Full FeedCES 2009: Blu-ray format could be in jeopardy, might bring down PS3 with it
It’s fitting that the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) takes place in Las Vegas, because at this show we learn which companies have gambler’s instincts. Sony went all in betting that Blu-ray technology would win the next-gen video disc wars, adding Blu-ray capability to its PlayStation 3 consoles.
Microsoft, on the other hand, hedged its bets with the HD-DVD format. While the console didn’t come packaged with HD-DVD capability, gamers could purchase an add-on drive to upgrade. So at the last CES (2008) when Warner Bros. ended the war by announcing it would no longer support HD-DVD, it certainly looked like a win for Sony.
A year later Sony and Blu-ray still have not garnered that much anticipated victory. One of the biggest obstacles is potential customers doing an end run around Blu-ray by downloading movies digitally. Since Microsoft is equally happy to see you on the Internet as it is to see you on its game console, it jumped on the downloading craze by partnering with Netflix (although Sony refuses to do so, at least for now). Xbox Live Gold members that are also Netflix members can download movies to their console in addition to whatever DVDs they order by mail. LG Electronics has announced a new line of high-definition television that can connect directly to the Internet without a need for any set-top box. It will be able to use video on-demand services including the aforementioned Netflix.
Estimates by Digital Entertainment Group put 10.5 million American homes as Blu-ray equipped. At the beginning of the year, its anticipated figure was nearly 15 million. There is good and bad news for Sony there. An estimated 8 million of the Blu-ray homes are PS3 owners. But at least some of those owners would be hardcore gamers that would have purchased the console without Blu-ray.
The head scratching development is the runaway success of the Nintendo Wii, the least high-tech of the current gen consoles. Nintendo has sold 40 million Wiis worldwide with a console that doesn’t even play DVDs, let alone any high definition discs. Had anyone known a $250 game machine could even compete, let alone potentially win the console war, some different decisions might have happened at Sony and Microsoft. If Blu-ray is going to be the deciding factor in the console war, now would be a really good time for it to start.
Black Friday was a big day for Blu-ray with many stores opting to discount Blu-ray players to more affordable price points. That was buoyed by The Dark Knight, the biggest event movie since HD-DVD gave up the ghost. The Batman sequel moved 600,000 Blu-ray discs in a single day.This week at CES is also key as Blu-ray ‘s backers need a strong showing to convince millions who haven’t adopted the new technology that all the cool kids will be doing it. For better or for worse, the fate of the PS3 and that of the Blu-ray format will forever be intertwined.
This week could tell us whether that marriage will be more akin to Will and Jada Pinkett Smith or Britney Spears and K-Fed.
Read [New York Times] Also Read [Crunch Gear]
Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - 
Subscribe to our feed
Important Importables
Jenni Lada brings us information about all of the groovy new gaming imports from around the world.
I hope you know that Blu Ray has had a faster adoption rate than DVD in its first 2 years(2x faster to be exact) so where exactly do you come off saying that it’s in trouble? Look at the Dark Knight sales, over 20% were Blu Ray and that’s the largest penetration by Blu Ray into DVD’s market share yet. In Japan Blu Ray has already equaled DVD in terms of market share and Blu Ray sales in UK are up over 400%, I’m tired of you people with your baseless facts about how blu ray is doomed and digital distribution is the future. When exactly is that future?
on January 8, 2009 at 06:03 PM - LINKLol, Just lol man seriously, do your research if you weren’t ignorant you’d figure out that BD is doing better than DVD adoption rate wise. Don’t BE A DOOR KNOB.
on January 8, 2009 at 06:05 PM - LINKYou sure, are a moron.
Bluray is here to stay. Get over it.
on January 8, 2009 at 06:06 PM - LINKLet’s take everything to extremes just to get site hits! Show some integrity ffs.
Are you by any chance related to Hiphopgamer?
on January 8, 2009 at 06:08 PM - LINKWow, they were 40% lower than their expectations.
on January 8, 2009 at 06:11 PM - LINKwait, do they let any uneducated #### write articles these days?
on January 8, 2009 at 06:13 PM - LINKgamertell…....PS3 and BLU-RAY is 10 times better than microcrap. Can’t stand all the bad CES news around 360?
on January 8, 2009 at 06:20 PM - LINKHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA!!!! wait….. it’s a serious article? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!! WHAT A CRAP ARTICLE MADE JUST FOR THE HITS AHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
on January 8, 2009 at 06:22 PM - LINKIgnore the PS3 Fanboys. They cannot see further than their short-USB charging cables. What they don’t understand is that the only reason that Blu-Ray has had a faster adoption rate than DVD in the first two years is that people were already sold on the disc technology… unlike the enormous jump from VHS to DVD…since most Blu-Ray players play DVD.
on January 8, 2009 at 06:28 PM - LINKThey also ignore the fact that iTunes, Netflix, and even DVD’s are coming with digital downloads so that people can make their movies portable AND hi-def.
Time to pull your head out of the sand, boys, if everybody says the Earth is round, and fanboys are the only ones that deny it… things are pretty clear.
Hey idiot.
did you know that all the companies got together including sony and microsoft to decide on the next media? they decided on hd dvd. hd dvd was late to the party in delivery so they asked sony if the blu ray was ready. it was so they went with it. but not with microsofts software.
thats where the war came in.
the point? high definition media was decided long before you learned to write and research. which we are still waiting for. wether it was hd dvd or blu ray or orange floppy discs. the move from dvd to high dvd dvd was long decided. get over it.
and yes digital downloads and physical media can co exist.
you also mentioned black friday. the reports show that blu ray player was the number 3 most purchased item.
1. Nintendo Wii Console
2. Ugg Australia ‘Classic Short’ Boot
3. Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player
4. Samsung LN52A650 52″ LCD TV
5. Nintendo Wii Fit
6. Panasonic TH-42PX80U 42″ Plasma TV
7. Sennheiser HD 555 Headphones
8. Canon EOS Rebel XSi Black SLR Digital Camera Kit
9. Acer Aspire One AOA110-1295 Notebook
10. Canon PowerShot A590 IS Black Digital Camera
http://www.itfacts.biz/top-selling-products-on-black-friday-2008/12098
___
one more thing i find funny about the digital kills blu ray writers. you never mention the raising of prices from internet service providers. bandwidth caps on upload and download. the inability to run streams on multiple devices.
your entire article weak.
oh and to add. blu ray is not the deciding factor on the console wars. its games. blu ray already won the format war. even without the ps3, the blu ray is here to stay.
on January 8, 2009 at 06:29 PM - LINKAnother lame Blu-Ray article written by a moronic individual looking for hits.
on January 8, 2009 at 06:31 PM - LINKYea, you’re a bit late on the Blu-ray Ps3 blind bashing without basis or facts or logic train.
on January 8, 2009 at 06:33 PM - LINK“But at least some of those owners would be hardcore gamers that would have purchased the console without Blu-ray.”
How would the hard core gamers play the games without a Blu-ray drive to read the Blu-ray discs, jackass?
on January 8, 2009 at 06:46 PM - LINKOMG, i don’t have to read this. You really missed the bandwagon.
And you probably sat in your chair thinking to yourself that you were smart and intelligent for creating such a witty and sophisticated comment to end your “article” with as this…
“This week could tell us whether that marriage will be more akin to Will and Jada Pinkett Smith or Britney Spears and K-Fed.”
Awesome, you should win some kind of award for referencing well known pop relationships, and comparing them to the “marriage” of Blu-ray and the PS3. OMG GENIUS!!! GENIUUUS!!! You seriously deserve the Pulitzer Prize for this… BTW I didn’t have to read anything but the last sentence. That’s how “Awesome” your writing is…
on January 8, 2009 at 06:59 PM - LINK@Cray,
You know that Digital Downloads have a much lower adoption rate than Blu Ray right? Also none of those mentioned provide a picture/sound quality that rivals Blu Ray. I want to know how many people have a connection good enough to Download GB’s of movies in a matter of minutes or an hour at most. Your dreamworld of DD is 10 years away at least, Blu Ray is here to stay, you sound like one of those bitter Xbot HD-DVD fanboys, so I’d watch who you call fanboys.
on January 8, 2009 at 07:03 PM - LINKDude, you want the best high quality HD movies your tv can output then you’re always getting the better deal with Blu-ray. Netflix on XBL, video downloads, HD rentals etc, will never match the quality, the 7.1 surround sound, and the features that Blu-ray packs with it.
I have moved from 7 different states and I have had a number of internet providers from cable to dsl and even to satellite and none of those internet providers have been able to give me a connection good enough for me to even think about making the switch to digital downloads. It’s just not ready. Blu-ray is here to stay. It may even be the last physical media but I seriously doubt it will. We’ll get “super hd” and that’ll require a physical media due to the space if movies come out for it. Then you have games taking an advantage of Blu-ray. I mean seriously, games are just getting bigger and bigger. Making a game with a huge budget on a next next gen console isn’t going to only be available for download. It’s going to be on a physical media like blu-ray. I guarantee you the 720/xbox 3 will have blu-ray in it. Microsoft will play themselves if they avoid it by sticking with dvd and making them on 8 discs or making all their games downloadables. It’s just too early.
My point is….Blu-ray is here to stay. Get over it and get use to it.
on January 8, 2009 at 07:06 PM - LINKI haven’t even bothered to read this shitfest of an article, but let me guess:
Failed to mention Blu-ray is outpacing DVD adoption, if you did, you spun it like the desperate ##### who say BR dropped in price massively (only came down in the last two months, and that’s a good thing, not a bad thing).
Failed to mention that Digital Distribution will not become dominant for another 30-40 years, preferring to adopt MS’s pie in the sky dream of “DD is what people want, even though it makes 1/20th of what Blu-ray Disc sales earn (I’m pretty sure it’s less, so I’m being generous).
Failed to mention Blu-ray has already won worldwide and is the next standard, and that PS3 first helped it win but is no longer tied to it.
Am I right?
on January 8, 2009 at 07:19 PM - LINKWow, just wow. It’s amazing how people are capable of producing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Some people should think before posting such articles.
on January 8, 2009 at 07:21 PM - LINKYou wasted your time writing this article. Should have just right out said that you do not like blu-ray and want Digital downloads to take over. Your whole article is filled with misleading and wrongful facts. There is more talk and interest for blu-ray now then there was for DVD this same time in its life time.
on January 8, 2009 at 07:31 PM - LINK“Microsoft, on the other hand, hedged its bets with the HD-DVD format.”
No they didn’t. If they really did they would have included an HD DVD drive in every 360. All they did was offer an HD DVD player. That’s why Blu-ray killed HD DVD.
Microsoft actually hedged their bets with DVD and it’s starting to cause the major nightmares. How many people will want games that need three or four DVDs? Not many.
on January 8, 2009 at 07:50 PM - LINKScrew DVD & Blu-ray! Laser Disc Forever!!! J/K
on January 8, 2009 at 07:59 PM - LINKBut remember when Laser disc was the big thing and DVD came out? There were plenty of hard core LD fans against DVD and in favor of the Laser disc format. This will all come and pass and blue-ray will be accepted. I do wonder what could be next though…. Is digital media the only next option? I guess we will have to wait 6-10 years to find out…. hopefully more
I’m a PS3 owner and a massive fan of Blu-ray. That said, I welcome intelligent, well-researched articles discussing the future of the format and content delivery. This is not such an article.
on January 8, 2009 at 08:07 PM - LINKYou gotta love the level of ignorance of Sony fans. Yeah BLue ray is in the PS3 so of course it has a higher adoption rate. That means nothing. There are 40 million UMD players out there called PSP and guess what? That format is dead. SO your excuses have no bearing in the subject.
on January 8, 2009 at 08:34 PM - LINKNow the one thing I did find amusing is how he claims that nobody knew a 250.00 game console could sale. What generation of gaming are you judging that from? All previous gens say its true. NO machine that launched higher than 299.99 has ever achieved success before this gen and it only did it this gen because its fan base is a bunch of moronic sheep who do what they are told. Oh and kids. No game takes advantage of Blu Ray. Its just you assuming so because you have no knowledge of gaming… Whats the point of 15gig games on a 25 gig disc if they have to be padded and you have to install over half the game onto the HD.. So PS3 could have easily used DVD the way MS does. SOny just wanted to use its fan base to help them push a movie format through at the cost of gimping the PS3. Yes I said gimped. Please do not respond about graphics as they have nothing to do with Blu ray. 99% of the people posting here havent got aclue what they are talking about and are only repeating what they read somewhere online that they do not comprehend.
If it’s 99% includes you moron.You don’t have a clue.
You should ask John Carmack about uncompressed textures on blu-ray.
You should ask Gaurav Khanna abour floating coma brute force provided by the SPE’s and black holes.
You should get to know Linux,and don’t get cocky,now you can use the whole memory pool.
You should get familiarized with Raytracing vs Rasterization soon;it will take over.
Digital downloads will take over? yeah,of course you are right! I agree!,try to download [Burnout Paradise] on your heavily DRM’d hard drive.Not in the marketplace? must be the SIZE LIMIT OF DOWNLOADABLE GAMES.Try the PS store.Gotta love Wipeout HD,native .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Yawn,I wonder if I will have enough space on my cheap upgradeable 2’5” HD,320 Gb of media fill out quick,oh well,I’ll wait a couple of months when Vidzone and MTV launch their FREE service to upgrade.
Did you heard? PS3 is going to be 3D,how appropriate.
The weak point of the ps3 is the RSX and its inferior shaders.And Corporate Sony shooting on their bloddy foot time after time.
The machine itself is a very underestimated piece of hardware and you,sir,are the mistaken rodent here.Stop pointing your finger and play you damn games,you disgust me fanboy,get both and shut up.
on January 8, 2009 at 09:00 PM - LINKThis article was made just for hits. A big sounding title with no evidence to back it up.
How can Blu-ray be in trouble when YOU say that it beat out it’s competition, is now backed by the biggest movie companies in the entertainment industry and have sold a huge amount of BD discs?
on January 8, 2009 at 09:51 PM - LINK