Activision vs. Sony

[DObs]

At the end of the day this is *just* XBOX vs Playstation its not and never really will be MICROSOFT vs SONY as both companies are never going anywhere due to the fact that they have their fingers in so many pies. Yes, Sony has BLU RAY and may well make some royalties from a future XBOX using them. But jesus, is it going to be anymore than the amount of pc's working for sony that have windows and other microsoft apps working on them?

The only people that can lose this battle are the devs and publishers who rely solely on the console brands of these giant corporations so altho activision have made a brave statement ultimatly they are the only ones who have anything to lose.

 

[Carra]

Streaming is interesting but not feasible as long as we have these 20gb/month caps in Belgium.

So I do believe we will quickly need a new medium. (PC) games are now put on discs of 6 gb. Some on 2 discs. About time we move on to Blu-Ray for games. And a new medium in a decade. Place for more pretty graphics on these fancy discs! We just need cheap blu-ray drives for our pcs. If a blu-ray reader hit the price of a dvd writer, I'll buy one.

Btw, just how exactly is Sony making money of Blu-Ray? Do player vendors have to pay a sum to Sony? A few pennies on each Blu-Ray movie sold?

 

[obisean]

Field testing is in progress as we speak.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.125600#2618461

For science!

It got locked.... WTF...

 

[SharedProphet]

Blu-Ray won the HD disc format war, but it wasn't really early in that war, and it isn't home free. Now it has to defeat DVD and digital movie distribution/streaming movies (like iTunes movies, Netflix Instant Watch, and on-demand programming from TV service providers).. so far it's not doing very well against DVD, and digital/streaming is just starting to pick up...

 

[fix-the-spade]

ISP providers in the U.S. have put a cap on how much you can download a month and an HD movie isn't something that is going to work. You're also forgetting that people said the exact same thing (Microsoft) about this generation and... we're 4 years in.

They can't keep that up forever, not least because they'll lose business to the ISP's that don't cap. Here in the UK if an ISP contract doesn't have the words 'cheap' and 'unlimited' in it they can forget it, that has to find it's way to the US eventually.

The amounts people download are steadily going up and so are the speeds of connections, eventually it will get to a point where movies are easily downloadable for a lot of people. I'm not saying it's going to happen over night but it is happening, five years ago downloading entire games was mostly the preserve of software pirates. Now we have Steam, Direct2drive and co.

Just look at music, in 1995 most people would be pretty skeptical if you'd said by 2005 millions of customers would be downloading 70MB albums as a matter of routine and that CD singles would have almost vanished from the high street.

Saying it won't happen goes against the evidence as I see it. It already is happening, albeit slower than the marketing men would like.

 

[Credge]

They can't keep that up forever, not least because they'll lose business to the ISP's that don't cap. Here in the UK if an ISP contract doesn't have the words 'cheap' and 'unlimited' in it they can forget it, that has to find it's way to the US eventually.

Sure they can, especially since this is something they've recently introduced.

The U.S., as well as most non-China countries (see what I did there?) do not have the infastructure to support this.

Further, there is a difference between an album (100MB) and a movie (20GB). You could fit about 204 albums in the space that one movie would take up, give or take depending on the size of the albums and the size of the movie. China doesn't even have that infastructure yet, and they have some of the best infastructure in the world. I think South Korea might have better, but I'm not sure.

 

[Jsnoopy]

Hmmmm I've always wondered why Sony kept insisting that they made the platform hard to develop for on purpose, and yours is definitley the most reasonable. Though I do disagree about the Blu-ray thing making Sony profit for decades. Hopefully something better than Blu-ray comes along in the next 5-10 years or so.

 

[wrecker77]

PEOPLE! quit your bitching about the price of the ps3. its only 100 dollers above a 360. the price keeps going down and down! they are expected to make a price drop in december or something. i am sick of hearing people complain its to expensive when its really not as expensive as they make it seem. how come the users, the people in the forums, the comunity are the only ones that support the ps3. gametrailers is too biased to even go into. one that really got to me was whrn G4 reviewed kz2 and they started off with this sentance.




"good news, ps3 fans now have something to buy other than heavenly sword figures and anti depressents".

fricken a. why are the big journalists and companys so hateful? why? if you have 1 good reason, please ime aaalll ears! The ps3 has become a force to be reckond with over the years with AAA titles like killzone 2 and inFAMOUS. just stop bitching and accept that its just as good as 360.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

Activision vs. Sony

The PS3 started off with a bang

Actually, the PS3 has one of the worst launches/starts that is the #1 reason it's still doing bad today.

 

[New Troll]

All this generation is really is a learning period for everyone. Sony to learn to be more humble. And Microsoft to be more patient. Hopefully they'll both learn from thier mistakes so thier next systems will be all the better.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft went with HD-DVD instead of BluRay. Sure it would keep thier system from playing movies (unless they ported them over themself), but it really doesn't matter what format thier games are on. Still would be giving Sony the upper hand, but they've done that thier whole (console) life and still are in really good shape.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

The PS3 started off with a bang...

I couldn't help but pretend to think you were referring to how someone got shot over a PS3 on the day of it's release.

That cunning and cutthroat business idea really is gold. Teaches me the lesson that if something stupid was not thought up by stupid people, then you're not seeing it.

 

[obisean]

All this generation is really is a learning period for everyone. Sony to learn to be more humble. And Microsoft to be more patient. Hopefully they'll both learn from thier mistakes so thier next systems will be all the better.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft went with HD-DVD instead of BluRay. Sure it would keep thier system from playing movies (unless they ported them over themself), but it really doesn't matter what format thier games are on. Still would be giving Sony the upper hand, but they've done that thier whole (console) life and still are in really good shape.

Going HD-DVD would really fuck with the pirates too.

 

[Gerazzi]

Yeah, not many good games out for the thing.

 

[R.O.]

I still don't think people understand. The PS3 is like a gossip machine. It is like Brangelina. Everyone is talking about it because it is a *****. It's gonna have a long shelf life because people just can't stop talking about it. 360 is lukewarm in terms of gossip. There isn't anything else coming out for it that is exclusive or that I would really want to play. I have pretty much forgotten all about it.

 

[murphy7801]

I can see Microsoft going for a cartridge system using flash memory SSD sort of thing.
Also nice to see someone talking sense about ps3 dev costs so the fan boys can be quite and except the truth.

 

[Ancientgamer]

I'd like to point out, that the PS3 is alot cheaper for them to make now than it was. It costs them $400 per unit.

Since the system's launch, production costs have been reduced significantly as a result of phasing out the Emotion Engine chip and falling hardware costs.[80][81] The cost of manufacturing Cell microprocessors has fallen dramatically as a result of moving to the 65 nm production process,[81][82] and Blu-ray diodes have become cheaper to manufacture.[80][83] As of January 2008, each unit costs around $400 to manufacture.[84][85]

 

[Telas]

I'm not a developer, and yes, this is an overheard rumor... But what's the Internet for, if not repeating rumors?

I used to work out with a playtest manager for a large gaming company. Way back when the original Xbox first came out, he told me that the developers were instructed to leave (I believe) 20% unutilized overhead in memory, processor, and video processing. This 20% would be utilized by later games, to show that there games were improving after the initial splash.

With their "intentionally hard to develop for" theory, Sony may have been expecting this effect as well.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Interesting, but I think you're wrong on Blu Ray, I thinks it's going to turn into something of a loss for Sony.

It's only going to last until movie downloads become widespread, at which point it could find itself as the uncomfortable half way between cheap and easy to find DVD's and cheap and easy to find HD downloads.
The (legal) choices for downloads aren't massive at the moment but they're no worse than Blu Ray. I think a lot of technophiles are just going skip Blu Ray and go straight to downloaded movies they can watch on any screen in the house.

Very interesting points with that actually, but then it's a storage issue, not to mention that solid copies won't be killed off so easily and so quickly. This will have enough time to flourish before such things happen.

I have always been in the belief that Blu-Ray would help a great deal in the long run. When virtual movie buys are mainstream, it still won't stop Blu-Rays from being pretty much a household name whenever that time comes, because it's getting market penetration by being shoehorned in the PS3.

I also think that the Blu-Ray drive will be the reason the PS3 comes second all in all. It would have been the ultimate disaster for Sony if HD-DVD won the conflict, but it was not to be. This definitely has no need to exist for gaming this generation, but next generation it will be important.

Also concerning the storage issue for Microsoft, what stops them from creating their own storage medium? Nintendo did it with the GameCube.

I can see Microsoft going for a cartridge system using flash memory SSD sort of thing.
Also nice to see someone talking sense about ps3 dev costs so the fan boys can be quite and except the truth.

I would be genuinely shocked if anyone thought that the development cost of the PS3 and 360 were identical, I really would be. 360 games need around 500k to break even in the devs eyes, and the PS3 needs more than that.

Yeah, not many good games out for the thing.

There are plenty, there just aren't enough to justify the price tag.

I still don't think people understand. The PS3 is like a gossip machine. It is like Brangelina. Everyone is talking about it because it is a *****. It's gonna have a long shelf life because people just can't stop talking about it. 360 is lukewarm in terms of gossip. There isn't anything else coming out for it that is exclusive or that I would really want to play. I have pretty much forgotten all about it.

The 360 doesn't actually need gossip in order to help it's sales, the sales of 360s are as steady as they always have been. That is pretty much going to go on until it's saturation period (which won't come for a while because of Natal), but when the saturation period comes, it will fall fairly hard.

 

[Jumplion]

I think you need to learn what a contract is. You seem to be assuming that Activision is dumb enough to sign a contract for their franchise that allows Sony to revoke the liscences they've already provided Activision at any time. Sorry, but given the Brutal Legend thing, I'd be willing to bet that Activision's legal team is a fairly nasty and cunning group. The worst that Sony could do would be to refuse to grant them any songs for future Guitar Hero games, but Sony certainly isn't the only label out there.

List of Sony music labels [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sony_BMG_labels].

Take a look at the list of Guitar Hero songs in it. Every band that is included in the game, but is owned by Sony, that band is out. Ozzy Ozbourne and Blue Oyster Cult comes to mind (I have no idea who's popular or not when it comes to music), not to mention that Sony is part of the RIAA [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA] and as pointed out by cleverlymadeup before, Sony could easily convince the other 3 people in the organization (Warner Bross, Universal, and another one) to cut support from the franchise to.

Sony has more power than Kotick thinks, and all he's done with his statement is boil bad blood with the company and others. Sony also has movie rights that Activision uses like James Bond movies and one or two others, so there goes the next game. Pulling support would hurt Activision more than it thinks.

 

[Goldbling]

PEOPLE! quit your bitching about the price of the ps3. its only 100 dollers above a 360. the price keeps going down and down! they are expected to make a price drop in december or something. i am sick of hearing people complain its to expensive when its really not as expensive as they make it seem. how come the users, the people in the forums, the comunity are the only ones that support the ps3. gametrailers is too biased to even go into. one that really got to me was whrn G4 reviewed kz2 and they started off with this sentance.




"good news, ps3 fans now have something to buy other than heavenly sword figures and anti depressents".

fricken a. why are the big journalists and companys so hateful? why? if you have 1 good reason, please ime aaalll ears! The ps3 has become a force to be reckond with over the years with AAA titles like killzone 2 and inFAMOUS. just stop bitching and accept that its just as good as 360.

It's hard to develop for, the code is harder to work with. Of course those titles are AAA, but they're also all exclusives, Activision usually make multi-platform games. Guess who's always holding release dates back? PS3