Let’s Remove Its Heart!
March 12th, 2009A long week. Sorry for the lapse in posting.
I found the note that Sony is planning on continuing to include Blu-Ray in the PS3 a little puzzling - the BR player is essentially the main reason the PS3 is doing as well as it is. Why on earth would Sony compromise that in order to attempt to drop the price of the console slightly.
It’s been a running theme of this blog that Sony has, for all practical purposes, lost this generation of the console wars. This doesn’t, however, mean that the company can’t position itself effectively for the PS4 or whatever its successor will be called. Games like LBP will help fight a rearguard action that makes sure gamers are at least thinking about Sony when new devices come out. Keeping the BR player is probably the best way to keep it in the mind’s eye moving forward.
Posted in Geoff, PS3, Sony |
March 12th, 2009 at 11:56 am
How would this even work? All of the games are Blu-ray right now, so would they start a line of “PS3-lite” games that aren’t on blu-ray? That’s a good way to further confuse and segment your market.
March 12th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
“the BR player is essentially the main reason the PS3 is doing as well as it is.”
One could also say, “the BR player is essentially the main reason the PS3 is doing as poorly as it is.”
Without the BR drive, the PS3 could have launched day/date/price with the 360.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
I don’t know why this rumor (and its counterpart “MS will get a blu-ray drive” (formerly “360 will get a built in HD-DVD”)) persists. It makes no sense simply because, as Jeff said, it would make the entire PS3 library unplayable on it.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
@Nick,
Yeah, it’s a no brainer. I think the more interesting point is that a professional analyst actually believe it. It just goes to show how out of touch with this industry, even the industry “experts” are.
March 13th, 2009 at 2:37 am
cisco-
“One could also say, “the BR player is essentially the main reason the PS3 is doing as poorly as it is.””
That’s really beside the point at this juncture… Releasing a non-BR PS3 would effectively amount to releasing an entirely new system, as all past PS3 games would be incompatible with the new system (unless they were re-released in a “PS3-lite” format).
I think Sony has to live with their choices at this point. Yeah, using a BR drive, among other things, is certainly one reason why they lost this generation’s console war. At the same time, though, there’s little doubt that its inclusion won them the HD format war. That’s the silver lining for Sony (and it seems like quite a nice silver lining), and as Geoff says, they should be at least somewhat happy to be building off of the success of BR for their next system (assuming it even includes an optical drive), not looking for ways to further segment and confuse their own customers.
March 13th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
You’ve nailed it. The BR drive sunk the PS3, but BR in the PS3 is what won the format war. I’m just sad the PS3 was a sacrificial lamb in a larger war and whenever someone mentions the “success” of the PS3, I think it’s necessary to remember that the success came at a pretty high price.
March 14th, 2009 at 7:43 am
Yeah, it’s a no brainer. I think the more interesting point is that a professional analyst actually believe it. It just goes to show how out of touch with this industry, even the industry “experts” are.
I really can’t bring myself to think of most analysts as game industry experts. Their predictions always seem to me like they were pulled out of thin air, or else are so obvious I could have come up with them when I was 8.