'll never catch up with the 360. It is pretty plan to see who won this generation of the console war.

Of course they won't catch up. MS had a year and Halo. That's all they needed in today's gaming climate--a mediocre FPS/chat room and cheap, defective hardware to play it on.

I read a lot of comments here and elsewhere about the PS3 not having good games.

If you believe that, you aren't paying attention to what's out there.

MS may have more games available and may be selling more games, but that's because Americans have a never ending appetite for first person shooters, Madden, and Big Macs. Games like Uncharted, LittleBIGPlanet, and Valkyrie Chronicles are real works of art and represent some of the best games from this generation, but nobody's buying them because they believe the PS3 "has no good games yet" thanks to shit articles from the likes of CNN Money.

Anyway, the PS3 is no longer the only game in town for a Blu-ray player in its price range, so in that respect, its effect on the success of Blu-ray is tapped. However, many current PS3 owners helped contribute to the outstanding Blu-ray software sales this holiday season and will continue to do so through the coming years, so from that angle, the PS3 paid off for Sony.

At this point, Blu-ray hardware manufacturers have moved so many units that Blu-ray's future as a format looks very bright. I don't see it ending up like laserdisc at all.

It was a joke, sort of like the whole politics thread.

Why are you so hypersensitive anyway?

And please save your lectures on forum ettiquette for someone who gives a shit.

Executive privilege: any further posts from you or anyone else about this will be deleted because some people just can't take a fucking joke.

C3PX said:

I have a theory about complainers. They start off with ligit complaints, then they become so well adjusted to complaining, suddenly everything deserves to have the crap picked out of it. Sooner or later you just have to say to yourself this is the way it is and it is what it is.

Mind if I borrow this post for the politics topic? It's just as relevant there.

So how did the gaming gods treat everybody this holiday season? My parents got me Resistance 1 and 2, Hot Shots Golf, and BioShock.

I also got a bit of cash, so I'm probably going to pick up Valkyria Chronicles also. Looks to be a sleeper hit for RPG fans. And, while not gaming related, I had to pick up one of these after seeing the one my nephew got on Christmas morning :)

lordjedi said:

I don't recall developers saying that about the PS2.

The PS2 was panned quite a bit by some for its development difficulty. The Emotion Engine was something very different, much like the Cell, and a lot of developers bitched and moaned about it.

Metal Gear Solid 4?  The game that may as well be a movie for the first 20 minutes?  If that's your idea of a quality game then it's no wonder the PS3's market share is so bad.  MGS4 is my idea of a Final Fantasy equivalent.  You spend so much time watching what's happening that you don't really play a game as much as you sit and watch a movie.

I don't recall commenting on the quality of the gameplay. I merely used it as a technical reference to illustrate that games made from the ground up to take advantage of the PS3's power aren't easily ported to the 360.

I also find it odd that you're commenting on a game you most likely haven't played all the way through. Kind of a trend it seems, given your quick loss of interest in Oblivion due to unrealistic rat fighting. Do you turn off movies if the first ten minutes fail to entertain you? Do you toss books aside when the first chapter isn't what you were expecting?

Have you even played COD?  A headshot does immediately kill your opponent (at least COD4 does).  If that's not how it is on PS3, then that's a shortcoming of that port.  In the PC world, a headshot is an instant kill and has been since games like DOD.  Maybe you weren't playing on Expert though.  Maybe the PS3 doesn't have multiple difficulty levels.  Most of the time the computer AI won't even take a shot at your head since it's a small target.  I can assure you, on the PC, when playing online, headshots are instant kills.  Yes, it's a little frustrating, but unless you're sitting still for long periods of time, you'll be difficult to hit.

I've been playing online a long time and a headshot is in no way a universal one-hit kill, nor is it always a one-hit kill in COD4 with all weapons. All arms get damage multipliers on headshots, but that doesn't ensure instant death, particularly with smaller arms. Perhaps a headshot is always an instant kill with any weapon in Expert mode, but that's not the game's default and not what I was referring to. Yes, the PS3 has different difficulty levels.

All that's necessary for textures is to release high resolution ones.  The same thing has been done in the PC world for ages.  You simply download the "high-res" textures and boom, games instantly look better.  If the developers have high res textures available, they could easily be downloaded for an instant game "upgrade".

You're assuming Nintendo's next console will be backwards compatible with the Wii. Seeing as the Wii was Nintendo's first console to incorporate backwards compatibility--and mostly because the hardware is so similar to the Gamecube's--I wouldn't count on that. Let's also hope Nintendo can be bothered to make some decent internal storage options available on their next console so this texture upgrade--which will never, ever happen on any Wii game ever--is possible.

Darth Chaltab said:

Like I said, I already got one fixed last year, so the website is telling me the waranty is expired.

Unless it's been three years since your original purchase, they should still replace your 360 regardless of whether it's been fixed/replaced previously or not. I know many gamers who've gone through three or four 360s in the last couple years, all covered under warranty.

If they're telling you that it's been a year since your repair and the warranty is up, I'd call bullshit and insist they provide repair or replacement.

Why people keep putting up with this crap from MS is beyond me.

Darth Chaltab said:

Regarding Call of Duty:WAW, it's true that it looks basically like a PS2 game in 480p, but that's less a problem with the hardware and more a problem of lazy developers. Games built for the Wii from the ground up tend to look considerably better.

The primary demographic for COD mostly consists of 360 and PS3 owners. Putting minimal effort into the Wii version was less about laziness and more about return on investment.

The sales numbers prove that decision was the correct one. COD:WAW has been a complete failure on the Wii while selling millions of copies for the 360 and PS3. The extra effort to make the Wii version look better wouldn't have been worth the time and money--and "better" is a relative term because it still wouldn't look half as good as the PS3 and 360 versions.

lordjedi said:

Nintendo has always been about quality over power.  Always, always, always.  Even back to the NES and Super NES.  Nintendo may have alienated some people (I'll take your word for it), but Sony has made things just as hard in the opposite direction.  The PS3 is a pain in the ass to program for.  Yes, it's very powerful.  But all that power is useless if you can't easily make a game for it.

They said the same thing about the PS2 and it dominated the last generation regardless. There were plenty of talented developers who pushed the PS2 to its limits despite its supposed programming difficulty.

When it comes to programming, some frameworks are more difficult to use than others, the general rule being that the easier the framework is to use, the less flexibility when compared to more complex frameworks. I build all my web applications in ColdFusion because it's fast and easy. However, there are times I need to dig into the underlying Java because ColdFusion doesn't provide an easy tag or function that does what I need it to do. I appreciate what ColdFusion does on its own because it allows developers and designers to focus more on functionality and user experience instead of trying to get things to work; that ease of use comes at a price though.

Making games is similar. Some dev kits do a lot for you and allow you to focus on the creative aspects instead of grinding away on source code, but if the system doesn't allow you to go deeper, it'll peak early in terms of technical capabilities.

Developers who don't want to do the work to make beautiful PS3 games have other options. That's why the 360 gets so many games first and the PS3 gets a poorly done port. There are good reasons why Kojima refuses to port MGS4 to the 360; it just can't handle the game as it is and he doesn't want to sacrifice the game's quality to put it on the 360.

It's also possible that Nintendo will come up with a way to make all those titles easily "upgraded" to HD.  HD seems to be the real crux of the argument right now anyway.  The Wii doesn't do HD and for the "hardcore gamers" that's a must have.  Sorry, I just don't buy it.  A visually stunning game is nice to look at for a while, but if it doesn't have good gameplay, it won't last 5 minutes.

Oblivion might be great to look at, but the retarded beginning of beating up giant rats with a sword kind of turned me off.  It really shouldn't take more than one stab to kill a rat.

You keep bringing up good gameplay like the PS3 doesn't have it. It does. Tons of it. More than I've been able to find on the Wii, frankly. All while managing to look good at the same time.

Sorry you didn't like Oblivion, but it seems to me you're stuck on one somewhat silly gameplay aspect in an otherwise outstanding game. And why exactly should a giant rat half the size of a man take only one stab to kill? Let's assume it should. If that's the case, why doesn't a headshot in COD immediately kill your opponent? I'll tell you why...while that may be more realistic, it would only make sense to apply the same rules to the player, and then the game becomes frustratingly hard. Games aren't real life and real life rules and mechanics don't work.

As far as upgrading existing Wii titles to HD, it may be possible for them to run the games at 1080p, and while that may smooth the edges out a bit, that will do nothing for the texture resolution, which is where all the real detail comes from. They'll look like upscaled games, just like DVDs look like upscaled DVDs and not HD. And would that be much of a selling point? How many people bought the PS3 because it upscales PS1 and PS2 games?

C3PX said:

Next gen you'll see every console copying Nintendo by using motion sensors (Sony has already done this I believe), and Nintendo will be on to making new things for the others to copy.

The PS3 launched with the Sixaxis controller. Sony applied for the patents of said controller in 1999. It wasn't a ripoff of the Wii's controller.

This idea that Nintendo innovates and everyone else copies them is nonsense. Nintendo hasn't innovated since they lost their stranglehold on the US market through restrictive licensing practices and artificial cartridge shortages.

The N64 was on top as far as graphics because it came out last--and it was only on top if you appreciated fuzzy anti-aliasing.

Load times? I don't remember playing any PS1 games that had outrageous load times. Maybe there were a few, but not that I recall. And the reason we put up with it is because the game library was outstanding. So N64 had no load times. I'll take some load times and a huge library over no load times and no games. Don't get me started on the game prices.

Yes, Wii is outselling everyone, just like McDonald's outsells Ruth's Chris. If it were possible to log all the actual play hours of each console--not just sales--you'd find that most 360s and PS3s are powered on almost daily, while most Wiis see use on weekends only. Did Nintendo attract the masses and turn non-gamers into gamers? Absolutely. My dad bought my stepmom a Wii earlier this year. And like most other Wiis sold to this new generation of "gamers," it collects dust. You think my dad will buy Nintendo's next console? Not a chance in hell.

I agree that the point of a gaming system is to entertain its users. I find the Wii entertaining only in short bursts, and I guarantee you that's how 90% of its owners use it. Visit any forum dedicated to gaming. Ask the users who own more than one console and also own a Wii which one they actually use on a daily basis and which one lost its appeal a year ago.

Nintendo's hardware is shit and they're getting by on sad nerds with dreams of swinging real swords. Sorry.

The visuals look great if you have an older TV to match the older hardware (480i/480p). Even the most gorgeous Wii games look like ass on a 1080p display though. Developers have to anti-alias everything to death to make it look halfway decent. And when you compare titles common to all systems, like COD4, the Wii's visuals are sorely lacking. I've yet to see a Wii title that's significantly better than Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube, but I've seen plenty of titles on the 360 and PS3 that easily surpass it.

The Wii controller's accuracy is laughable. The fact that there needs to be a visible target onscreen for gun games is proof of this. You're not actually aiming at anything; you're using the controller to move the targeting sight around the screen. Add the fact that there's no difference in a game's response between the player doing a full backhand swing in tennis and the player flicking his wrist, and you have all the proof you need that it really is a gimmick.

Despite the strong sales, from a gaming perspective, the Wii is the N64 of this generation. It's old technology with a few standout titles sitting on top of a pile of shovelware.

And if Nintendo thinks all these non-traditional gamers buying into the gimmick today will fork over the cash tomorrow when they finally release a real piece of hardware, they have another thing coming.

There's no question that price is a factor in this generation. If Sony had managed to get the PS3 down to $299 before Black Friday, their sales numbers would be very different right now.

Of course, it's easy for Nintendo to compete on price; their hardware is pretty old and weak. MS let quality control go completely out the window, so they're able to dump some fairly piss-poor engineering into a box at a bargain price. The PS3, on the other hand, is truly a fine piece of hardware. I'm not saying that as a fanboy, it's just fact. The failure rate is extremely low and the components are of very high quality. Expensive as hell to build though. Unfortunately for Sony, they built a piece of hardware that was meant to last, both quality- and technology-wise, while the other guys reused old tech or turned a blind eye to build quality.

For me, the best games the PS3 has to offer are more appealing than the 360's library. There's nothing the 360 has that has the same finesse and class as Uncharted--nothing--and it's still one of the best looking titles to come out of this generation. The visuals from the sequel are simply stunning and blow away even the original. I'm also a racing game fan, so Gran Turismo 5 and Wipeout HD are great exclusives. And while I'm not the biggest FPS fan, Resistance was great for a launch title and Resistance 2 got rave reviews.

The PS3 doesn't have the broad library the 360 does, but when I look at the types of games I like to play, the PS3's library is better suited to my tastes.

C3PX said:

The statement that Nintendo needs to get over Mario, Zelda, and Metroid is kind of an odd one though. I think Skyjedi said the exact same thing on the last page as well. That is pretty much like saying, Sony needs to get over God of War, Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto. That's crazy! Those games sell and are always sure to be great quality games. Why should any company adandon its most lucrative titles.

I didn't mean Nintendo should abandon their classic franchises. The problem is that Nintendo keeps throwing all their eggs into the Mario/Zelda/Metroid basket, which is why they're always at the mercy of third party developers to come up with original content. Zelda doesn't sell systems any more, at least not like it used to. Nintendo knows this. GTA and Halo are system-sellers.

So this time, they came up with a gimmick, slapped it on vastly inferior hardware to keep costs down, and marketed it to people not savvy enough to know what they're buying.

Don't get me wrong. Wii is fun with the right people because it encourages social gaming. But the lousy graphics mean that even the best looking titles look like shit compared to what the 360 and PS3 and throwing out there.

Sure, Nintendo is staying afloat just fine with their newfound audience who suck up the mini-games like there is no tomorrow. But they have pretty much lost those who remained loyal to them over the years. Instead of incorporating their new audience into the mix, they have pretty much left their old audience and started over. Not sure how wise of a move that was.

The gimmick got them by this time; my guess is that a 1080p Wii isn't going to sell anywhere near as well as the first one did. This new audience won't buy a new console every generation for graphical improvements. The hardcore gamers will...but as you said, Nintendo abandoned them.

The Wii is a gimmick. It's a GameCube 1.5 with a PowerGlove thrown in the box. Nintendo--whose 8-bit games I grew up on and still own--hasn't had an original idea in years. The GameCube was a fine and underrated system in its day, but Nintendo can't seem to get past Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, and they didn't get the third party support they needed.

This doesn't make the Wii a failure. Nintendo has just moved on from the hardcore gaming audience and found an untapped market, which was genius. They sell every one they make and have left MS and Sony in the dust as far as units sold. I'd be curious to know how many of those Wii systems see daily use though. Practically every gamer I know played with their Wii like crazy for the first month and then lost interest. My Wii collects dust and only sees playtime when people (i.e., girls) come over. Why should I waste my time standing on a stupid balance board when I can jump rope for a real workout and explode mutant heads with the Bloody Mess perk in Fallout 3?

I enjoy my PS3 immensely, however. While it does share much of its library with the 360, there are a few exclusives in addition to the Blu-ray playback that have made it more than worthwhile. Uncharted is amazing, and Uncharted 2 is shaping up to be one of the most beautiful games ever made (actual in-game screenshots, one more for you) with gameplay to match if it's anything like the first installment. And of course I enjoy the titles common to both the PS3 and 360 such as COD4, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. On top of all that, I get one of the best Blu-ray players on the market. The backwards compatibility is a nice bonus also.

I've considered adding a 360 to the mix, but I have my hands full with my PS3 already. I don't see the point.

People bash the PS3, but I've found it to be one of the best all-around home media investments I've ever made. Great games, great movies, and built like a tank.

I have the Nightmare Blu-ray and find the transfer to be good, but it doesn't have the same depth as the theatrical presentation I saw recently. The Blu-ray is soft in comparison.

I'm about as anal as they come when dealing with A/V issues, and I've always demanded the absolute best quality given the available technology. The unfortunate truth is that economics do play a part in all this, and most films won't be provided a technician who will sit down after the encoding is complete and examine all 172,800 frames (assuming 120 minutes) for DNR artifacts.

My response to that is simple: knock it off with the DNR. All too often, DNR is used as a tool to cover up flaws in a worn film negative that wasn't properly restored, a second generation print with more noticeable grain, or an older HD master that should've been redone using better stock.

I'd hoped that the high resolution of Blu-ray would get studios to step up their game; flaws are much easier to see in HD. Sadly, some are taking the easy route and masking flaws with digital tomfoolery that ends up destroying the detail enthusiasts are looking for. The problem is that most of the viewing public likes these DNR'd releases for having the "clarity" of Monday night football HD broadcasts, much like they enjoy the muddy bass of a Bose cube system as opposed to the subtle nuances of a properly set up and calibrated audio system.

Using a link is fine. Placing the image inline isn't.

Sorry, have to draw the line somewhere.

I have the same problem myself. I'll probably implement a bit of browser detection and turn off the advanced editor for people browsing on iPhones.

It's kind of a pain, but you could go into the forum preferences section and turn of the advanced editor in your settings. That should let you post.

Edit: Nevermind, I just realized that setting isn't live yet. I have it running in the current beta build. I'll try to get that up this weekend.

lordjedi said:

Ziz said:

The "next generation" of media player is already here - flash memory cards.  It's a matter of waiting for cost vs. capacity to come down.  That's the ideal "player" when you think about it - no moving parts to break down.

Yeah, but the cost for the amount of storage is insane.  A "media player" of any size is going to need a terabyte or more of disc space.  Flash memory cards aren't anywhere near that size yet and they won't be for the foreseeable future.

I think he meant "media player" being a device in which you insert a flash card containing a movie, not a mass storage device containing your whole library.

Still, you're right. 32GB SD cards go for ~$150. It'll be a decade or more before flash reaches the cost effectiveness of manufacturing Blu-ray discs. The read speeds aren't anywhere fast enough yet to handle Blu-ray bitrates either.

Downloads and HD on demand are much more likely to end up being the long-term solution, as much as I hate to admit it. As a collector, I enjoy maintaining my own library and would miss owning the physical media. I think that's what I miss most about laserdiscs...the sheer physicality of those big discs, movie poster artwork, and liner notes. But at the end of the day, it's the presentation of the film itself that matters most, so if I can get Blu-ray quality (true 1080p video and 7.1 lossless audio) from a download service, I could deal with it.

Anybody hear of Vudu? I'm considering it as an alternative to cable seeing as my only use of cable these days is watching HD movies.

http://www.vudu.com/product_hdx.html

Cool article, and thanks for mentioning the site.

The link to our fan edit section (formerly fanedits.com) is wrong though. It should point here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/fan-edits/fan-project-list.cfm

Edit: Nevermind, it's right on your site, but wrong in your post. Probably the editor acting up again and trashing URLs. Sorry.

The editor works like a modern word processor, which creates paragraph spacing when you hit return/enter. There isn't actually an extra line, it's just the space between paragraphs.

To do a simple line break, hold the Shift key when pressing enter.