PS3 to See Sales Boost from Blu-Ray Victory: Analysts

[Junaid Alam]

PS3 to See Sales Boost from Blu-Ray Victory: Analysts

Sony PlayStation 3 sales will coast upwards of 10 percent on the back of HD-DVD's apparent demise, analysts predicted.

Toshiba recently abandoned the format, backed by Microsoft, giving rival Sony the edge, especially as its console already has Blu-ray playback built in.

"Longer term, I think it's a huge boon for Sony, as most retail clerks will be instructed to push Blu-ray along with sales of HD monitors at holiday, so we should see a large increase in PS3 sales year-over-year at holiday," Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said.

Screen Digest analysts Ed Barton and Richard Cooper concurred: "With the format war over, and the end of the consumer indecision resulting from it, video consumers are likely to purchase the PS3 as the most cost effective, future-proof Blu-ray player," they said.

Microsoft put on a brave public face over the news recently, saying:

"As we've long stated, we believe it is games that sell consoles and Xbox 360 continues to have the largest next-gen games library with the most exclusives and best-selling games in the industry."

Source: Gamesindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=33280]


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[Geoffrey42]

Some days, I stand in awe at the mental processing power of industry analysts. Before they told me this, I just couldn't fathom the impact that HD DVD's announcement would have on PS3 sales...

 

[mitsoxfan]

In a market that could have gone either way, Sony survived through great market strategy and a very controversial, but very forward thinking design in the PS3.

This isn't a big loss for Microsoft, and the format war only impacts a small percentage of us. Blu-ray is the superior technology, but overall, for the consumer, it's much better to have a single format going forward.

The issue I have with Microsoft is that they now will have to sell yet another add-on device for the Xbox to play Blu-ray (although, a year from now, when Blu-Ray players are $150 or less, it won't matter).

The biggest impact, though, is that now Sony looks like geniuses, and packaging a Blu-Ray player with every PS3, only extends it's longevity. And having an incredible storage capacity means that future multi-console games for the PS3 will be packaged on a single disc, where the Xbox 360 is still using last gen DVDs, and will need to use multiple discs. Not a huge deal now, but disc swapping is a pain in the butt, and when the PS3 begins to have a slight performance advantage, disc swapping could tip the balance.

It's probably a good idea that Microsoft decided to go DVD to begin with, but I think they will have to start producing 360's with Blu-Ray players if they want to stay in the ballpark with Sony in the long run.

And for those that think DVD is going to be the standard going forward, you better put away your VHS players. Blu-Ray plays DVD, and with Blu-Ray being the new HD standard, Blu-Ray is going to start taking over very soon. DVD shelf-life just took a big hit.

 

[Crutchley29]

I personally am not much of a picture quality fanatic to appreciate Blue-Ray, as i presume are the other 99% of population, Microsoft need not be worried, Blue-ray sales this far have been incredibly disappointing, and it won't make the PS3 anymore attractive to anyone but the more casual of casual gamers, i still stick with the point that Bluray for the PS3 was a huge mistake and most of the owners i know will side with me, it's just not worth all the hype they are making.

Microsoft don't need to put Blue-ray players in their consoles Mitsoxfan, they already own a much larger share of the market than Sony and their yet-to-be seen superior console has not proved to us that Blue-ray= better.

 

[Glitches are cool]

As Mit said, in the future, it will make Sony look like they knew what they were doing. However, getting lucky and knowing what you were doing are two very different things, and Sony got lucky. There may have been signs at the start of the format war as to who might come out on top, but in my opinion, Sony just went with the better sounding name for their shiny console.

What I don't quite understand is how blue-ray equates to more PS3 sales. Cost effective? Sure, you get a gaming system, but to most of the populace who wants to watch movies, that's not really going to matter too much. And like Mit pointed out, players are going to be far cheaper very soon due to the demand.

Not that I care too much, I don't have the TV that plays blue ray any better than a regular DVD.

 

[Echolocating]

And for those that think DVD is going to be the standard going forward, you better put away your VHS players. Blu-Ray plays DVD, and with Blu-Ray being the new HD standard, Blu-Ray is going to start taking over very soon. DVD shelf-life just took a big hit.

What, with HD Content making up for all of 2% of dvd sales last year (there or there abouts)? DVDs represented a huge leap in audio and visual quality over VHS when they were first released. HD stuff looks a little shinier is all. Why is it so important that I see every sparkling rivet of Optimus Prime in spanking Blu-Ray quality? It doesn't make Transformers any better a film.

Exactly. And don't forget the added functionality of chapter selection and not having to rewind the bloody tape... and a slew of other features.

DVD won't be around forever, but it will be around for quite a while. Personally, I have nothing against Blu-Ray technically; I just don't think seeing the pores on people's faces is worth the extra money for the player or the additional cost for the movies. When the movie prices are the same, I may switch.

One thing I wished that Blu-Ray did introduce was a protective, permanent container for each disc. I would probably switch now if the movies looked like 3.5" floppy disks and it was near impossible for my kid to scratch them up. Something like the caddy case on the older CD drives.

 

[Arbre]

Good point for the PS3: even if it doesn't seel because of its games catalogue, more and more units are being bought, which interests publishers and developpers, and thus the wheel starts.

Very unconventional, but it works. A big gambit though. But it's become clear that the Blu-ray tech is well rounded, and all of its issues are mostly entirely covered.

That said, there is ONE issue I don't think has been solved, it's the production cost of a BR disc. I read that a HD-DVD one was considerably cheaper to produce, and again, I don't see what we gain exactly with the extra room of a BR disc.

As Mit said, in the future, it will make Sony look like they knew what they were doing. However, getting lucky and knowing what you were doing are two very different things, and Sony got lucky. There may have been signs at the start of the format war as to who might come out on top, but in my opinion, Sony just went with the better sounding name for their shiny console.

What I don't quite understand is how blue-ray equates to more PS3 sales. Cost effective? Sure, you get a gaming system, but to most of the populace who wants to watch movies, that's not really going to matter too much. And like Mit pointed out, players are going to be far cheaper very soon due to the demand.

Not that I care too much, I don't have the TV that plays blue ray any better than a regular DVD.

Mh, because the PS3' sales got boosted when it was noticed, I think in some retail ship in Australia, that selling the console as a Blu-ray player, instead of a gaming console, made the console sell like hot cakes, precisely because opponents' Blu-ray players were more expensive.

So the very costly choice Sony took, by loosing money selling a BR player below building price, is what gave the console a boost, and will keep going on now.

Now, Microsoft recently said that the 360 would be more long lived than what people had in mind. It wasn't unusual to think that in the middle to late years of the PS3, a new Microsoft console would appear.
The slight change of plans probably means that Microsoft will have to quickly include a BR player in their console and do a Sony. They need to act quickly in fact.

 

[Geoffrey42]

One thing I wished that Blu-Ray did introduce was a protective, permanent container for each disc. I would probably switch now if the movies looked like 3.5" floppy disks and it was near impossible for my kid to scratch them up. Something like the caddy case on the older CD drives.

I'm not sure how closely you followed all of this, and thus how well aware you are, that Sony [a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Competition_from_HD_DVD]did try to do that[/a]. The added expense, and subsequent incompatibility of new players with DVDs, was one of the reasons the DVD Forum decided not to go with the earlier iteration of Blu-ray, and instead headed down a different path (which, they later abandoned in favor of HD DVD).

 

[Echolocating]

I'm not sure how closely you followed all of this, and thus how well aware you are, that Sony [a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Competition_from_HD_DVD]did try to do that[/a]. The added expense, and subsequent incompatibility of new players with DVDs, was one of the reasons the DVD Forum decided not to go with the earlier iteration of Blu-ray, and instead headed down a different path (which, they later abandoned in favor of HD DVD).

I was unaware of Sony's initial design for the Blu-Ray format. It's a shame that the protective case didn't make into final production; probably a decision based on saving mere pennies per unit. I mean, they could have made a Blu-Ray DVD caddy if they really wanted to have backward compatibility. Oh well, at least I can go on blissfully ignoring the whole Blu-Ray phenomenon until they actually stop releasing movies in DVD format... which I can't see happening for a very long time. ;-)

 

[Arbre]

If it was going to be like an UMD, I understand the ditching.

 

[Geoffrey42]

I was unaware of Sony's initial design for the Blu-Ray format. It's a shame that the protective case didn't make into final production; probably a decision based on saving mere pennies per unit. I mean, they could have made a Blu-Ray DVD caddy if they really wanted to have backward compatibility. Oh well, at least I can go on blissfully ignoring the whole Blu-Ray phenomenon until they actually stop releasing movies in DVD format... which I can't see happening for a very long time. ;-)

Writing it off as "saving mere pennies per unit" seems sort of shortsighted to me, unless you were joking. We're not talking about 50 dollar items, and pennies. We're talking about things in the sub dollar range, where a "penny per unit" represents 1% or more of costs. Add to that the trickle-down costs of added weight, and volume, meaning higher supply chain costs due to storage space and shipping weights. PLUS, the general confusion for consumers when they try to put their old DVD in the "supposedly" compatible unit, but it seems to want a cassette? What is this? The 80's? Another aspect you might look at it is from the environmental side: the sheer volume of plastic and aluminum saved by NOT putting a caddy on every single Blu-ray disc? Unfathomable.

 

[Junaid Alam]

It's certainly good news for Sony but is it a decisive shift? I tend to doubt it.

For one thing, surveys of people who have bought HDTVs and survey of people who have bought 360s and PS3s show that about half of them have no idea how HD works, what it is, whether they are watching it, or how to enable it.

For another, the transition from VHS to DVD was a real leap: from dingy cassette to shiny digital medium; from scrolling lines and the rewind button to instant spot playback. I suspect a lot of people will not find the difference in visual fidelity between latest-gen DVD players and BluRay worth to be worth the switch.

At the same time, it's certainly true no one is going to pass up a good thing for 'free.' If the PS3 gaming library and internet plays approaches parity with the 360, then who is going to deny themselves the added benefit of a high quality built-in players of the latest and greatest media?

 

[Faeanor]

That said, there is ONE issue I don't think has been solved, it's the production cost of a BR disc. I read that a HD-DVD one was considerably cheaper to produce, and again, I don't see what we gain exactly with the extra room of a BR disc.

I can't find the source, but I seem to remember that the extra cost of BR disks came from factories having to convert to make a smaller disk (from a .6mm disk to a .1mm disk). I can't find anything on it though, so I could be wrong.

 

[Echolocating]

Writing it off as "saving mere pennies per unit" seems sort of shortsighted to me, unless you were joking. We're not talking about 50 dollar items, and pennies. We're talking about things in the sub dollar range, where a "penny per unit" represents 1% or more of costs. Add to that the trickle-down costs of added weight, and volume, meaning higher supply chain costs due to storage space and shipping weights. PLUS, the general confusion for consumers when they try to put their old DVD in the "supposedly" compatible unit, but it seems to want a cassette? What is this? The 80's? Another aspect you might look at it is from the environmental side: the sheer volume of plastic and aluminum saved by NOT putting a caddy on every single Blu-ray disc? Unfathomable.

Actually, I wasn't joking. And I don't deny that my comment was possibly shortsighted; I just see a real benefit for protecting the data on a disc... and obviously Sony did too. Perhaps the "cassette" would actually be the package as well, eliminating the need for an environmentally unfriendly, clunky case that you open. Then the shipping costs would have remained the same or even less. Plus, you've increased the longevity of the product, possibly keeping it out of landfills and removing the need for consumers to repurchase the same product to replace the damaged one. A big sticker, that you have to remove over where you insert the movie in the player, could have informed an uneducated user also. Maybe it's not unfathomable?

In the end, it doesn't really matter; I'm speculating on what could have been... and you're arguing for what currently exists. Obviously, Sony made the best business decision that they could... and I'm just pointing out that the best business decisions sometimes don't benefit the consumer in the best way, is all.

As soon as your child puts an innocent looking scratch on your $60 video game or a $40 imported movie (effectively ruining them), you might see a missed opportunity in the new Blu-Ray format as well. ;-)