Microsoft Bashes Blu-Ray

[Logan Westbrook]

Microsoft Bashes Blu-Ray

Microsoft's Xbox & Entertainment Director, Stephen McGill has questioned the relevance of Blu-Ray, saying that digital distribution makes the format all but obsolete.

Blu-Ray might have beaten HD DVD when the two formats went head to head, but according to McGill, Blu-Ray is still the loser overall. In his opinion, digital distribution and streaming makes Blu-Ray's victory pointless.

McGill said that time had shown that Microsoft's decision to stick with DVD and thus keep costs down had been a smart one, and thought that people were ignoring Blu-Ray in favor of downloads and streaming. He said that Blu-Ray was going to be passed by, and that rather than support it, Microsoft was offering Blu-Ray quality downloads instead.

There's some truth in what he's saying: digital distribution is going to take a pretty big bite out of the sales of physical media, but videogames are a special case. Surveys [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101864-2-in-3-Gamers-Prefer-Discs-to-Downloads-Says-Survey] have shown that most gamers prefer a physical copy of a game over a digital one, and that attitude will be slow to change. The follow up to the 360 will almost certainly have a disk drive in it, and it's getting to the point where DVD is just too small.

Source: Xbox360 Achievements [http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-6330-Interview---Stephen-McGill--UK-Xbox-Boss-Talks-The-Future--Halo--Rare---More.html]


Permalink

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

We already have a thread about this where there is a fair amount of debate going on...

And this article makes it sound a lot more aggressive than the destructoid article did.

Anyway to summarise my opinion:

I think they were good for keeping costs down on the console and initially down on the games.

I believe their next console with have Blu-ray support no matter what they say.

Digital distribution is getting there but still a long way off being my first choice.

 

[AMCization]

I'm more inclined to agree with this, but that is probably because I use digital distribution quite heavily now a days. Given the rural...ish nature of where I live, it is just much simplier.

 

[TheComedown]

Haha he is just bitter they didn't think of it sooner. What a load of shit, I'd like to see you stream a full hi-def video. For crying out loud I have trouble streaming stuff as it is on my net, like I'm going to be able to get full hi-def down without spending a week waiting for the download.

 

[ajofflight]

I'm sort of inclined to agree with this, even though I generally DON'T get movies streamed...

 

[Lordmarkus]

Isn't a full equipped Blu-ray movie with 1080p and unsuppresed sound andra extramaterial land on something like 20 < x GB?

I'm just fetching but wouldn't that be alot to download or even stream?

 

[Pingieking]

well given how crappy a lot of broadband internet is, and the fact that even a terabyte HD can't actually store that many movies or games (give that full HD movies are 10~20 GB compressed, and PS3 games can reach 40 or so GB), I'd like to disagree.

I'd say that for the foreseeable future, companies might want to aim for a mixture of the two rather than banking all their money on either BR or digital distribution. Besides, there are a lot of places with no internet.

 

[D0WNT0WN]

I think Blu-Ray is one of the best things to happen to the industry. Proper fast digital distribution is quite a while away and I would rather not pay for a game and spend a few hours (my connection is that bad, 1.5Mb p/s) downloading a game that I can just as easily go outside and pick up a physical copy.

DD is great for small or older games which arent physically distributed or bloody hard to find (eg. Final Fantasy 7, 8 & 9).

 

[SturmDolch]

Yeah no. I'm not downloading movies. I love my physical copies. I can show off my library of great films (once I build it up, of course). I'd question the relevance of television broadcasts with Hulu and such, but never the relevance of physical copies of movies.

Maybe if I could afford a media PC or something to hook directly up to he TV. But then there's the constant whir of a computer, the threat of unsupported codecs, and unexpected slowdown if your PC suddenly can't handle it anymore. I prefer a dedicated device to this.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

There is no way that digital distribution will take over in the next five years. There are still too many potential customers without the amazing speed needed to utilise this feature. Not only that, but one PS3 game, (MGS4) uses 50GB. That is a hefty download, not only on your memory, but also on your time. I'd rather pop a blu-ray in and be done with it.

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

So basically the biggest percentage of consumers prefer digital over physical media.

Also streaming high definition content is totally easy and convenient.

I see. Good job of humiliating yourself.

 

[David Bray]

I love digital distribution, but the lack of demos or testers for all games makes me hesitant over buying titles I can't trade in. For instance, if I bought Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions on DD, the fact that it's a pile of crap would mean nothing and i would have lost out £40 instead of £10.

We need hard copies and Blu-Ray trumps DVD. Mass Effect 2 will likely be on 1 disk rather than 2 in its current itteration.

XBLA games i love DD, but for an expensive AAA game, i want physical.

 

[LeonLethality]

I get the feeling that if Blu Ray wasn't partially owned by Sony, one of their main competitors in the video game industry he would be singing a different tune.

 

[10BIT]

Surveys [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101864-2-in-3-Gamers-Prefer-Discs-to-Downloads-Says-Survey] have shown that most gamers prefer a physical copy of a game over a digital one, and that attitude will be slow to change.

Yet statistics [http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/092010-pc-game-digital-downloads-dramatically.html] show that more gamers buy digital downloads than their retail counterparts.

 

[Darktau]

THE HELL? NO WAY CAN I DOWNLOAD 25GB WORTH OF DATA!!!

/rant

silly microsoft

 

[DTWolfwood]

keep cost low?! wtf where? arent the 2 systems at the same price? games at the same price?

<.<

give it up man you've lost and stop being a stubborn ***** and get with the program!

 

[Schlagwerk]

I absolutely agree. Simply put, if your video games can't fit on a DVD then
a) Your assets are needlessly uncompressed (see MGS4), or
b) Your game is too long (see FFXIII).

Even then, it's not a big deal to put it on 2+ discs. When you can stream HD content through Netflix anyway, having a Blu-ray drive for a console seems pointless.

 

[KeyMaster45]

We already have a thread about this where there is a fair amount of debate going on...

It's a news post dude, they can tend to overlap with user made threads. You're not going to get a badge for pointing it out in the first post.

I think Blu-Ray is one of the best things to happen to the industry. Proper fast digital distribution is quite a while away and I would rather not pay for a game and spend a few hours (my connection is that bad, 1.5Mb p/s) downloading a game that I can just as easily go outside and pick up a physical copy.

1.5Mb/s is pretty damn good speed to be downloading something; its enough to turn a multi-gigabyte file download from a 6-12 hour download into only maybe 1-2 at max. Do you mean 1.5Kb/s?

OT: Blu-Ray is nice and all, but it still requires a seperate player and I mean I litterally had just finished changing my library of films from VHS to DVD and now they want me to start switching everything to Blu-Ray. Oh sure I can pay out the ass for a dual drive player but what's the point? DVD does just fine for me when it comes to movies. In terms of games, however, if games are becomming so large in file size that they require the memory storage given by Blu-Ray I say Microsoft should stop being stingy about it.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

keep cost low?! wtf where? arent the 2 systems are the same price?

<.<

give it up man you've lost and stop being a stubborn ***** and get with the program!

Xbox 360 S Console with 250GB HDD
£199.99

Sony PlayStation 3 PS3 Slim Console with 120GB HDD
£249.99

Close... but no cigar...