Blu-Ray The Flavour of The Moment

News from all over seems to indicate that Blu-Ray has been accepted by entertainment media groups. wingman358 writes "The technology research group 'Forrester Research' has declared the Sony-led next generation Blu-Ray format the winner over HD-DVD, led by Microsoft. Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler says, 'After a long and tedious run up to launch, it is now clear to Forrester that the Sony-led Blu-Ray format will win.'" Meanwhile, the format continues to improve. mimio writes "Hewlett-Packard Co. on Wednesday raised the stakes in a battle between high-definition DVD formats by urging a group led by Sony Corp. to include features important to PC makers and users." Finally, Tibor the Hun writes "Apparently Warner has switched from backing HD-DVD to Blu-Ray. What impact might this have on Microsoft's decision to use HD-DVD on the Xbox 360?"

A God Has Fallen?

[geomon]

What impact might this have on Microsoft's decision to use HD-DVD on the Xbox 360?"

I'd say that the impact will be to let people in the industry know that you can buck Microsoft and not suffer immediate penalty. If everyone else is in the Bluy-Ray camp and Microsoft isn't, then Microsoft will not look like it is leading the industry - an image they have been cultivating for nearly two decades.

This is an image impact for Microsoft. They will have to make HD-DVD work as a standard or accept defeat and use Blue-Ray in their next iteration of XBox.

I think this will HELP Microsoft

[TheGuano]

vis a vis Xbox360. After all, one of their #1 concerns with the console is to prevent piracy. If HD-DVD flopped generally, then there would naturally be fewer people with players, and specifically burners. I'm sure that would put some kind of dent in "casual" piracy of HD-DVD content.

And it's not like it really matters that much for a console - MS probably wouldn't mind if it was absolutely proprietary (like DC's GD-ROM was *supposed* to be), as long as they can play standard DVDs. Maybe when production costs go down, they'd even support both Blue-ray and HD-DVD.

HD -DVD is led by Toshiba, not MS

[Brad_sk]

>...declared the Sony-led next generation Blu-Ray format the winner over HD-DVD, led by Microsoft...
C'mon get the facts right...

Sounds like Dreamcast

[randomErr]

What impact might this have on Microsoft's decision to use HD-DVD on the Xbox 360?

Anyone played a Dreamcast? It was Sega's last from gaming system. It has awesome graphics, sound, and a native modem with an optional network card. One of its main failing was the media. Sega bet on a GD-Drive. GD drives was a modified CD-ROM that could fit nearly a gig of data on a special CD format. GD-Drives had the advantage of being cheap to make (only a few pennies more then coventional CD-ROM's) and similar storage compacity to DVD's system.

So why do I bring this all up? The Dreamcast didn't fail because of the hardware. It failed because it didn't have a good library of title at the US launch. It Japan the Dreamcast sold great for years; and I believe a few RPG's and budget games are still being made for the Dreamcast.

If Microsoft truley wants to thier HD format they have to have critical mas to do it with. Microsoft needs at least 4 solid games the day of the launch and 20 games by Christmas*. Without that volume Xbox 360 will almost certainly fail.

* The reason for the footnote is that Sega Saturn had 4 poorly designed games at launch and 10 titles before Christmas and failed.
Sony Playstation has 4 good (for the time) games at launch and within 30 days had 20 games. About 5 to 10 games kept coming a week for a very long time after the original thirty day period.

HD-DVD being led by Microsoft?

[GodBlessTexas]

Funny, I thought it was Toshiba who was leading the HD-DVD format. Also, Warner has not dropped HD-DVD. Like most studios, they are now backing both formats. This now means that the winner of the HD format war will be the first group to get widespread hardware saturation into homes and win shelf space on retailer shelves. Those two go hand in hand with each other. At this time, that's most likely going to be Blu-Ray. With the PS3 launch somewhere on the horizon, and the ensuring massive sales that have been a art of the PS1 and PS2, it is only a matter of time before Blu-Ray delivers a knockout blow to HD-DVD.

But that doesn't mean HD-DVD couldn't stage a serious coup by getting standalone HD-DVD hardware players out the door, but the price of the PS3 will be easier to swallow than shelling out $400-500 for a first generation standalone HD-DVD player for consumers used to spending less than $100 for a DVD player and serious money on a gaming console. The XBOX 360 launching before an HD-DVD drive is available is certainly not helping the HD-DVD format.

Re:A God Has Fallen?

[DrStrange66]

This is just plain dumb. Until one of the formats actually mainstreams no winner can be declared. It is ridiculous to declare Sony the winner when their product has yet to reach the consumer. There are articles stating that Blu-Ray will lose badly simply because the name. HD-DVD is pretty clear that it's a High Density DVD. Everyone knows what a DVD is. HD-DVD solely in name screams compatibility to the consumer. My prediction is that the war is far from over.

Re:MS has NOT decided on HD-DVD for Xbox 360

[ronanbear]

Blu-Ray will be in the PS3. If HD-DVD beats Blu-Ray in the format war then the PS3 is gonna have an expensive not particularly useful component. Sony are using the PS3 to push Blu-Ray but they are taking a huge risk by putting their eggs in one basket. M$ are neutral to formats because they aren't tied into either. But they know that a HD-DVD win would be good for Xbox 360 so hence they are supporting HD-DVD. If they supported Blu-Ray they would be helping Sony. In that sense M$ won't want the HP changes made to Blu-Ray to give HD-DVD another advantage to PC users (lower cost is the other major one).

Re:A God Has Fallen?

[Delphiki]

Actually, the XBox was the first console to offer HD video, the Xbox 360 will be the first console to offer HD video in all games, and the PS3 will be the first console to play HD movies off of optical discs. I usually don't nitpick like that, but there seem to be a lot of misconceptions about the Xbox 360, so I thought it was worth pointing out.

Re:Excellent

[utnow]

You know... I'd be willing to make a wager that one of the main reasons Blue-Ray is getting it's support, is because it's got a cool name.

HD-DVD doesn't sound like anything new. Personally, every time i hear the term, I get an image of a matte black player with shiny gold accents (think early 90's CD players).

Everyone knows that if it's got a blue light on it, then it goes faster anyway!

Blu-ray requires a JVM, Microsoft don't do JVMs

[mroshea]

To support Blu-ray, Microsoft's player would have to use Java to render the Blu-ray disks user interface - interactive menus etc (current DVDs use pre-rendered MPEG menu elements with very simple control interfaces). Does Microsoft want to depend on a Java Virtual Machine for anything? Like hell they do.

HP's current "appeal" to the Blu-Ray Assoc also includes a request for Blu-Ray to support iHD, the XML based menuing definition language used by HD-DVD. The Blu-Ray Assoc (including HP!) did a side-by-side eval of iHD vs BDJ (Blue Ray Java) and they heavily favoured the BDJ solution. If iHD was adapted as an alternative (or replacement for BDJ) MS wouldn't have to use/license Java. Then they might consider supporting Blue-Ray (even though it would still hurt like hell). HP are doing Microsoft's bidding on this one, no doubt.

I imagine Sun have been on the blower to Sony & company on more than one occasion since HPs 'appeal' yesterday.

(blogged about this earlier -
http://www.xlml.com/aehso/2005/10/21/blu-ray-requi res-a-jvm-microsoft-dont-do-jvms/ [xlml.com])

Re:A God Has Fallen?

[Sancho]

Xbox360s will be shipping with a regular DVD drive. Microsoft said that future revisions may have HD-DVD. This brings up two points:

1) Few if any games will ever be made to utilize HD-DVD because it effectively requires buying a new console. This significantly reduces the market for the game, as not many people will buy the new console.

2) Given 1, the only useful purpose for an HD-DVD XBox360 is to watch HD-DVDs. If HD-DVD as a format doesn't take off, Microsoft simply won't include HD-DVD drives in later revisions. They will, of course, have the option to include Blu-Ray, and could do so I suppose.

Impact on the XBOX 360...

[Kaldaien]

Well, first of all the XBOX 360 at launch is manufactured with a standard DVD drive. In truth, it makes no difference which format Microsoft ultimately choses, since they will have to manufacture new units using the new drive. Furthermore, the XBOX 360 does not have HDMI/DVI output, so it will be impossible to play high definition video to begin with (since the proposed HD disc formats all use HDCP). The impact will be minor, since the consumer will have to pay a premium for an HDMI/DVI compatible unit with the appropriate drive and who knows when that'll happen. People interested in the XBOX 360 for HD playback will just have to wait, while gamers will likely buy the launch unit and never buy a new unit just because it supports HD video playback.