Phil Harrison says: Blu-ray will ensure PS3's success

by Nick Doerr { Mar 13th 2007 at 4:30PM }

Yes, yes, another news tidbit about Blu-ray. Why is Blu-ray relevant to the PS3? For starters, it's the format all the games come on. For entrée, the PS3 is a multimedia device that's a means to distribute the Blu-ray HD movie format. For desserts, if Blu-ray doesn't succeed, the PS3 will have a much harder time existing. There's a three-course meal about why Blu-ray is relevant to the PS3... feel free to add some dishes to the table if you've got more.

Anyway, Phil Harrison spoke a bit about Blu-ray, specifically the boost that will result in PS3 sales because of the Blu-ray's success so far. Citing the growing Blu-ray market, Philly said "that is a positive factor which will play more into the consumer psyche as the year goes on, as more consumer electronics firms launch standalone disc players, as more Blu-ray disc movies become available, and as more shelf space is dedicated to the category at retail." He goes on a bit more, stretching a little. "In America, where PS3 is already out, Blu-ray disc is surging ahead as the next-generation movie format of choice. It's absolutely trouncing any other formats, and I think we'll see the same in Europe and the UK."

There you go, Europe and the UK, the ball's in your court. Hmm... does that saying apply to you? Not sure if basketball is as big over there. Got an equivalent saying for us to use?

Tags: Blu-ray, Playstation 3, Playstation3, PS3, Sony

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Pawsie @ Mar 13th 2007 4:57PM

How can you call it a success.. when there's no competition. Though if you consider normal DVDs.. the normal DVD still hold the title as the standard optical disc.

subsonicwaveUK @ Mar 13th 2007 5:12PM

well i am one person who has bought a PS3 for just the Blu Ray format. Not because i think its best or its going to win, just because i want more choice of HD Movies. i already have the 360 HD DVD add on. and love the console for games, its going to be sometime before i can say the PS3 is a great games console.
I do sense that Blu Ray may just start pulling away from HD DVD in terms of success as i do see more top titles being released and more frequent, its like the Studios who have supported HD DVD just do not care

SuicideNinja @ Mar 13th 2007 5:38PM

I'm sorry, but Blu-ray is completely over-rated. I upgraded to a 57" DLP 1080p television and an HDMI connection over the weekend. Blu-ray still isn't blowing me away. Upscaled DVD is almost as good (I've done the side-by-sides). As far as the PS3 is concerned, the menu fonts are now tolerable (as opposed to component monster cable), but that's about it. If I had purchased this setup for movies, I would one pissed off consumer.

I'm half tempted to buy an HD-DVD drive for my own testing purposes. HD-DVD always looks better in the stores, but I want to see it on my own rig.

I think the Blu-ray camp is a bit too excited because of the PS3. Porportionately, PS3 owners will be a very thin slice of the overall consumer pie (read: non-gamers outnumber gamers). They are getting excited because of numbers that are less than 1% of total movie sales. DVD has nothing to worry about for a while.

I've decided we're not going to get the next generation movie format because we need or even want to. They're going to force it on us.

Joe @ Mar 13th 2007 6:07PM

if you can't notice a difference between upscaled dvd's and blu-ray then you need a better tv, sorry to tell ya.

and hd-dvd doesn't look any different than blu-ray, and if you think it does..then you obviously have no idea what youre talking about based on the fact you think dvd's look almost as good.

and youre right, dvd has nothing to worry about, but the bluray camp has everything to be excited about. the ps3 is pushing the format the same way the ps2 forced the dvd format

Liquid @ Mar 13th 2007 6:15PM

@hmm

if you don't like it here GET LOST its that simple.

@SuicideNinja

IDK what type of tv you have or if its busted but if you can't tell the difference in upscaled dvd and Blu ray you should go back to 480p.

bluray is the best in all aspect it smokes HDDVD in
everything no questions asked.

try a newer movie like the prestige. some of the earlier movies were not encoded perfect.

for this month blu ray is expected to beat hddvd by leaps and miles .shame hddvd should be over this year.

GRT @ Mar 13th 2007 6:33PM

Yeah, the thing about blu-ray is, some disks really don't look that much improved, and others are just amazing.

For instance. I was watching the Corpse Bride and had the movie paused to go get some chips or something. I come back in and happen to notice a hair on my tv screen, so I go over to brush it off... and it isn't on the tv, it's on the puppet. I unpause the picture and sure enough, hair moves when the puppet does.

And yeah, I know this doesn't improve on the movie viewing experience, I'm just trying to make a point at how high-def these films can really get. When I go back to a regular DVD now, it looks all fuzzy to me.

sneakstar @ Mar 13th 2007 6:43PM

i think the court analogy applies to tennis, not basketball. :)

ymmv @ Mar 13th 2007 6:43PM

Hmmm is right. I wish the name for this blog was full of irony but unfortunately the main writer for this site _really_ is a PS3 fanboy who turns every news posting into a gushing commercial for Sony, the PS3 and Blu-Ray. This fanboy shtick gets very old very fast. The Xbox 360 fanboy site is so much better...

Killer @ Mar 13th 2007 6:53PM

@ Joe

Umm what tv do you have because I have a 1080p DLP 65 inch, and it isn't generic brand sony that sells to the masses with the bravia which compared to the tv, I have no comparison, the DLP kills it. There is nothing wrong with suicide ninjas tv. It's prefect, problem is that the first 40 or so movies that were released on blue-ray from Columbia was in bad picture quality. Columbia even said that happened. They did something wrong when they put the movies on Blue-ray so it cause a less then perfect HD quality.

Also joe, you do know that DVD was a mix of two different products? The ps2 having a dvd made DVD main stream it had no competition because it was all the companies. With the ps3 you have two formats, thanks to sony by the way, becuase they didn't want to change their ps3 blueray for the mixed hd dvd and blue ray player. If they werent so much of jackasses and making this war, we wouldn't be having this consumer unfriendly war.

@ liquid

Do you quit alot in life? seriously? or do you just don't like having competition and the fact that you can't buy Universal movies. Booo...hooo! Why do we keep defending both BR and HD DVD? They only care about money, and not the consumer. It's being pushed on us, damn it.

Killer @ Mar 13th 2007 7:00PM

Now now guys I'm a 360 fanboy and I don't mind Nick's posts. I find them entertaining. Just cut him some slack. Besides is this not the Ps3FANBOY site!? It's not the Freindly, perfectly non fanboyism site. It's a Fanboy site for crying out loud.

I have to say, I really think sony is just marketing the ps3 for the blue-ray. That's all I hear, blue-ray blue-ray blue-ray. Do they ever talk about the important part of a console. The Games! Come on sony, enough with the Hd movie format war and get in the battle in the console wars. I want given better gaves, more focus on the console part will benefit everyone (ps3, 360, wii, whatever.)

Chris @ Mar 13th 2007 7:53PM

"Blu-ray will ensure PS3's success."

Uh, more like the other way around.

PS3, the trojan horse that it is, will ensure Blu-ray's success--relative to the installed base of HD-DVD. Blu-ray and the price hike it commands is the primary reason why the PS3 is off to such a rocky start, relative to the installed base of competing consoles.

mccomber @ Mar 13th 2007 8:04PM

"With the ps3 you have two formats, thanks to sony by the way, becuase they didn't want to change their ps3 blueray for the mixed hd dvd and blue ray player. If they werent so much of jackasses and making this war, we wouldn't be having this consumer unfriendly war."

So, are you saying that Sony had a chance to put a combo player in the ps3 but didn't? Or are you saying that Sony is soley responsible for the whole blu-ray vs hd-dvd thing? Because either is not even close to true...

And btw, thanks to Nick for writing, since he sadly seems to be the only one here. Not sure what all the reasons are behind that (more writers would be a very welcome addition) but I'm glad he's willing to put in the time to basically run a site for fanboys from all sides to come and whine on.

san @ Mar 13th 2007 8:18PM

Sneak is right, Nick: It's a tennis metaphor, not basketball. In basketball, the ball is always in your court.

As for Blu-ray versus HD-DVD in image and audio quality there is essentially no difference in potential quality. (Except I think that because of the extra storage capacity sometimes Blu-ray audio tracks are uncompressed where as HD-DVD is always compressed audio. The difference would be hard to tell, especially with a decent 5.1 decoder. Also Blu-ray is capable of syncing 24 FPS at 1080p, which is essentially, under the right conditions, is like watching a print of the film instead of a video transfer. Few people outside the technical side of the video industry will be able to tell the difference, though, between that and 30 FPS at 720p or 1080i.) The format war exists entirely in the realm of the underlying technologies, the storage capacities, etc., the read speeds, etc. The quality issues depend on the playback device itself, and also the quality of the film transfer and the compression/encoding process, which codec is used, which configuration is used, etc.

A 57" DLP set is beginning to stretch the benefits of 1080p. I mean, 1080p is 1080p; the resolution increase is not infinite and the size of the display will eventually overwhelm the higher resolution. Because it is a projection system, even though a very high quality projection system, it is still not going to have quite the image clarity of LCD, plasma or the new LED displays. Quality will also vary from model to model. So you are going to see some improvement moving from, say, a 32" standard-def TV playing regular DVDs to an HDMI-connected 1080p 57" set playing Blu-ray, it's not going to be as dramatic as going from standard DVD on a a 32" SD set to Blu-ray on a 720p/1080i 32" HDTV.

I for one enjoy Nick's enthusiasm, and regular posting, as it keeps me up to date with what's developing on the PS3 without having to search all over the Web for the information.

Derek @ Mar 13th 2007 8:34PM

The numbers dont lie, Blue ray is selling but I think its selling because people with PS3s have no games to buy. Wait till some good games come out, the movie sells will go down.

Thomas @ Mar 13th 2007 8:35PM

Well the facts are in... People prefer Blu-Ray rather the HD-DVD... at this point, HD-DVD is a waste of money, as long as Blu Rays sell out, now more players(and cheaper) are going to get on the market. As Blu Ray gets bigger so does the Playstation 3. Its basically an untapped market.. only Sony spent the money to include the Next Gen technology(Blu Ray) in their system, so I don't think people should get mad when they reap the benefits. The only reason why the 360 has the HD-DVD drive, because they needed to at least make a last ditch effort to try to Help the HD-DVD market... but even they admitted in EGM that they would do an Blu Ray drive "if the market goes that direction"

and another thing... there's nothing better than blu ray that shows pure 1080p content, and NO - HD DVD does not output at 1080p(yet), they're still working on the disk. Dont' judge all blu ray titles based on maybe one title that you've seen. Punisher is a blu ray that didn't trasition well to Blu Ray, but if you take a look at Kingdom of Heaven, then I guarantee that it'll show that Blu Ray is the best.

san @ Mar 13th 2007 8:38PM

As for the format war, it wasn't going to be a hybrid HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive; it was to be an entirely different but standard format. Various excuses for not doing it were made on both sides, but I suspect the bottom line is that Microsoft did not want to give up selling their software product that controls the HD-DVD menu system, all the studios save Universal did not want to be locked into a proprietary software system controlled by Microsoft or any other single company, PC manufacturers, already locked into Windows for the most part, did not wish to be locked into yet another Microsoft standard, and Apple did not want any portion of their future computers locked into a Microsoft standard.

If you're going to point fingers, you'll have to point them at Microsoft. But it's hard to blame them, as a profit-making company of proprietary software they saw an opportunity to further branch into media and control a proprietary standard for the next generation of DVD. And they went for it. Because of lack of studio support, or rather that so many major studios with huge catalogs will not support HD-DVD, they are probably, ultimately, going to lose. Their trump card is that HD-DVD stand-alone players are going to sell for a lot cheaper than Blu-ray, sooner rather than later. But the studio community is going to bring a lot of pressure on Sony to gut the low-end Blu-ray player pricing, so as to take a hit on profits but establish the standard. Sony won't like that as they are not a commodity electronics manufacturer and in most cases they like to make a healthy profit on their hardware -- with just about the single exception of the PS3, which is supposed to be supported by software sales. But in the end, to establish the standard, and because they are part of the studio community, too, they will likely comply and low-cost Blu-ray players will compete head-to-head with HD-DVD players.

At the finale, when Universal finally decides that consumer demand means they will have to support Blu-ray, that will put an end to HD-DVD, although it is an inferior format only on some rather Byzantine technical points that will never affect the average consumer.

Azorean @ Mar 13th 2007 8:58PM

It's trouncing any other formats.......except DVD!

Killer @ Mar 13th 2007 9:21PM

Hahahahaha...San you're funny. You act as if Sony and Apple aren't Profit-making companies. So much biase shit there its almost to much to bare. Both sides are to be blamed, Sony for being money hungry and microsoft being money hungry. It's that simple. A simple one format would have been great, but no, companies have to bitch about money. Also san, you do know that Universal isn't the only movie studio that is supporting it, Warner, HBO, Paramount, and others (they support both formats) Besides, Fox (which by the way the only reason FOX went blue-ray was the promise of anti-piracy and Disney (which is pretty much completely Apple centered) and of course Columbia, since sony owns it. Every other studio is for both.

@ Thomas, You're an idiot. VGA cable for the 360 plays the HD DVD player in 1080p. Way to show your total incompentents by stating a misinformed idea. Still working on the disk? have you ever picked up a HD DVD and looked at the back? It's in TRUE 1080p.

People prefer blue ray? Where the hell does it say that? All I keep seeing is stats about how many movies were sold. That doesn't mean people love the format. It means that there are alot of people that buy a crap load of movies that have a ps3.

Just remember anything can happen.(Betamax) Wait nevermind I forgot Sony didn't try to throw that down people's throats and put in a gaming console and market it more as a movie player instead of a gaming console.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that Microsoft shares the blame as well in this retarded format war. I mean they are Microsoft, but also Sony is Sony.

Next-Gen-Gamer @ Mar 13th 2007 9:54PM

@ hmm
http://blogs.ign.com/Next-Gen-Gamer/2007/03/11/49013/

blah @ Mar 13th 2007 10:17PM

@ #2 hmm,

I actually think what they write is witty. Topic sentences are supposed to catch your attention, and this blog does do it. This is called creative writing. If you want generic and boring articles, you shouldn't be here... and you are boring.

n2 @ Mar 13th 2007 10:59PM

Replace "PS3" with "PSP"
and then replace "Blu-Ray" with "UMD"

Re-read the article.

Hmmm...

jonesy @ Mar 13th 2007 11:51PM

@ PS3 covered in dust

Yes Microsoft could drop the price to $50 but
what point would that be with the films that are being released on HD-DVD?

The only studios that are EXCLUSIVE to HD-DVD are Universal and The Weinstein Company/Genius Products.

Major film releases like, for example Casino Royale (and probably Spiderman 3) will never see the light of day on HDDVD whilst Blu-Ray is selling.

The whole Betamax references get rather tiring as well, Betamax was a Sony format. Yes Blu-Ray is too but they aren't the sole owner of the format (though they are the most visable cos of the Playstation).

The FOUNDING board members of Blu-Ray are:

Apple, Inc.
Dell
HP
Hitachi
LG
Mitsubishi Electric
Panasonic
Pioneer
Philips
Samsung
Sharp
Sony
Sun Microsystems
TDK
Thomson
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney
Warner Bros

Not just Sony, and I honestly can't see any of the above companies leaving the format to gather dust.

And what happens when this is implemented?

http://videobusiness.com/article/CA6300812.html

Lot of 360/HD drive owners are going to be mighty peeved (which is probably why the rumors of the HDMI equipped 360 keep popping up).

san @ Mar 14th 2007 7:58AM

@Killer, I didn't mean to imply that Sony and Apple don't have a vested financial interest in this; indeed that they don't want to be locked into a Microsoft format means they are concerned about where the money is going and how much of it they might have to pay. But Microsoft is the only one pushing a proprietary software format for next generation DVD. Blu-ray uses an open-source Java-based menu system that anyone can get into and tinker with and use without having to pay Microsoft a dime in licensing fees. And Sun doesn't charge a licensing fee for distributing Java-based applications. So, Microsoft is the direct culprit here in closing up the format, in not budging when the issue of a single standard came up and they were asked to open up to some degree their menu software system.

Also, of course many studios are supporting HD-DVD. Universal is just the only studio that won't support Blu-ray (Focus is a subdivision of Universal, and I believe Weinstein Group distributes through Universal at this time).

I have a 360, and could buy a 360 HD-DVD drive for very little money, and although I have VGA analog and there is no digital connection available, the signal resolution reduction has yet to affect anyone, if they even go through with it on released movies. (Blu-ray will do the same thing but no one is doing it yet. Everyone is more concerned about irritating legacy HDTV owners without HDMI connections than they are about upsetting 360 owners with no digital connections. There were a fair amount of large, expensive HDTVs sold without HDMI that will last quite a ways into the future. You don't want those people opting of next generation DVDs because of the signal downgrading issue.)

Anyway, the point is I could easily add HD-DVD. I'm not going to. I made the decision when we bought the PS3 that Blu-ray was going to be our format choice. I would love it if *all* studios supported both formats, so people could choose, which is the spirit of choice in free enterprise. But I have enough boxes and enough cables, and I'm not going to have two next-generation DVD formats -- unless, okay, Microsoft dumps their add-on player into the market for $50 or less. So I went with the one I believe will become standard, based on: Sony will if forced price-war the players so that you can pick up a simple, low-cost, low-end BR or HD-DVD player for about the same price; combined, something like 90% of all movies filmed in color are owned by studios who will support Blu-ray; BR, because of greater capacity and some small technical points is a superior disc format, a superiority that will probably never be realized, but the potential is there; as marketing terms go, "Blu-ray" is infinitely better than the unwieldy "HD-DVD" -- these things matter and the format name will sell players; all the major home theater/consumer electronics retailers are pushing Blu-ray over HD-DVD, even though they may even be lying about the reasons, and that will sell more Blu-ray; Sony Pictures, which owns about half the movies filmed in color, will never go HD-DVD until the bitter end and then probably would wait a couple years until afer BR is dead, and Disney would hold out very, very late in the game, while Universal can start supporting Blu-ray at any time, and though they don't want to, will likely start supporting the format by next year if they continue to see sales numbers slide to the BR side, even if it is only PS3 gamers padding the numbers. HD-DVD purchasers are really going to get upset when after doing little or no research they get the player home and soon discover that they can't get, and may never get, movies from Sony, MGM/Columbia Tristar, Disney, Touchstone, Miramax, or 20th Century Fox -- imagine a family with a household full of children who, excited about going next generation HD, discover they can't get a single Disney movie in an HD format. They will probably want to take the player back. They may take the player back. (In fact, when they're at the store buying the thing and ask the clerk where can they get copies of "Cinderella", "Toy Story", "The Little Mermaid", and "Finding Nemo" to buy with their new player, and the kids are jumping up and down, and they're told they can only get those on Blu-ray, the HD-DVD player is likely to go back on the shelf and they wind up buying a Blu-ray player.) Blu-ray buyers who get the player home and find out they can't get films from Universal will probably want to write Universal a letter.

So having decided I needed to make choice, I'm going with Blu-ray. I won't buy anything from Universal on DVD or HD-DVD or hybrid until they support Blu-ray.

Thomas @ Mar 14th 2007 12:48PM

@killer
HD-DVD finally made it to 1080p... oh I'm sorry they're so behind the HD times, I didn't relize they finally made it. Toshiba just released, their HD-DVD player that has 1080p (Toshiba HD-XA2) however their old player (Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD Player) only shot at 1080i. The thing is, NO HD-DVD player and/or HD DVD add on is going to outsell Playstation 3 and blu ray players.. and this month Sony just released their cheaper blu ray player which is cheaper than the Toshiba HD-Xa2 player.

@ everyone - (todos los personas)
Remember, these formats, are like TV shows... if you don't watch they get cancelled. If you like HD-DVD you better go out and buy about 7, because if you don't, you'll be stuck with HD-DVD coasters, and Blu Ray will be all over the place.

People... please, realize that its NOT just about the games anymore. Hell it's not even just about gamers according to NIntendo. Just like the Wii simplifies their games for the non gamer, or the casual Gamer. Playstation has blu ray for those non gamers, or casual gamers, that want more than just a 'video game player' from their console. I think that sony has a better strategy, because now, non gamers(that want that hd movie player, or just a content box for the living room) can be introduced to games, and hardcore gamers don't have to suffer through a barrage of simplified games meant to entise the casual gamer or non gamer.

EatingPie @ Mar 14th 2007 2:08PM

@Ps3 In Dust: "OMG.. PS3 fanatics galore spinning their version of the facts. Yeah, Blu-Ray is selling better because PS3 owners are the only ones who are buying them."

I just thought this was funny. Somebody complains about "spinning the facts" then goes on to... er... spin the facts by saying that PS3 owners are the only ones buying Blu-Ray.

:p

-Pie

bootsielon @ Mar 14th 2007 8:15PM

Rob Holiday:

Oblivion had to be compressed to fit, and that makes the game experience worse since decompressing means your processor is taking a penalty in performance. Furthermore, Mass Effect "almost didn't fit" (as in, they probably cut content). Blue Dragon needs three discs, but guess what? That can't be done in every game (examples: racing games, sports games, fighting games, GTA clones, adventure games, and even some action and RPG games).

Get your facts straight, blu-ray is not needed, but it definitely improves the experience for developers and consumers. The minimal extra cost (100 bucks for comparable specs with the 360) is well worth it; especially when you get HDMI output, HDD out of the box, and backwards compatibility.

Oh, and "PS3 covered in dust" is a dipshit. That's all.