Technology news and Jobs 
Technology Lifestyle Expert wrong: It's ok to buy a PS3 Blu-ray Or Xbox 360 HD-DVD (Update 1)
Technology Lifestyle Expert wrong: It's ok to buy a PS3 Blu-ray Or Xbox 360 HD-DVD (Update 1) | Expert wrong: It's ok to buy a PS3 Blu-ray Or Xbox 360 HD-DVD (Update 1) |
|
| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Monday, 27 November 2006 | |
|
Page 2 of 2 And then there are the prices for Blu-ray and HD DVD players. The prices are totally ridiculous, costing hundreds of dollars more than a DVD player, and are often even more expensive than the Blu-ray playing Sony PS3 or the HD DVD playing Xbox 360 with the new HD DVD add-on drive. Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
Even an iPod, a play-only device out of the box, has had the ability, through an add-on attachment, to record. While the initial versions were limited to 8-bit, telephone quality audio, the latest iPods can record at 16-bit, 44.1Khz CD quality – be they the iPod with Video, or the 2nd-gen iPod nano. With a growing amount of high-def HDTV content now available from a range of sources, from free-to-air TV to cable TV offerings and even downloads (which are a form of recording) through the Xbox 360’s new video download service in the US, people want to RECORD. People like to keep things. It’s a simple fact of humanity. Until Blu-ray and HD DVD recorders come onto the market, at realistic prices (which they certainly won’t be when they first arrive), few will want to spend the money on a Blu-ray or HD DVD player when they can get an entire home entertainment and gaming system from Microsoft or Sony for less money. And even though Blu-ray and HD DVD recorders are now available in Japan, that’s only for a market of 120+ million people. There’s still at least 3 billion people out there who probably have the money to buy one, and another 2.7 billion people out there who can’t, as they’re in third world countries, but are rapidly getting exposed to technology through the ubiquitous mobile phone and the very cheap DVD player. The industry has painted itself into a corner. Anyone with smarts will avoid Blu-ray and HD DVD players like the plague. This is tremendously good news for the PS3 and Xbox 360, which will sell like hotcakes as they already have. A fellow called Dan Diote of Venmill Industries is telling end users not to buy either system, but this is just silly. You don’t buy a console just because it can play movies. You buy a console because you’re interested in the games and other entertainment experiences it offers, which these days includes a plethora of online capabilities. Diote offers a range of other reasons why you don't want to buy a console now, but none of them make sense if you buy the console so you can play games, go online, and also use it as a next-generation movie player. With top movies to be released on both Blu-ray and HD DVD platforms for now, except perhaps for movies from Sony which may not make it to HD DVD anytime soon, with at least one movie studio not making movies for Blu-ray either, you'll be able to watch most movies release in high definition no matter which player or games console you buy, and until they release a two-in-one player, the only way to watch all high-definition movies will be to buy both types of player, and in that case, the smartest option is to buy both a PS3 and Xbox 360 with HD DVD add-on drive instead of a comparatively featureless standalone player. The safe choice for consumers is to just buy the next-gen games console (either PS3 or Xbox 360) that appeals to them most, as it will play most HD movies for at least the next year. By the time you start pining for movies released exclusively in another format, player prices will be much cheaper, with maybe that dual-player released to the market, and preferably, dual-format recorder instead. People wanting the features that both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 provide will find themselves buying both consoles, and will, almost by default, end up with a Blu-ray and HD DVD player in any case, at least, if they buy the add-on HD DVD unit Microsoft are selling, or a future Xbox 360 with an HD DVD drive built-in, perhaps in a slimmer casing with quieter components much like Sony dramatically slimmed down the PS2 into a much smaller new package a couple of years ago. Microsoft just needs to make sure it can cut through with its HD DVD drive add-on, lowering the price as necessary to ensure people buy it in big numbers, and it needs to keep on advertising its Xbox Live video download service as well as roll it out quickly into other countries. Sony just needs to get over the production problems and get millions more PS3s out to the world. And consumers need to be very careful how they spend their money so they don’t end up with the Betamax equivalent of a boat anchor. {moscomment} |
Tags
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
