Comments on: Why the Playstation 4 won't have Blu-ray

Sony hasn't made an official statement yet, but Don Reisinger believes the Playstation 4 won't have Blu-ray. Will Sony have something to say about that?

[elguerojose]

No, he really doesn't have a point (aside from the on on top of his head).

Don: Perhaps you can contribute a bit more to support your argument, other than sheer opinion (just like you offered with the recent gem about the 360 "winning" something).

"not as coveted in the Playstation 3 as some want to believe"; "It's not nearly as useful as the DVD that it's trying to supplant"; yadda, yadda, yadda. Lot's of opinion.

As far as "game developers have shown that DVDs can still be a fine solution" - let's set aside for a moment the laughable nature of this statement, and the examples that show just how quickly developers are moving beyond 8 GB. Are you seriously suggesting that we're all going to want the NEXT generation of game consoles 5, 10, (100?) years from now to still be limited by DVD storage?

Or perhaps you're suggesting no physical storage at all. Yeah, that's it, this brave new world where multi-gigabyte downloads aren't tedious affairs, and no service providers have usage caps, and everyone on the planet who wants to play videogames MUST be online, and MUST live in an area with this superfast broadband service. Yeah, that'll be here any day now.

Weren't you one of these people who was trumpeting the inevitable "victory" of HD-DVD, only to suddenly discover, AFTER Blu-ray won out, that the future was all downloads? You present the situation as if Blu-ray somehow must supplant DVD 100% in order to be relevant. Where's the logic in that, again setting aside the facts that show BD adoption actually outpacing DVD at the same point?

Better yet, why not just write your little pieces for some videogame wars blog, and leave it off of Cnet?

[mman74]

I agree with most of the comments made but not with the conclusions. Yes I agree that technology is catching up on us and that the Blu-ray as it will stand will become outdated technology. Yes I agree that digital downlaods are becoming more important. I don't believe this will lead to the demise of Blu-ray but think instead will evolve - if they need more storage they will probably add further layers.
But $ for $ unless HDD drives get very cheap and very big very soon, storing 30GB on a HDD per movie - and I know people who have hundreds of movies in their collection - is not just practical. Even if movies aren't that big now, the implication is that we expect them to be down the line with more detail added even with better encyrption in mind. Also to get Gigabit broadband to comfortably support this - which I am sure it will need - for US perhaps you are almost there, but most other parts of the world it is just rhetoric. Even on distributed download networks such as BT all you hear about are people ranting "SEED you *expletive* SEED!", when it is their ISP that is the bottleneck.
Finally there are the touchy-feely people, which I am one of, that must have some physical material as a badge almost that I bought the intellectual property rights to that movie or game - including artwork, promotion leaflets, manuals instructiosn etc.
I know that when analysts predict things we should usually take note - but they also said we would be in flying cars by now, and a few years ago they said that everyone would buy everything online and the traditional stores would be in demise, which was right before the tech-bubble burst so I will take this one with a pinch of salt.

[benjwah]

You know how I know this is wrong? Don wrote it.
But then, once I started reading the article, I realised it was wrong for a host of other reasons.
Put simply, it won't be hugely expensive to put a Blu-Ray player in in 3 to 5 years (and I think it'll be the full five years, not 3), games will still need to be sold from brick & mortar stores (cast your mind back to the 90's when we thought we'd be getting our groceries online by 99... Even if you do now, most of your friends still don't) and no, DVD's will not cut it as far as storage needs go for games in 5 years.
Comparing it to LaserDisc is pretty stupid (for one, it's already about a billion times more popular, doesn't use massive mile-wide discs and it's actually used outside Asia).
I'm inclined to think that Don Reisinger lives in a big city as well, because otherwise he'd know that internet connectivity varies HUGELY from place to place. It's just not feasible, and it won't be feasible in five years for a lot of people.
And are people just going to download games onto their machines? Unless every Playstation ships with a 10TB drive, people are going to start complaining the minute they have to delete a game to fit a movie in. They'll never complain like that if they have both the movie and game on a disc.
I could go on and on, but it's just fair to say Don's always wrong and that's what gets him hits.

[JohnPDublin]

This article is typical of delusional future predictions being passed off as informed comment. Although I am not accusing the author of this it strikes me that a lot of the download fanboys are salivating at the prospect of widespread downloading so that they can do what they have done to music - ie access lots of content for free and to some extent this explains much of the download ?lobbying?. However there are number of things against widespread downloading of HD content which are conveniently ignored by those vainly promoting the cause. The first and most important issue is that the internet backbone simply cannot support widespread downloading of HD content and won't be able to for years to come. This is a fact and no amount of wishing otherwise is going to change it. The second point is just as important - the movie industry will have seen what has happened to the music industry and will not open itself to the widespread piracy which that industry suffers from due to downloads and, just as importantly, will not put it's fate in the hands of i-Tunes etc who now wield enormous power in the music industry. They will, as they say, have ?seen them coming?.

[MrTea01]

"Granted, the next iteration of the Playstation will need a format to play games on and it might be easier for Sony to use Blu-ray, but I'm not so sure it has to. Microsoft has done just fine using DVDs with the Xbox 360"

Rage for the Xbox 360 is coming on two discs.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=239885

[billytech]

I don't believe that there will be anything like Blu-Ray in the next Playstation, and for a good reason.
It was a mistake THIS generation...Before you jump on me, read the logic.
The PS3, is at this moment, killing the BluRay player sales. Here is why. The XBox360 has just announced it's price cut, now making it cheaper than the Nintendo Wii. It's sales have skyrocketed, in the US and it has even outsold the Wii in Japan for the first time in it life. They are able to drop its price and stay PROFITABLE. The PS3 can NOT do the same without undercutting the BluRay Home player market. The inclusion of BluRay in the PS3 has now turned it into a double edged sword. If they want to be competitive with the 360 and lower their price- they will lose even more money than they are NOW on its hardware, and KILL the home market with the PS3, that already is priced lower than nearly all the home players at is money losing price point.
Tuff position to be in. don't you think?

[oOo_Krav_oOo]

I have indeed considered this. When I decided to get in HDTV (actually am shopping for one now) I then decided to go ahead and get a PS3 because I could get my long desired gaming in AND have Blu-Ray (originally leaned toward the 360 and have even bought games to play on my younger brother's 360). While strolling through Best Buy, on display I noticed a $400 BD player and thought WHAT! I can get a PS3 for the same price. So the BD player in the PS3 is what sold me; otherwise, i'd get my beloved Halo playing machine AND a BD player. It comes down to affordability to the consumer.

[RyMoeller]

I can't understand the blind assumptions that are made regarding digital distribution of video content. Who really wants to fiddle with DRM? Has the consumer suddenly decided that portability is bad thing? Wouldn?t you rather own the disc as opposed to license the content? And why put all your eggs in one basket only to have the hard drive crash? Never mind the fact that the internet service providers are placing caps on the amount of data you can download.

Currently, and in the foreseeable future, movie downloads are nothing more than a niche market- a dwindling market if these challenges are not addressed.

[Captain-Atari]

If HD movie downloads are a niche market then Blu-ray sales compared to standard dvd are also a niche market. Sony's lust for patent royalties have clouded there fiscal judgment. Blu-Ray success is directly tied to how deep Sony's pockets are. How long can they afford to pay off studios to produce movies for BD and how long can they sell PS3's at a loss. Microsoft and Nintendo are making money on their consoles early in each products life cycle. In the Wii case it was profitable from the start. The compromises Sony made to include BD technology have made the PS3 a rather gimped game system. On many PS3 games copies of the same data are stored multiple times on the disk because the PS3 can't decode compressed data fast enough on the fly and the slow data transfer rate of the BD player. If the PS4 sees the light of day it's got to be a Gamer 1st system. All aspirations of being a movie player have to be put on a back burner.

[tbone2110]

This article assumes way to much and is unrealistic...

First the majority of people won't spend more that $15-$30 for internet access which will get you around 756kbs if your lucky which in my cases took around 5 hours to download the first x-files first movie and that was just standard definition. it would probably take a day and a half to download a blue ray quality movie.......gag.

Second in a short time blue-ray's will be affordable and common place like dvd are now prices drop fast in technology and blue-ray's are backward compatible and can even upscale to HD resolutions.

Third as a tech site you should already know by now 200GB blue-ray's are right around the corner from tdk http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/12/tdk-hard-at-work-on-8-layer-200gb-blu-ray-disc/ and pioneer is working on a 400GM disk http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pioneer-unveils-400gb-blu-ray-disc-416837 so in about 7 years you could have a blue-ray player/recorder that could be 500GM storage in a PS4. Since I don't believe we will all have 100MBS down anytime soon in a price range consumers can afford and most people do want a hard copy of there movies,music and games this sounds like a article just to get peoples attention and not a real future outlook. (granted it may be another storage device instead of a blue-ray we will have a original or copy in some form.... perhaps a Crystal drive or mini 2-terabit keychain drive)

[lilmdawg]

PS4 without blu ray is not going to happen its not like sony to ditch ps3, ps2 , and ps1 with compat. like microsoft did

[lilmdawg]

i like cheese by the way

[lilmdawg]

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psn id = lilmdawg

[manamb]

First of all please excuse my bad English, trying to learn the language.
OK, Blu ray will die someday, nothing last forever, but you need to see the complete picture, technology continues to advances in all areas not just comunications!, yes in a few years we will heve better broadband connections but maybe we'll have also new TV resolutions, maybe 4K x 2K resolution, that will need a lot more capacity that what we are talking about that will be able to handle 1080p with no problemo, and also storage capacity 5TB! ha ha ha, lets say 50 to 100 TB, could this size of storage be mainstreem for average people? I personally have more than 300 movies I really like to watch in all its glory, so when something bigger and better comes in, I'm sure I'll jump in to see it that way bigger and better and don't forget to mention the great feeling of media ownership (my LP's, my DVDs, my Blu Rays).
But maybe there will be a provider who will offer me all the movies I like (even if some of them are not so very well known) on his server ready to be played and on all its glory. not with crappy compression artifacts regardless of the resolution.

[Jefferson101]

Media downloads would kill the electronics stores like EB. Has anyone thought of this yet?

[izmickey]

dd13reis<== I think you are one biased ignorant fool. Sound like you have something against either blu-ray or ps3 and to be honest i don't care. People who are biased and narrow minded don't ever seem to get the big picture.

Sony could make a ps4 with blu-ray and a huge 5 terabyte drive or a 20 terabyte since your so convinced that its media storage will be sooooo cheap. In the next gen console blu-ray would not cost sony as much as it does now.

I personally would like to have both options. I would like to download movies and music into my ps3 but also games......If the storage device were to malfunction and i had to re-download all of my content again......that my friends is not convenient. That's why i would just go ahead and insert my disc and alas no longer will i have to wait 30 mins or so to download the movie AGAIN!! See having OPTIONS is more convenient. Come on guys, if you have a girl over for example you're going to make her wait for the download so you can see the movie or just pop in the disc????

For people who drop the "cd's are inferior to downloading card".......come on really??????? What song take longer than 5 min to download or how much space does it take up, what 6 MB OR 12MB.

People deserve options and shouldn't be limited to only downloads for the future. Think of consumers first and not what you ignorant people or big CEO's or CHAIRMAN think what's best for us.

One more thing Don the WRITER......do you wipe you're mouth when feces like this comes out of your mouth?????

[NymphetamineCure1]

I'm sorry but Blu-ray is probably going to be in the Playstation 4. I say this because if you look at all the other technological entertainment systems and its uses, over a short period of time they go cheaper. Meaning that Blu-ray will become much cheaper and many more people will become buying it more.

[yokokingdommusic]

I don't think that HD VOD and HD Downloads are the same.

HD VOD - Cable has a high quality drop from the company to you. There is a huge difference between watching an HD TV show and an HD movie from your cable provider than with a Blu-Ray movie.

HD Downloads (i.e. Netflix) - While this is a better quality route, you have to plug your computer into your TV just to watch it, and most computers are not equipped with the necessary hardware to output quality surround sound, which is yet another reason to be in HD in the first place.

As of now, you can't beat the traditional player and disc. You just can't. And until the industry bumps up it's standards of data transmission for TV and hardware capabilities for computers, it's going to stay this way.

[maafeustyle]

I agree with Don, I don't believe that the PS4 will have the Blu Drive. If there's something that I've seen Sony do with all of their systems including the PS3 is that they adapt themselves to the latest technology out there. Playstation 1 - CD's everyone thought this was the best thing ever at the time. How can it possibly get any better than that? Playstation 2 came along - DVD's people loved the fact that bigger capacity was available and thus making it affordable today with systems coming standard with the drives. I still remember when a DVD Burner 2X had a price tag of 500 bucks, technology chances, thus bringing out Playstation 3 tagging along with the Blu-Ray Discs.

It's only a matter of time that they either bring out something that can hold more data, thus making higher media content games within the 3 - 5 years; or the Blu-ray technology becomes cheaper and it would become Sony's bread and butter (besides the Bravia TV's of course). If there's anything I hated about the Blu-ray technology, is that regardless of the system you had before (unless you had an HDMI Port) is that you needed a TV big enough to appreciate the "experience" along with the Drive itself.

I still remember the ad for DVD's, tell you about the higher content VS VHS tapes easier to rewind, now the come out with Bluray, and they're famous quote "the future is Blu". There could be some truth to that, all people need to do is wait till they have something better out that would drive the cost of these discs down to a more affordable price.

[zodgen]

Blu-ray will soon take overcause game developers need more disk space to create more dialogue and a richer gaming experience, its proven that blu-ray discs have a potential maximum capacity 0f 200 gb and they still are looking to expand even that and blu ray can currently have up to EIGHT layers just on one side of the disc, think about that people that adds up to 400gb! hey, dont take my word for, check it for yourself. that makes microsofts pathetic dvd game rip to hardrive seem useless. i say move over hd dvd!

[zodgen]

this a seperate comment regarding the supposed high speed internet that will replace bluray, most internet service providers nowadays are looking to throttle the internet because there are too many people downloading and uploading content esp. movies. some even install servers that can at some point cut down bandwith usage. if you constantly download 1080p movies(which can sometimes be as high as 30gb or more) from the internet your isp will notice and in some cases call you or find a way to slow down your internet speed even tough you pay for high speed. dont forget that some of them give you a maximum download limit, in my case 500gb and youre notified via phonecall or email when you reach that limit. again dont take my word for it do your own research. trust me people, disc storage especially blu-ray will always be around