Sony bigwig balks at "five year" Blu-ray demise prediction
Of late, there has been quite a bit of press circulating which suggests that Blu-ray isn't faring too well. At that head of those sentiments was a Samsung UK director named Andy Griffiths, who casually predicted that BD only had about five good years of life remaining. Unsurprisingly, senior VP of corporate communications at Sony Rick Clancy has hit back with an epic tale of why the format is actually not nearing its end. In fact, he suggests that Blu-ray will eventually live harmoniously with digital downloads, and he forecast that BD has "perhaps a decade" of growth to come. He also snuck in a few plugs for his PS3 and BRAVIA HDTVs, but more on the point, he essentially stated that not enough of the world had broadband (yet) for downloadable content to pose a real threat. Right, because the vast majority of the globe definitely has a few C-notes to lay on a BD player. We're only kidding (kind of).[Via SonyInsider]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Randall Lind @ Sep 25th 2008 7:13PM
Once Blu-Ray players fall in to the price range people can afford it should take off. If they continue keeping high it will fail.
squiggleslash @ Sep 25th 2008 7:21PM
I guess the industry must be in a state of panic, two Engadget articles on the same day trying to portray problems with Blu-ray as a myth. I'm wondering if tomorrow we're going to see a spate of planted articles in "real" media.
Gus @ Sep 25th 2008 7:29PM
I love it when team blu says downloads aren't a threat because such a vast part of the population doesn't have broadband access.
What about the vast part of the population that doesn't have a HDTV access, HD media is just as hamstrung and I wouldn't mind a bet that broadband availability to the masses will happen just as fast as HDTV penetration, add to that blu ray also being hamstrung by the need for 42" and bigger HDTVs to be really effective coupled with crazy pricing and the future is certainly not as rosy as the spin doctors at the BDA want to try and convince everyone of.
JimC @ Sep 25th 2008 9:05PM
GUS, the only real difference between you and NFinity, you're slightly less hysterical but still just as off on your "analysis". I was right on blu-ray winning the Format war and I also predicted it would take holiday season 2008 and into 2009 for blu-ray to ramp up. But if you want to continue your naysaying that's your choice. Just don't loose any sleep over it or you'll end up off the deep end like your fallen comrade...
Gus @ Sep 25th 2008 9:27PM
JimC, I am a blu ray owner now, so now more than ever I am entitled to my opinion, but can you explain the "naysaying" in my comment please.
I have stated what I see as fact, that is all, BR is very much hamstrung by the penetration of HDTV, just as much as downloads are hamstrung by broadband availability, there's no BS in that statement.
I have said it many times, I believe BR will be a viable niche market product with a reasonable market share, nothing more, it will certainly NEVER beat DVD IMO, but what I hate about BR the most is all the bull shit and blatant misrepresentation that gets spun as fact,and all the gullible followers that swallow the shitshake and support the format as if it was the Bible or something.
JimC @ Sep 26th 2008 2:06AM
Oh I don't know, the part where it seemed you implied downloads are actually a threat, perhaps I'm wrong in that but given your past comments I felt it was safe to assume you would with quiet desperation like to see blu-ray tank. Your comment, via your "bet" seems to suggest that downloads will be a competitor to blu-ray, when in fact you really cannot compare downloads to blu-ray unless of course you have no problems with quality. The main purpose of blu-ray is quality, perfect picture and sound. Anyone implying downloads will compete with that quality with today's internet infrastructure is delusional. We would need Gigabit speeds and terabyte monthly quotas to get reasonable equivalence, something that's just not gonna happen anytime soon.
P.S. You do after all have what appears to be an HDDVD case image as your avatar. When a negative comment combined with that comes from a known HDDVD fan, I will take liberty to assume certain things...
JimC @ Sep 26th 2008 2:13AM
In case you're wondering, this internet thing is an amazing tool
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/24/looks-like-the-blu-ray-release-of-iron-man-may-be-postponed/comments/14504903/
Perhaps this is why I read between the lines and saw your naysaying...
Pip @ Sep 26th 2008 10:28AM
The problem here is that you're saying that Blu-Ray is dependent on people owning HDTVs. While this is certainly true, the sales of HDTVs have been through the roof. You can't even find a non-HDTV at any of the major outlets these days unless it's a 15" CRT that you can put in the dorm room.
Downloads will never catch on simply because people like owning physical media, they like being able to instantly jump around, fast forward, and doing everything a DVD does. Also, broadband providers are increasingly putting limit caps on network usage per month. Some are as low as 10GB a month. There is just too much going against this to make it viable for the future of an HD format.
The only alternative for people who are buying up all these HDTVs is getting HD cable, or Blu-Ray. It's inevitable that when prices come down for Blu-Ray to match DVDs, it will simply replace it. If you've been watching the major chains, you've probably noticed that they've gone from a single display with typically a PS3 blu-ray player and a dozen movies, to a few aisles of Blu-Ray movies. Best Buy has begun consolidating their DVDs into fewer aisles while expanding their Blu-Ray aisles.
Could it still fail? Sure, but from my perspective, not likely.
Nick @ Sep 25th 2008 8:30PM
I'll be sticking with blu ray until comcast removes the BS bandwidth cap, thank you very much. Digital downloads won't be a threat to anyone until they can download 10 of them without their service provider dropping them.
Nick @ Sep 25th 2008 8:46PM
There is no way in hell that digital downloads will ever be as popular as physical media. Sure, for things like music, MP3's are much more popular than CD's, but that is because you can take the music with you wherever you go. With movies, that is not the case.
People love the feeling of "owning" a movie, and showing off their collection of DVD's/blu-ray discs. That feeling is gone if they instead have a collection of digital downloads. Downloading a blu-ray disc is HIGHLY impractical. Average broadband download speeds will required DAYS to download a 25GB blu-ray disc.
The day that digital downloads beats physical media will never come. Ever.
Ron @ Sep 26th 2008 8:29AM
100% agree.
Mr_Fizzlepop @ Sep 26th 2008 5:26PM
And as stated in an earlier post, digital downloads have more restrictive DRM attached to them and until that changes no matter how much bandwidth improves Physical Media will always have an edge.
Aside from having to spend money to store your digital downloads, the fact that you can't watch just what you want within a certain title when you want is enough for some people.
I played the special feature on the Speed Racer disc for a friend just yesterday so he could see the QuickTime Virtual Reality bubble photography used for the film.
Is anyone that downloads Speed Racer to watch even going to know about that? Even if they do know about it, will they be able to view the behind the scenes doc on it?
Again, what if I wanted to just show a great and entertaining scene from a movie?
There are many things, that are small potatoes to the majority of consumers, that digital downloads will likely never be on par with compared to physical media.
BluFan @ Sep 30th 2008 3:14PM
Digital downloads are simply not in a position right now to take any real marketshare away from Blu-ray. It's silly to think that with current bandwith rates that people will suddenly begin downloading all their HD content. There's simply too much information to be stored. Not to mention how scalable blu-ray is. I've actually been working with Warner Home Video on some projects and they're fully supporting the format.