Blu-ray’s Dead, Long Live PS3 Downloads
Sony execs have been lining up licensing deals with the other major studios for a video delivery service on the company’s Playstation 3 game console that could launch as early as this summer, the LA Times reports today. This would go head-to-head with Xbox Live, which already offers a video download service, and if only for that reason, it’s a smart move — PS3 continues to trail behind the 360, with no killer app in sight.
But regular NewTeeVee readers will note the keen irony of the news as it was just a few months ago that Sony was bullying the studios into rejecting the HD-DVD high-definition standard in favor of its own Blu-ray disc standard. As I wrote back then, “broadband connection…will route around the need for any disc format.” I just never would have guessed that Sony would be the one to undermine its own format.
To twist the irony knife one more turn, the Blu-ray was once billed as the PS3’s top feature, the thing that would make gamers give up their Wiis and 360s. But that was 2006. By now, Sony executives must finally embrace broadband’s inevitable supplanting of old media.
The real curiosity is how they’ll deploy it. The Times quotes Sony’s Peter Dille as saying, “[I]t’s already been confirmed that we’ll be offering a video service for PS3 in a way that separates the service from others you’ve seen or used.” I think that hints to video downloads via the PS3’s upcoming virtual world Home, which is supposed to enable a user to play videos from their avatar’s house.
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This won’t kill blu-ray, but it will kill movie rentals.
Wes on April 21st, 2008 at 8:14 pm - Permalink
Blu-ray isn’t going to be dead anytime soon. The XBOX downloads have one major issue: half the people who own xbox’s can’t donwload them because they don’t have a hard drive or one that can only hold 3 movies. Also anyone who is renting movies from the xbox site is an idiot. For the same price they are paying they can go to blockbuster and get a full HD movie (not crappy 720p) with uncompressed audio in 7.1 (not compressed 5.1). Obviously Microsoft didn’t put much thought into movie downloads, if they did they would have made it feasable for all their consoles.
bill d. on April 21st, 2008 at 8:59 pm - Permalink
Oh yeah and here’s an article showing that blu-ray sales are up 351%.
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1222
bill d. on April 21st, 2008 at 9:00 pm - Permalink
What a lame headline. Why don’t people understand that some people just like tangible products. The disc, the box art, the insert. I like being able to browse through a physical library. I also like not having to worry about losing movies if my hard drive dies. Besides, I need that hard drive space for games and demos, I’m not going to clog it up and waste energy downloading movies.
Ken on April 21st, 2008 at 10:07 pm - Permalink
[...] don’t get me wrong, blu-ray will have a nice life, but seriously, why mail discs or have a case you never use sitting on a shelf when it can be instantly accessible with a click of a remote, a STB and a HD equipped home theater (killer 3D autostereoscopic screen coming soon!) and some killer HD content? i ask you, why?! newteevee [...]
are digital downloads the winner of the format war? « cinelicious on April 22nd, 2008 at 12:10 am - Permalink
Broadband is way too slow for most folk to even consider downloading one movie never mind a collection of movies.
Hard drives are too small and too open to errors/crashes for storing all your movies and games on with no disc as a back-up.
Electronic books have still not done away with the paperback/hardback or magazines. MP3 has not done away with CD’s (yet) just as broadband will not (anytime soon anyway) do away with CD/Blu-ray.
Long Live Blu-ray!
Kevin on April 22nd, 2008 at 6:02 am - Permalink
This is stupid. Downloads arent going to take over for at least another 5 years. (more realistically, closer to 8-9 years) first, hard drives must become cheaper so that everyone can have as many movies as they want, with out having to delete one everytime. Also, internet is still too slow. I’ve heard people that have the fastest internet avaliable, and it still takes them 2 hours to download a full length HD movie. I’d much rather take five minutes to go rent/ buy a movie from the store down the street.
Slayerking131 (psn) on April 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 am - Permalink
[...] on physical media makes the most environmental sense. So it was with a certain sense of irony that this post caught my eye while I was standing in a sea of discarded discs in the ruin of my office [...]
The LAMP Watercooler » Blog Archive » Less discs in landfill? on April 22nd, 2008 at 7:14 am - Permalink
Its not video downloads that are the future its video streaming ,no need for a big hard drive when you can stream video .
Matt_ on April 22nd, 2008 at 7:14 am - Permalink
If HD streaming is going to take off its probably going to mean a big investment from internet providers.
The bbc (broadcaster) TV streaming app. in the UK caused massive spikes in streaming and data transfer that it concerned many many ISPs, and afaik that was NOT hd, so sure if you network provider wants to stump up the cash to upgrade thier lines thats great.
And whilst you have a 10mbps + connection that bandwidth is probably ’shared’ with 25-50 other people, so come peak time your downloads crawl and your stream gets he jitters.
The doom and gloom of physical media is always heralded, but it has not happened yet.
Sam on April 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm - Permalink
[...] Will PS3 owners be able to watch videos on their consoles? No, not using the blu-ray player… via a video delivery service. [...]
April 23, 2008 | TechTV Update on April 23rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm - Permalink
[...] Impressions – Live Mesh Review – Amazon.com Announces First Quarter Sales up 37% to $4.1 Billion Blu-ray’s Dead, Long Live PS3 Downloads Unlimited Skype calls for $9.99 a month Apple Revenue Up 43 Percent Year-Over-Year Dell: [...]
Blastr.tv » Blog Archive » Blastr EPISODE 37 - Facebook Chat on May 1st, 2008 at 4:55 pm - Permalink