Two wrongs makes evil

I know that I'm a real pain in the ass with my standards oriented thinking and some of you don't give a flying fuck about what I think.

Earlier I mentioned how Sony if pushing down standards with it's marketting planning, PSP and PS3 consoles.

It seems that Sony is on a rampage to destroy everything and in the side make alot of people lose shitloads of money.

I am talking about High Definition, as many of you know, Sony adopted the Blu-Ray standard against HD-DVD, HD-DVD being the format to replace DVD smoothly, more capasity, lower cost to manufacture, low cost to manufacture readers and good downwards compatibility without extra hardware (i.e. can read CDs and DVDs out of the box).

Blu-Ray, costs more to make, isn't downwards compatible without additional hardware, readers cost more since there is atm only Sony who makes the readers.

Sony bought MGM to get it's hands of a huge collection of Hollywood classics to redistribute them in Blu-Ray format, to forward it's own Blu-Ray standard and to forward PS3 sales (since at current it is the only Blu-Ray reader on the horizon). If PS3 becomes the big one out of the next-gen consoles, Sony might just have it's way and push a non-standard on to the market, just like Microsoft did with it's Windows and IE (having largest market share really helps you do these things), and look what it left us with, OS that has alot of bugs with more and more software developers turning to Open Source and Standards against Microsoft and we have malfunctioning products because both sides (MS and Developers) are stubborn and want to do things their way.

So, if you care about any of this, you don't buy Blu-Ray movies at all, and don't even buy PS3 (this is not actually neccessary, BUT the money coming in with PS3 games and consoles are going to fuel the Sony engine to destroy yet again one standard [it tried it late 90s with digital cameras and memory sticks, and again with Mini-disks early 2k]).

Now, you can post comments but I don't think we need any flaming here, everybody has opinions, but I'm not asking just for opinion, I'm asking you rational and logical thinking in a very real situation.

Quote from Defrag

Remember VHS v Betamax?

Unfortunately I do remember, very clearly, but god I'm so reliefed that we don't have the pressure of learning from past experiences. Now I know you don't mean that we just should sit back for the ride where compenies just throw different products at us like they did back then. We have a opening to punch either one away, and why we should not take it?

Quote from Defrag

So uh, should we buy the Xbox 360 instead? After all, Microsoft is a totally awesome and moral organisation that never bullies other companies and swats people to death with its huge business resources.

I know MS is THE big evil, but atleast this once they have stood beside a standard that is HD-DVD, and they are not trying to manipulate markets to further improve the sells of Xbox 360 like Sony is. So I'm going to let this one thing slide for the greater good.

Quote from Defrag

Also, I think you're perhaps being a touch premature with your judgement on blu-ray / HD-DVD. I'll reserve judgement until the day that the products are on the shelves, and everyone can see for themselves. From what you say, HD-DVD sounds like the more logical choice, but maybe there are other factors that will swing the debate.

Nope, it's already been decided by DVD Forum to support HD-DVD for just the reasons I mentioned earlier, DVD Forum is a cousil of several corporations (Sony and Microsoft included) that decide the next standard, trying to avoid the VHS vs. BETAMAX war from the 1980s.

So why we should ignore all standards and just let big corporations like Sony decide for us? Do not forget that Standards are developed to further the consumer experience and help developers do their job more easily through unified laws and ensure that everything works, which in the end pays back to the consumer by saving him money and to developer having more satisfied customers.

Even tho I don't completely agree with the last two posts, I'd have to say that as long as you just buy the console and the games Sony shouldn't have upperhand on the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war, if the Blu-Ray movies don't sell the studios won't support the format.

I don't give a fuck what format my console uses since I still have to guy console specific games, but with movies it is different, with computers and dvd players reading the discs, and dvd writers and their standards it is going to be a hell for the next few years if people have bad attitude, but I'll be laughing my ass off when you have two different disc readers on your computer, two different consoles to watch two kinds of formats that you have a shelf full just waiting for either one of the formats to drop out and you are pissed by the fact that you didn't listen to me, and you had to spend several hundred dollars for half-baked half-assed products just because you were too comfort seeking whiner to do something about it.

But like it has been many times before, a select group of people will try to stop the inevitable just because 90% of the consumers think that their vote don't count.

Quote from DanielAragon

thats free market. companied can do what ever they lawfully want.just deal with it.

Yeah and morals and laws keep me from robbing a bank although it is physically possible.

If you haven't noticed yet, if people stop buying something, that something disappears very fast, it's a buyers market actually, so why not try to make an impact? When did people become sheep?

Quote from mike-0

[Blocked Image: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/miscgfx/dreamcast.jpg]best ever. nobody bought it, and it went away. it was so much better than the other consoles of its time (ps1 and n64), but it was so ahead of its time that people didnt buy it, and it dissapeared of the market. its the most short-lived console i can think of.

It's close call between Sega Dreamcast and Atari Jaguar

Both consoles ahead of their time, Jaguar was just crap and had zero developer support, dreamcast was a holy grail.

Quote from Zacker

I generally prefer standards, so on that point I do agree with you. Your whole post is however based on that HD-DVD is better and more standard than Blueray is.I am of the opposite opinion, I believe that Blueray is the best standard. A Blueray single layer disc can hold 25 gb data while a HD-DVD can only hold 15 gb. As far as I can it is the Blueray which is superior there?

Furthermore there is also quite a bunch of companies supporting Blueray:

So the extra capacity makes you decide that some format is better even if it is not in any way backwards compatible (yet), costs more to manufacture, needs completely new manufacturing plants (this is going to be extremely expensive on long term), doesn't have working Blu-Ray R format nor inexpensive writer yet, over a product that just released a 45gig version (blu-ray double layer can hold 50gigs), can be manufactured in the same manufacturing line as normal DVDs, all readers are completely backwards compatible, and already has a working HD-DVD R format and working writers (don't know about them being inexpensive tho).

I love that logic, but granted, even tho the Hollywood studios have said that they don't need more capasity than HD-DVD can offer for HD Movies, PCs and growing game capasity will need all the extra capasity they can get.

And even if Sony has got some supporters (many of them I recognize being HD-DVD supporters also), the fact is that HD-DVD supporters (studios) are going to push for the Q4 2005 release and already are going to release 85 Movies on HD-DVD format before the years end, which leaves Sony with only one studio (Disney) aside from the ones Sony owns that are not releasing anything.