Blu-ray and HD DVD – take a stand and choose your side, that’s why it’s called a war

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 14 November 2006 12:39

Your IT - Entertainment

My colleague Mike Bantick wants to wait until the PS3 launches into Australia before making a decision on which next-gen high def player to purchase. To heck with that, I say. Either choose a side like a good fanboy, or save up and buy both a PS3 and an HD DVD equipped Xbox 360 and have the best of both worlds NOW without some mythical unified player to wait for.

You know, I’m getting sick and tired of format wars. I think we all are. It’s turning us into wusses who can’t make a decision. Do I wait for this, do I wait for that. Keep on waiting, and you’ll end up dead, regretting the decisions you never made instead of the decisions you did make.

Of course, I’m hardly suggesting that you just splurge your money on whatever new technological delight takes your fancy. We’re not all swimming in cash, just waiting to devour whatever gadget pops out of China with a fancy brand name on it. Unless it’s a shiny new iPod, of course.

But this whole next-gen movie format thing to decide which console to buy is just pure bunk. You buy a console because it has the games you want to play, not because it plays movies.

Let me tell you about a format that blows Blu-ray and HD DVD out of the water, with incredible detail and stunning picture quality. It’s available today, and you can watch it on the biggest screen you can imagine. Have you guessed what it is yet? It’s called a movie theatre, and you can get into one for about US $10.

Great, huh? No need to spend hundreds of dollars on a next-gen player that might go to the way of the Betamax, no cables to plug in, no new TV to buy and no need to worry about getting fingerprints on the back of your expensive next-gen high-def disc.

And as for next gen consoles, let me tell you this: they’re much cheaper than buying a standalone HD DVD player or Blu-ray player. Ok, well, maybe an Xbox 360 with the separately available HD DVD drive will be of a similar price point to a Toshiba HD DVD player.

But the Xbox alone is far more exciting that a dumb player that won’t even let me record content in high definition! I mean, where are the Blu-ray and HD DVD recorders? No-one really wants a next-gen HD player. We all want to record, record, record. Such players are clearly awaiting us in the rest of the western world in 2007, even though they’re available in Japan today.

And back to those iPods. The high end models can cost nearly as much as a next-gen console. Ok, well, maybe not as much as the most expensive PS3. But no-one seems to mind buying them in the millions.

Don’t wait to buy a games console based on which optical disc format will win the war. Get over it, neither side will win anytime soon. If you’re a serious gamer, and even if you’re not, you’ll probably end up with more than one console, especially if you have kids and are susceptible to their amazing pester power.

I’m taking a stand, and it’s not for either side. I’ll be taking a PS3, an Xbox 360 with an extra HD DVD drive and a Wii, thank you very much. No waiting around for unified players for me.

I can have it all now (or at least I will when the PS3 and Wii actually launch here in Australia, dammit), and I wouldn’t have it any other way.