MS on Blu-Ray - "Who needs it?"

[BobTheJoeBob]

I haven't used a disc since I got a high speed internet connection apart from xbox games that is.
If blu ray is going to be bypassed then everyone needs an internet connection capable of downloading 1080p movies in a reasonable amount of time (under 6 hours for sure?) which I don't think everyone will have for the foreseeable future though.

I have to agree when im using the blu ray discs I always think it feels a bit old fashioned

already

So you think Blu-Ray shouldn't be used because it would be harder to pirate? That just gives them a reason to use it.

 

[Cablephish]

Definitely sounds like a case of sour grapes.

My thoughts exactly.

Just cause they made a bad choice, they need to blow it off like it wasn't that big a deal.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

Physical copies, for me. The most I'd pay for a digital copy of a movie is $1-2. Add bonus features, a real package, etc. and I'll pay more.

 

[DeadLocked]

I haven't used a disc since I got a high speed internet connection apart from xbox games that is.
If blu ray is going to be bypassed then everyone needs an internet connection capable of downloading 1080p movies in a reasonable amount of time (under 6 hours for sure?) which I don't think everyone will have for the foreseeable future though.

I have to agree when im using the blu ray discs I always think it feels a bit old fashioned

already

So you think Blu-Ray shouldn't be used because it would be harder to pirate? That just gives them a reason to use it.

Well it's alright right now while we don't have the high speed internets but when we can download these films in a few hours or less then..... and by download I mean legit xD or stream even on your internet enabled tv of the future

EDIT: but again, I don't think everyone will have this kind of speed for the foreseeable future.

 

[tk_saturn]

Yeah, ok. Let me know when I can DL a full 1080p movie faster than just going down to the nearest Red Box and getting it for $1.50 a day.

It doesn't actually take long to download a full 1080p movie. You can also watch while you are downloading, you don't to have until it's finished.

Most video rental stores are shutting down and going to a postal online rental system, which obviously takes much longer to receive than downloading a film. Hence the reason BlockBuster has gone bust.

How many people already actually download their XBOX360 games? ie ISO's. Let's not forget all these PS3 rips shooting up, there's a lot of interest in the PS3 Jailbreak. So obviously Blu-Ray isn't needed like people suggest.

Let's not forget it's still going to be another few years before the next generation of consoles, I believe it's been suggested 2013 for MS and 2014 for Sony.

Steam also does pretty well, and people don't have an issue with not owning the physical media. XBLA/ PSN do well too. To me it's much better being able to run games from the HDD and not have to mess around with discs. What do people on here prefer, having 50 retail carts or having 50 games on a flashcart? I have all my retail games installed to the HDD, and haven't touched the discs since.

As for download speeds, they can do it in chapters. An average game is going to take you longer to complete, than it will to download. You only need the first chaper to start playing. It's like what MS did with Fable II GOD, with the first chapter being free. Works well if you ask me...

GOD isn't the future, it's already here.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

WTH do I want to download a 1080p movie for (even if it only takes 1 or 2 hours) when I can just take a 10 minute walk to the rental place, and have a more extensive selection of movies ranging from the early days of cinema than will be provided online for decades?

No thanks; sounds like BS and a waste of time. And for movies I actually like enough to buy, I have no desire to buy them as intangible data; I'd rather just rip it off. I'll buy a proper special edition of it, though.

 

[Jamstruth]

Physical copies, for me. The most I'd pay for a digital copy of a movie is $1-2. Add bonus features, a real package, etc. and I'll pay more.

How much is the average price of a new DVD in the US? $20 or so? You say you'd only pay $1-2 for a digital copy but think how much a movie costs to produce. DVDs don't cost $18 to produce. A lot of that money goes to paying the costs of the film. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a bigger price drop but not THAT drastic a drop. I'd say $10 would be a fine price for them.

My idea of currency may be wrong since I am from the UK. In my country DVDs typically cost £16 or so at release and digital downloads are about £10. Anyone with better knowledge of the value of currency in America is welcome to edit the values I've put in.

 

[Bladexdsl]

which would you prefer? a digital copy with nothing.......or this?!

 

[tk_saturn]

How much is the average price of a new DVD in the US? $20 or so? You say you'd only pay $1-2 for a digital copy but think how much a movie costs to produce. DVDs don't cost $18 to produce. A lot of that money goes to paying the costs of the film. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a bigger price drop but not THAT drastic a drop. I'd say $10 would be a fine price for them.

My idea of currency may be wrong since I am from the UK. In my country DVDs typically cost £16 or so at release and digital downloads are about £10

When it comes to retail highstreet shops, their markup is normally 50%, ie if they sell it for £16 then it costs them around £8.

There are massive overheads associated with retail stores.

People should just cut crap and smell the roses. Blu-ray is history as far as consoles are concerned, same goes for DVD discs. It's simple economics, they make so much more money on downloads. Let's not forget their primary motivation... to cut out the secondhand game market. I've brought 30odd games for my X360, but only 2 were new and the rest were from eBay. MS/ game publishers/ game developers have made very little from me even though I brought the games. The amount companies loose to piracy is peanuts compared to what they loose on secondhand sales, take a look at what EA are doing with DLC like the Cerberus Network. With downloads, they can also cut out the retailers, manufacturering costs and distribution costs. $$$ is what drives these companies, they existsto make money not make games.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

[You say you'd only pay $1-2 for a digital copy

Yes, and they'd be lucky to get that much; at least from me. Digital copies are worthless, as far as I'm concerned. If I like a movie enough to want to buy it (which isn't all that common), part of the appeal is having a collectors/special edition Blu-Ray or DVD with a ton of bonus features, commentaries, well-designed packaging, etc. I'd imagine 1080p video on a Blu-Ray would be able to have a higher bitrate than a downloadable copy (if there's even such a thing as official 1080p digital versions yet... everything I've seen on the Apple store and whatnot have been 720p pseudo-HD), since they'd want to make the download as small as possible.

Also, the way DRM and digital copyright is going, I don't really want to end up paying for digital copies multiple times over if I happen to want to watch a movie on a TV and portable device. Or hell, maybe one day they'll even charge if you want to watch the movie in your kitchen instead of your living room. At least with a physical disc, I can rip it and create my own digital copies.

 

[nando]

which would you prefer? a digital copy with nothing.......or this?!

well personally i have no space or desire to display or store something like that in my tiny house. i rather have digital.

 

[Deleted_171835]

Bluray is necessary unless Microsoft plans on using proprietary discs.
DVD's, even dual layered are too small to be used for the games that will be released. Digital distribution isn't good for movies because not everybody has a super-fast internet connection and some have bandwidth limits. Downloads are only feasible for small files like XBLA and WiiWare. Large games shouldn't be distributed digitally. Microsoft is going to have to make a proprietary disc format to accommodate the coming games in the next generation.

 

[Hadrian]

Thing is that most of the games you can buy on the 360 store are more than what they are in stores.

Lets pick CoD: World At War, it would cost you £29.99 to buy on the Market Place. Amazon has it brand new for under £20 and you get the full packaging.

I'm all for digital distribution but the prices have to be a lot less to be worth it.

 

[tk_saturn]

I still remember the PC games of old and miss them. Came in massive lovely boxes with chunky manuals. As nice as they were they took up too much space and in the end you binned them.

Times change.

The big mistake is that people assume they have a choice, they don't. Microsoft and Sony could both go the download only route for their nextgen consoles. The only thing which is holding them back from doing so already is not every one has an broadband internet connection, but if someone can afford the PS4 then they can afford broadband. If Sony was so attached to optical media, they wouldn't have the PSP Go. While a failure, the difference is most PS3's are all ready connected to the internet anyway as it's not a portable device.

Take a look, PC games are doing very well with digital downloads. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=256691 and that was last year.

Then have a look at this article on used games http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28350/S...mers_Budget.php reemeber that's based on the price of sales rather than how many games, and the price of used games are much lower than new games. Also see http://www.vg247.com/2010/06/27/report-use...ndustry-losses/

 

[TM2-Megatron]

I still remember the PC games of old. Came in massive lovely boxes with chunky manuals. As nice as they were they took up too much space and in the end you binned them.

Hey, I've still got most of those. The old MS Flight Simulator manuals are awesome.

QUOTE(tk_saturn @ Sep 22 2010, 05:46 PM) The big mistake is that people assume they have a choice, they don't. Microsoft and Sony could both go the download only route. The only thing which is holding them back is not every one has an broadband internet connection, but if someone can afford the PS4 then they can afford broadband. If Sony was so attached to optical media, they wouldn't have the PSP Go. While a failure, the difference is most PS3's are all ready connected to the internet anyway as it's not a portable device.

It's is true that there's no real choice for the consumers... but at that point I'll just stop buying (new, as I don't really mind arcade-type titles and retro being download-only since they had their chance years ago) games and rip them off 100%. What I can't rip off, I"ll do without. Unless these digital games are like $10, at most, rather than the $50-$70 they cost in the store. For that, I'd be willing to go with a download for a game I was only mildly invested in.

I still seek out PC games on optical media when they're available, though (not that I play a ton of PC games, but for stuff like Auran's Trainz Railroad Simulator and the like, I wait for it to show up in some specialty stores).

 

[Bladexdsl]

i miss that shit!

 

[Ritsuki]

It doesn't actually take long to download a full 1080p movie. You can also watch while you are downloading, you don't to have until it's finished.

Not everybody has fast internet connections. The only ways I can watch 1080p movies are : 1) Upgrading my internet connection, which is already 45$/month and only 600kb/s and paying a streaming service 2) Subscribe to an additional TV service and pay something like 6-8$ to watch a movie (I already have one, but it doesn't provides 'a la carte' movies and I'm boycotting the compagny who provides this service because of an issue we had) 3) Buying Blu-Rays 4) Download movies in 1080p, put them in my external hard drive, watch them with my PS3 (it means that I have to know in advance when I'll like to watch a movie, which is not that disturbing in fact)

Maybe Blu-Ray isn't needed in the gaming industry, but not everybody is ready to have dematerialized products. I also like the 'social' part of CDs. You can give them as present, borrow/lend them, kind of aesthetic on a shelf,...

 

[tk_saturn]

You need to seperate Blu-Ray for movies, and Blu-Ray for consoles. They are very different. There are 3 companies which have full control over the console market and how it works, they control everything on those consoles. For movies on the other hand, to some extent the consumer will decide what will happen.

I only have an 8M connection which costs me £17.99 a month, it maxes out at around 700Kbps, I simply shedule the downloads. Even between 11pm and 9am, I can still download 25GB per night. Usenet/ JDownloader work wonders, all Sony/ MS have to do is take up a few peering options. Take the PS3, it's attach rate is only 8 games per console and a similar amount for the X360.

You've got to say Blu-Ray for consoles is a bit of failure, the read speeds are too slow and most of the discs are under utilized. All it's really done is made the console more expensive. It's only really useful if you want to use your PS3 to play movies.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

Red Box, here in the states is a kiosk machine that stores DVD and Blu-Ray movies, and you can rent them by day.

Now, I really like the idea of that, it's like a cross between Netflix and Blockbuster, and there is literally one on ever damn corner. You go to McDonald's, Red Box. You go to Wal-mart, Red Box. You go to Wal-Greens, Red Box.

Now answer me this question... Why would I pay $3.99 for a 24 hour Digital rental from a place like Amazon VOD, when I can literally walk 3 blocks from my house and rent the same Blu-Ray for $1.50 a day?

 

[thebigboss14]

Blu-ray sound\s like a great step for Microsoft but for now its not going to happen. It's like saying that the wee is going to get one too and an upgrade of CPU & GPU. It sound crazy because they really don't care much about the power of the console. Don't you think that if all the consoles were equal everybody would buy the cheapest one? Every console has something special and that is what separates it from all the others.