HD DVD players outselling Blu-ray alternatives... at the moment
By Darren Murph 
posted Jun 11th 2007 4:41PM
posted Jun 11th 2007 4:41PM
You should know by now that these brief claims of superiority won't mean much when the other camp flips the numbers around and cranks out a jaw dropping figure of its own, but the North American HD DVD Promotional Group has recently announced that it's currently livin' the high life. Supposedly, standalone HD DVD players now hold 60-percent of the market share amongst standalone high-definition disc players, and the recent "aggressive spring retail and marketing campaigns" are to thank. Unsurprisingly, Toshiba's heavily (albeit momentarily) discounted HD-A2 was dubbed the "best-selling next-gen DVD player model to date," and we were even told that over 75,000 HD DVD titles were sold in the final week of May alone. The countdown for the Blu-ray rebuttal starts... now.
Hmm, HD DVD has 60% of the players but Blu-ray has 60% of the movie sales?
Its almost like the HD DVD group is forgetting to mention something...
I wonder what it could be?
They are. They aren't including PS3 sales since they know they are clearly behind if they included those.
I dont know why you are ripping either format apart. The difference between the 2 formats to the end user should not be enough for us to really care. At the end of the day, the price is what matters to majority of the end users which is probably why they have taken this marketing approach. I have seen movies in both formats, and they look and sound the bloody same.
Being that this is the last week of the promotion, you are allowed to use the $100 discount on any Toshiba HD DVD player until the 17th.
Let the fanboy comments commence:
Can I get a, "what about PS3 gachillion units sold?"
I believe its "Gazillion".
Down with Sony.
Engagdet, quit with the crappy corner adds. They are most annoying. To get rid of them add the following filter: "*autoblog.com*" to adblock.
Well do you know why it's selling more? Because to beat Blu-Ray, HD-DVD has to go bottom barrel with it's prices. Just what I want, cheap crap...HD-DVD is so scared to lose, that they slash the prices so low, and lose so much money on each player, even though they know they wont win. Hey HD-DVD, year 2006 called and said, "Give up already".
"They'd give them away but their wives won't let them!"
Jason wins award for Most Inane Comment of the Day
150 thousand standalone HD-DVD rigs, versus 5.5 million PS3s shipped worldwide.
Yeah, good luck with that.
vs. 10.6 million 360's sold.
Yeah, good luck with that.
But how many of them have the HD-DVD add-on?
vs. 8-10 million Wii's sold by now. (Wikipedia shows at least 7.5M, with pretty outdated numbers)
Yeah, good luck with that.
Vs. how many people who have PS3s and HDTVs
As of January 2007, less than 100K XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on drives had been sold.
Though, yes, as I said, that wwas 5.5 million shipped. I don't have actual sales figures, but with an order of magnitude difference, who cares?
So, again, good luck with that, HD-DVD.
Mark, that's cause X360 is the poor man's console and Wii is just plain ... uh, for bums with holes in their shoes.
Well thats funny because I am not poor, yet I have a 360 as well as a Wii (and the HD DVD add on for that matter) and I still have no desire for a ps3. If the 360 is a poor mans console then the ps3 is a dumb mans blu-ray player.
Jon's point is that the PS3 has a blu-ray drive built-in. So, by that merit alone, HD-DVD has some serious ground to make up. It has nothing to do with xboxes or wiis.
another reason why sony should not have included the blu ray player in the ps3. now that standalone blu ray players are cheaper than the ps3, sony is pulling people away from the ps3 to buy a standalone player...
And I suppose all 10.6 million of those 360s have HD DVD drives?
Look, Sony messed this one up a bit...but as long as PS3 games stick to Blu-Ray, there will always be plenty of Blu-Ray movies to go along with them.
You all need to stop looking at the PS3 as the Trojan Horse for Blu-Ray? I have a PS3 and I do not buy Blu-Ray movies to play on it. The PS3 is a gaming console and Sony needs to sell more just to save their azzzzz in that segment. I think selling the HD_DVD is a great move.
Basically, Sony is drowning in red ink. Losing hundreds of dollars per PS3 being sold. I had a PS2 (two of them because they're junk and had to be replaced), but my teenager convinced me to get an XBOX 360. I bought the HD-DVD player to go with it. It works very well, and works with Vista too. The movie selection is actually slightly better, except for James Bond is owned by Sony. I won't pay $34 per movie, but many are available at $19.99. My latest purchase was MI-3, I think. I probably have about 15 movies. V for Vendetta is great on HD-DVD. Lord of the Rings is coming out soon.
I sincerely believe Sony will throw in the towel. They cannot sustain the losses. Microsoft could do any number of things to bury Blu-Ray. And yes, I understand it holds more data, but it's interface isn't as good. The PS3 is getting trounced by the Wii. Imagine if they bundled the HD-DVD player with Halo3. Thanks for playing.
Sony's loses? Are you mad?!?! Do you see Sony selling Blu-Ray players for $200 like Toshiba is having to? HD-DVD is losing, which is why Toshiba is having to slash prices. Geez, HD-DVD fanboys are just about as crazy as Apple fanboys.
I'm not mad nor crazy. Sony is losing on every PS3 it sells, around $200 per unit. Microsoft makes about $45 to $50 on each XBOX 360.
How long do you think a company can sustain those types of losses? Sony goes through this often. It's why I'm hesitant to buy anything they make that is mechanical - they break because Sony isn't good at manufacturing items with moving parts. Their stereos and TVs are top-notch, but I have a pile of their video cameras and 2 PS2s.
This isn't Fanboy material, this is empirical data which is irrefutable. Sony is bleeding red. At some point, the corporate HQ is going to step in and clean house at Sony Computer Entertainment. Oh, they already did according to Forbes Magazine: "Burlingame, Calif. - Sony's computer entertainment unit, responsible for the company's PlayStation gaming consoles, has laid off nearly 100 of its 1,600 U.S. employees, located mostly at its U.S. headquarters in Foster City, Calif. Sony's computer entertainment unit posted a $2 billion loss on sales of $8.6 billion during the company's 2006 fiscal year."
Open up the business pages and not just the tech pages and you'll see. Remember that Microsoft (key backer to HD-DVD) is one of the wealthiest companies on the planet. Toshiba is far more than an electronics maker - they make submarine components, lots of defense equipment. Sony makes electronics - nothing in hard manufacturing. They are outmatched, outgunned, and cannot win. Their only ace in the hole is their movie library. They'll end up having to produce it on HD-DVD to make up for the massive losses the company is sustaining.
Iridium went through this. We advised them to cut prices on hardware and service and they did not. They went bankrupt.
Microsoft understands. Toshiba will win this by putting their HD-DVD drive in MILLIONS of laptops thus driving down their per unit price.
Other issues: Sony is facing incredible pressure because of its poorly manufactured batteries.
Do I need to provide you with more empirical data? Give up, go out and buy an HD-DVD. Every Blu-Ray disc you buy will be a nice coaster on the coffee table or join the piles of useless LaserDiscs out there somewhere.
I disagree firstly because i doubt that push come to shove Microsoft will really care that much if one or the other wins. They do not really have a huge stake in either format because they do not really make HD-DVD hardware or much content. The Xbox doest not come standard with a HD-DVD. What will decide it is content and HD-DVD is outmatched by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, and Buena Vista Home Entertainment (Disney) and a few other that are sitting on the fence producing for both. Hardware wise they are also well stocked with Apple, Dell, Sony (obviously), HP, and Philips backing them. Lets not forget Microsoft is powerful but its mainly a software company while Dell HP Sony are hardware companies on which Microsoft runs.
I cant believe people fall for this greedy cashgrab. BUY NEITHER! Let the 2 formats DIE! or a winner be quitely intergrated into DVD players.
$35 for a disc that costs the same to make as a regular DVD.
I own a PS3 and a 360 I own not a single HD or blueray disk. I do purchase 3-4 DVDS a month.
umm? you buy DVDs? weird. You have heard of Netflix and big hard drives, right?
I rent my HDDVDS and BRD from blockbuster online. I won't buy until a format wins.
Maybe check out this article. Its well explained and pretty much spells out why the HD-DVD is not going to be the winner of this battle.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/soapbox/soap060107.html
I very strongly doubt that Sony will "throw in the towel" when it comes to the PS3 granted the competition is far stiffer than it was at the beginning of the last round and there may not be as clear a winner and Sony may not sell 90-100 million PS3s like it did for both of its predecessors. Either way Sony throwing in the towel in the gaming division would be a very very bad thing for consumers allowing Microsoft to rule yet another sector of the market. It always baffles me that people are so gleeful that Sony is doing badly when if you put Microsoft and Sony side by side in the long run Microsoft has been the less ethical one. Granted Sony has been losing it a bit these days specially with the Battery and DRM fiasco but my firm belief is that neither its PS3 nor Blu-Ray decisions were miss guided.
This is clearly a BS attempt at them trying to recover ground from th Blu-ray camp.. They're losing and they know it. HD-DVD is on the way out and they're desperate to do anything they can, slash prices, run campaigns, and flat out lie. Neither HD movies cost 34$ and if you're paying that you're a fool.. Blu-ray discs surprisingly only cost about 19.99 to 24.99 on average and time of release. I know HD-DVD discs are a bit more on average but that's HD-DVD and just another reason it will fail. Oh and Sony did a great job by including Blu-ray in every console, not only as a future proofing step but because PS3 owners are buying movies. I own 16 Blu-ray movies and 4 PS3 games with many more coming this fall into winter.. This was the first year of the console so there weren't many games that interested me.. but, there were LOTS of great 1080p Blu-ray titles.
Jason, Did you ever stop to notice that HD-DVD players have ALWAYS been cheaper than Blu-ray? Didn't think so as you have a bad diagnosis of blind fanboyism. Price is king in my world as well as the vast majority of consumers. For HD-DVD with it's 1 exclusive studio support to be doing as well as it is right now in the marketplace is awesome. Also stand alone players DO have a big impact on movie sales as a consumer purchases a HD-DVD player ONLY to play HD-DVD movies. No games as an option. Therefore having 60% of the standalone next gen DVD market is pretty nice.
P.S. www.nexgenwars.com has the PS3 at only 3.2 million Sold, and not 5.5 million (Thats probably a "shipped" figure, but sold, and shipped are 2 completely different animals) Also if you want to talk about selling for a lose to gain market share look at every single console race before the Nintendo Wii. This Wii is the only console to take a different direction and not sell for a lose with it's launch. Sony is taking the biggest hit on the PS3 with a crappy attach rate to boot.
With Sony losing 2 Billion dollars on the PS3 so far. I see them doing one of two things, either dropping the blu-ray option on the PS3 to compete with the Xbox 360 at $199, or making blu-ray go the way of the betamax.
When it comes down to it, it's all about the money. Stock holders cannot be happy with the losses Sony has to deal with, and just how Share-holders kicked Eisner out of Disney, they do have the power to tell Sony to drop the Blu-ray.
Thoughts anyone?
Hmm $199? I might be wrong as i do not live in the US but i believe that figure is $299. Thats for the basic setup. Tell me if i am wrong but i am pretty sure your figure is wrong.
Thoughts are that that's a stupid post.
Even if they wanted too, which they don't, you can't just rip out the fucking BD drive! Did you forget that the games are put on BD, so you're idea is that they pull the BD to make it cheaper but now can't play the games either...!? I've been banging my head on my desk trying to determine if you were serious with that comment.
Shareholders won't "demand" that they rip out the BD because they're not idiots like u fanboys. Shareholders understand loss for investment and real numbers not a one week spike in HD Player sales and "oh my god it's over the SKY IS FALLING!"
Sony isn't hurting, Blu-Ray isn't hurting, fucking deal with it.
I would re-read these oh so intelligent comments but I have to go and punch myself in the dick for an hour, that or enjoy time with all three next-gen consoles I own on the 60" 1080p tv that make my BD movies look incredible and damn near 3d, either option is less painful.
The most important factor for the end consumer is always going to be the bottom line (unless you have an infinite source of disposable income). If HD DVD players sell for $350 (or $250 on sale at Amazon) and Blu-Ray sells for $500, guess which will sell more?
Currently the only difference in the two formats are the 'exclusive' titles to them; both are output 1080p and digital audio via HDMI and both have all sort of useless interactive/extras crap that no one will ever use (unless they are very bored). This will change when one becomes dominant; if 2 million HD DVD players sell, sony will start
First one that makes it to $99 for a player gets my business... :o)
What about Toshiba's shareholders? You don't think they are losing money with the promotion? At $199 for the HD DVD player and 10 free titles, they are practically giving the players away.
I don't have all the business and empirical data that you guys have. But as a consumer when I see an HD-DVD player at 230.00 (Toshiba A2) on eBay, I think it is time for me to purchase another DVD player and buy their discs as soon as they become cheaper.
@Whoever said to let the two formats die: hear bloody hear.
I resent being forced to choose between two formats that both have their merits and drawbacks, only to face the prospect of my purchase becoming obsolete. Especially when the contention is mostly over who gets the royalties - Toshiba or Sony/Philips.
No matter how you slice it, we the consumers will be the only real losers in this - whichever format is successful, someone stands to make huge wads of cash by forcing us to pay through the nose for movies we already bought on other formats.
i can't believe a fanboy would have their head so far up Sony or Toshiba's arses that they think a format is losing as show by the cheap prices. If that were true what about all the BluRay discounts and bundles for sale on Amazon?
Standalone is the keyword here. They could have never made those claims if they factored in PS3's. It has nothing to do with fanboyism, its a simple fact that MANY people have bought a PS3 just for the bluray function due to its price and that many more people bought/willbuy a PS3 and use its movie function much like the millions who used the dvd function on the PS2 in the early years.
This article proves nothing, its propaganda from HDDVD pure and simple. Its easy to twist facts to make them seem in your favor, companies do it all the time with demographics and price ranges. How many movies sell per platform is the only thing that matters.
Toshiba is giving the player away for free. In this Sunday's circular for HHgregg you get a free HDA2 and 5 movies if you buy any HDTV $999 and up.
Sorry but that is a signal of desparation. Its over for HD-DVD, how are you going to get any manufacturer to support your format if they have to compete with FREE.
I can't believe how much fanboiiii-ism there is about this subject. Honestly, I think the "format war" is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Granted it will lower prices faster, though I still don't even care. Shit, even LCD's themselves still have issues (even sony, sharp, samsung). Go ahead early adopters, you must have a lot of money burning a hole in your pocket. I'll take an 42" 1080p LCD when they're as reliable as a CRT. Then a next-gen DVD after that. I'm not a cheapass either. Anyone who would buy something for $3000 that will either fail, or be obsolete in a year is either rich or dumb (or both).
Gotta agree with you to a big extent. I'd be happy just as long A format wins out- customers start buying the format in droves, the price plummets, and we have a nice cheap universal HD format. I'm personally rooting for Blu-ray just because I see the additional capacity as longer lasting.
@ 007baf
where do you get the numbers that say $45 on every xbox?
as far as I know MS has yet to make money on Xbox division and then there was the story 1up ran saying MS is poised to make money on xbox for the first time in 2008:
Microsoft: Xbox Division Will Make Money in 2008 news from 1UP.com so sony maybe losing money right now but MS has been losing money the whole time.
but the biz plan is that in the future things will look up!
(Only the wii made money out of the gate)
Isn't it surprising that with all these promotions HD DVD only sells 60% of the standalone players? Not too long ago HD DVD sold 80% of the standalones and that was before they started those huge discounts.
Don't forget HD DVD / Toshiba came to market first, which is why they had the early edge. Then Sony arrived with its name brand clout and sweet exclusive studio deals. It will be interesting to see what the money grubbing studios do as the 'war' draws out.
I just bought the costco HD-D2 @250 since i had been looking for a decent upconverter and thought, what the heck, might as well go hd for 100-150 more. At least if hd-dvd loses, I've still got my hd player that will play all of my dvd and hd-dvd library.
I could care less who or what plays 1080p, since my 42 wega maxes out at 720p, like a large percentage of hdtvs in existence right now.
I would like to see the reference for "standalone HD DVD players now hold 60-percent of the market share amongst standalone high-definition disc players".
I find it hard to believe that the $600+ BD standalones hold 40% of the market. BD players are always in stock at my local stores in an affluent area of Southern CA, while HD-DVD players sold out early on and again during the $100 off promotion.
Funny, the only people I see supporting the BluRay camp are PS3 owners who seem to be trying to justify their $599 purchase. Sony is clearly the monkey who has their hand in the trap with te reluctance to let go before the market catches up to them. However, their biggest problem is that they have put themselves in a situation where they can't let go. They can't abandon bluray, because there is no way around it without completely redesigning the way the console works. Think about it...how much more does Sony stand to lose if Bluray doesn't win? This is why they can and will not win either the console or hi-def player war. Later this year Microsoft will sell a flavor of their XBox 360 for $199 and I think we'll also see a HD-DVD player for the same price or less. Lets face it, $199 is pretty much a sweet spot for consumers. Sony is already bleeding tons of cash because of the PS3 and will not be able to price it low enough to stand a chance.
Dropping prices are not a sign of desperation, but rather a move to capture more market share. Sure, Bluray is on top right now and gets inflated numbers because the player is bundled with the console. Also, it should be stated that the number of units sold to date will be tiny when you compare them to the number that will be sold in the next five or six years. How many households have dvd players vs. households with consoles capable of playing dvds? Sony has put itself in a situation where it has to fight two fronts and I am willing to bet that they wish they hadn't done it this way.
What really makes me laugh is to see this elitism from the PS3 blind followers...you guys act just like Sony does and have no problem throwing your money away. This "My movies look incredible on my 126 inch LCD TV with my $50,000 sound system while I am up to my eyes in debt" attitude is NOT the general public! You people are a joke to me! So, go back to your $599 over priced toys and rub them with your credit card bills and act like you know everything, while the rest of the world passes your sorry butts by. Sony had their day with the PS2 and has completely screwed themselves with bluray and a subpar video game system...
I think what you are saying is right on the mark of what is really happening. When you hear from Bluray supporters, the PS3 install base is usually touted as being the ace in the hole for Bluray. From my perspective, I think it is instead the anchor around Sony's neck. By thinking that they were so smart to add in Bluray support into the console, they could insinuate themselves into people's homes, and dominate from within. It's not enough that they have you pay for their video game system, but that they can also make you pay more for a video game system by adding in a format that will make them even more money if adopted, at your expense. I don't remember HD-DVD camp ever doing something like that to people. Oh wait, they dropped their prices - - oh how insidious you HD-DVD people are!!! Dropping prices and letting the people choose. Tsk tsk tsk. To top things off, there are those that after having spent the huge cost for the PS3, feel that they got added value for the Bluray that they aren't really using for movies. Given the huge failure in sales that the PS3 has experienced, it appears that not everyone was so convinced.
And herein lies the rub. By adding the Bluray, they have priced themselves out of the video game market. The mechanism that they planned on 'taking advantage of' to get Bluray into homes is fairly out of their reach. Sure, they are selling some units, but certainly not the numbers they wanted. I'm sure Ken Kutagari can attest to that. Poor guy, probably didn't have a choice when the larger Sony interest was thrust upon his little group (SCEI).
Unless there is radical change in PS3 strategy, Sony is going to have to compete on standalone units. Count the number of PS3 sales all you guys want, but those numbers are not going to really matter as time passes. HD-DVD is in stronger position than it currently seems to some.
If you compare $300 for a HD-DVD player vs $500 for a PS3, why would anyone want to buy a HD-DVD player when for $200 more, you can rip audio CDs, play games, download video, surf the net, stream media, have an SACD player, etc, on the PS3?
Looking at the strategy with AVCHD HDD camcorders, there is already another use for those bluray players. Those AVCHD home movies will need to be stored on some medium which will allow 15+ GB for storage and playback. Last time I looked, there isn't a HD-DVD burner available for this purpose.
The trojan isn't just with packaging the bluray player in the PS3, but also with the growing number of AVCHD camcorders out there.
I'm not positive, but I am almost sure that Sony owns the rights to about 50% of all movies ever made. Therfore, Blu-ray already has exclusivity to half the movies ever made. I just do not understand how HD-DVD can even get close to this with only one exclusive distributor. In the long run its not price that will matter, its content. As with game systems, gamers do not buy consoles because there cheaper, they buy them because they have better games. HD-DVD will never be able to compare remotely to what Sony has in its personal library.
vs. Some Stat Here
Yeah, good luck with that!
HDDVD's strategy has always been about being a more affordable alternative to BD so claims that the price cuts/rebates are acts of "desperation" is just FUD... no more desperate than BD's assorted coupons or sales/rebates of buy 2 get 1 disc free earlier this year.
Wrong
Funny...Sony just a announced a $100 lower price point for its own 2nd Gen system in response to Toshiba's. So is Sony lowering the price because they are scared?
Sony does not own 50% of all movies made. Universal owns a bigger library of movies then Sony, MGM, and Fox combined.
Sweet Jesus on top of the morning.
OK. First of all the cost to manufacture ALL HD tech has dropped. So yeah expect price drops on all formats.
ON TOP of that, Toshiba is squirting pudding so yeah they are going to make their option the most affordable to the non-discriminating consumer.
The cost of the Blu-Ray addon for the PS3 is less than $150 in my poor estimation. Which would STILL put it over or around $650 bucks anyway. Causing a loss for each unit sold due to cutting edge tech. Something you want in a next gen system.
The Xbox360 has a high fail rate due to sub-par design and is obviously NOT cutting edge because of the profit that is made on each unit. Which incidentally points to its high fail rate. EVEN IF you add the HD-addon you can't play games with it and the sound is subpar. So you have a subpar system with it's only saving grace is it's cheapness, which by the way, costs you MORE in the long wrong. And that long wrong is actually quite short if you stop for but a MOMENT to think about it.
In short, if it seems cheap, then perhaps it is.
If you're buying the hottest display tech, don't buy the cheapest source/input for it because to extract functionality you are going to have to buy extra crap, or warranties, etc etc anyway.
I could go on, but I really shouldn't have to if consumers just educated THEMSELVES.
OOPS. I should clarify. You CAN make a profit per unit sold without using substandard manufacturing, it's just not the case this time around.
Wow Overgauss,
What a blind hate you have on the Xbox 360. This is a fine example of the Sony "superior" fanboism at it's best. All I know is that my original 360 works, and with it's HD-DVD add on drive it can do everything I want it to do. Hooking it up to my media center PC with cablecard support is great too. Couple that with the numerous HD programming I have backed up to WMV-HD and it's a killer media station. Can the PS3 do that little trick out of the box?
@robby1051
I think you're confusing xbox division losses with 360 manufacturing prices - Microsoft now make money on every console they sell (not sure about the $45, but I know they started to break even around last November and costs will have gone down since then: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=21256
Xbox division as a whole is still making a loss, and is this is thought to continue until 2008 as you say (though big selling titles may see short profit spikes like Halo2 caused for xbox).
I remember all this jibber jabber when DVD was trying to get in the game vs VHS.
I remember it as well...
Anyone remember the exclusive DIVX DVD that was only sold at Circuit City???
You know this whole battle between HD DVD and Blu-Ray might actually be won by a different format... Movie Downloads.
@WASD John
Xbox360 doesn't support 7.1 audio or uncompressed audio for that matter or hdmi 1.3 even. So I guess I just have a 'blind hate-on' for specs.
Sony 'just' released a press release that states " Latest PLAYSTATION 3 Firmware Update Provides PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and DVD Upscaling
Remote Play on PSP (PlayStation Portable) via the Internet and DLNA transfer of media content also enabled
In a comprehensive update to PS3’s already impressive capabilities, Version 1.80 also allows users to enjoy Remote Play on their PSP across the internet, allowing them to access their PS3 anywhere in the world where a broadband internet connection is available.
Version 1.80 also allows users on a home network to seamlessly view and play rich media content such as images, music and video on their PS3, that is stored on their DLNA3 enabled devices such as PCs and laptops elsewhere in the house, reinforcing PS3’s credentials as a home entertainment hub that truly deserves pride of place in the Living Room.
A host of other enhancements include the ability to print photo images stored on PS3’s hard disk or inserted storage media to a selection of Epson printers. "
So yeah... I mean it does require that you upgrade to vers1.8. But yeah...
Glad to hear your xbox hasn't crapped out on you and fulfills your needs. Snide-ness aside you may want to invest in a warranty if you haven't already. Please continue to enjoy your xbox360.
I feel the need to comment. First, the war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is far too early to really call. The truth be told, Blu-Ray currently has a larger number of companies backing the format and there are benefits to the format that cannot be found in HD-DVD, the most obvious of which is a larger capacity disc. Even so, there is just too much back and forth and neither format is outperforming by a landslide at this point, so it's pointless to really call a winner.
As for the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 this is also a race we should wait to call. I have all three systems at the moment. The price difference between the 360 and PS3 is not that large. The problems seen with the PS3 were also true of the 360 when it launched, but have been improved on over time. The same will likely be true of the PS3 as well. Additionally, while the PS3 is far behind in sales at this moment, it's important to note that the system reached the 1 million mark in Europe 2 weeks faster then the 360. In Japan, the PS3 is outselling the 360. This doesn't even take into consideration that virtually every news report has indicated the same thing. The rate at which the PS3 is selling is actually higher than the rate at which the PS1 and PS2 were sold. As we saw, the PS1 and PS2 were by far the dominant systems in the previous generations, so this rate of sales for the PS3 should be taken as a very good sign for the system. Also, problems with the handling of DRM on the Xbox 360 has already created a huge mob of angry 360 users, many of whom are threatening to jump ship or boycott the system. There is a thread of more than 60 pages on the official Xbox forums, an online petition, and another large thread on Major Nelson's page dealing with this issue. Basically, every time an individual changes their 360, whether due to having the system fail and be replaced or for some other reason, all the content they downloaded through Xbox Live becomes locked. At that point, they can only continue to use the downloaded content on the account it was originally downloaded on and only when they are actually logged into Xbox Live. So, families with multiple people using the same downloads on seperate accounts and people who suffer from connection problems, end up having content they paid for becoming worthless. This problem is the sole reason I decided not to upgrade to the 360 Elite. In any case, once this problem becomes more widely known, it's likely to hurt the 360's sales and give an opening to the PS3 to catch up. This is especially true considering that the PS3 allows downloads to be used on up to 5 different systems and their online service doesn't cost $50 a year to play online. Still, all these issues combined only help to show why it's still a long way off before a new console is crowned the winner of this generation.
Here are the links to the DRM issues plagueing the 360, in case you haven't heard about them yet.
http://forums.xbox.com/1159815/ShowPost.aspx
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/04/26/120-gb-hdd-and-elite-migration-how-to-video.aspx
http://www.petitiononline.com/fixxblm/
Also, in regards to the PS3 sales numbers, here are a couple more links.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6172233.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatured&tag=featurednews;title;3
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/27462/PS3-breaks-1m-sales-barrier-in-UK
http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/12-12-2006-4272.html
I'm not really going to argue on the Wii. The way I see it, the Wii is targeting such a different aspect of gaming then the other two consoles, that it's not really a competitor, but more of an independant category. Unlike the PS3 and the 360, the wii is focused more on family gaming and isn't concerned with nex-gen visuals. Plus, the large difference in it's price point and the price of both the other consoles and the exclusivity of all Nintendo titles, means that the Wii is likely to be purchased by many people that have one or both of the other consoles as well as by people that normally don't buy gaming consoles at all. Needless to say, I doubt the Wii sales will affect or be affected all that largely by the sales of the other two systems.
Here are the links to the DRM issues plagueing the 360, in case you haven't heard about them yet.
http://forums.xbox.com/1159815/ShowPost.aspx
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/04/26/120-gb-hdd-and-elite-migration-how-to-video.aspx
http://www.petitiononline.com/fixxblm/
Also, in regards to the PS3 sales numbers, here are a couple more links.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6172233.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatured&tag=featurednews;title;3
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/27462/PS3-breaks-1m-sales-barrier-in-UK
http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/12-12-2006-4272.html
I'm not really going to argue on the Wii. The way I see it, the Wii is targeting such a different aspect of gaming then the other two consoles, that it's not really a competitor, but more of an independant category. Unlike the PS3 and the 360, the wii is focused more on family gaming and isn't concerned with nex-gen visuals. Plus, the large difference in it's price point and the price of both the other consoles and the exclusivity of all Nintendo titles, means that the Wii is likely to be purchased by many people that have one or both of the other consoles as well as by people that normally don't buy gaming consoles at all. Needless to say, I doubt the Wii sales will affect or be affected all that largely by the sales of the other two systems.
Who really gives a flying crap. Sony obviously has made mistakes in several ways I dont need to delve into right now, and the same for the HD-DVD side. Regardless to either point of view the fact is that in reality BOTH formats are failing miserably. A standard DvD outsells a Blu-ray or HD-DVD nearly 50-1 (numbers should be still accurate) so in that sense both sides are getting their respective asses handed to them. Its like claiming that either one of two crap baseball teams are winning, because their higher than the other one, while when you open your eyes their close to 70 wins below the leading team in the league.
So until one side or another actually gets a lead in the larger market, people need to stop claiming victory when both sides are losing.
Thanks for the links! I also seem to recall that the hd-dvd addon doesn't do DD+ or TrueHD, but I'm unsure if that is still true. As far as I can tell the 360 re-encodes it to DD, DTS or WMA before outputting to the receiver. So movies like 300 are Dolby Digital or DTS even though the disk has TrueHD audio on it because there isn't a passthrough from the hd-dvd unit to the receiver itself.
For some of course that is fine. For others not so. err YMMV I mean. :)
There's at least 27 million HDtv's in the US. Somebody Somewhere gives a crap. Although it is too early to definitely call, I'd like to point you to the scribblings on the wall.
Listen, you all have to come down to the bare physics between the HD-DVD and the Blu-Ray. Notice this for a second. They both have HD capabilities, they both have caoabilities over the human eye. Blue-Ray has 1080p capabilites, HD-DVD has a little less. The human eye can basically only see to about 720p after that, you start to not notice anything special. The contrast ratio, brightness, nothing. The only thing that you need to choose is your screen size. If you have a 40' inch DLP screen, you may want the better quality simply because you will probably notice the artifacts in either one. Or you may not. Here is another thing you need to put into play. Your eyes and your ears....... are Analog............