Recent Comments:
April NPD: GTA IV, Mario Kart Wii race to the top {Joystiq}
May 16th 2008 4:17AM GTA 4 was not a system selling title. Strange that only 180k or so would be sold in a month when you'd expect people would be getting their income tax refund checks... (not the $600 "rebate").
More research asserts that Blu-ray adoption isn't apt to surge soon {Engadget HD}
May 14th 2008 11:26PM "I'll take digital downloads or DVD over Blu right now."
Why? (not the DVD part, but digital downloads)
The devices that are standalone and do not require a PC are few and far between, and hardware is nearly as expensive as blu-ray players with lower quality and have skimpy offerings, if any, for sale. The money you save on the player goes away on your rental costs- you're already renting DVDs, and blu-rays don't cost any more (blockbuster, netflix for now); downloads are $2+ and far more limited in what you can do with them.
If the companies looking at downloads offered purchase plans, not just rentals... offered non-drm'ed videos (or videos that otherwise can't be taken away from me... see MSN music for what I mean) and offered videos at a price point that was competitive ($12 a month at blockbuster.com amounts to about 8 discs a month, plus 2 instore exchanges) then I could see the attraction in downloads. But the current offerings leave much to be desired.
More research asserts that Blu-ray adoption isn't apt to surge soon {Engadget HD}
May 14th 2008 11:04PM "some people at AVS that work at retails stores already received information from Speakercraft and other sources that Sony has an already set date to drop Blu-Ray within next 2 years and fully commit to digital downloads to fight Microsoft."
1 person at AVS claimed this rumor.
Here's the thread for people to peruse:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1027162
Why would a SALES REP FROM A SPEAKER COMPANY be privy to information about anything Sony was going to do, particularly something very unrelated to the speaker business?
More research asserts that Blu-ray adoption isn't apt to surge soon {Engadget HD}
May 14th 2008 10:51PM $200 in the month of December... if Warner jumps to HD-DVD, Fox and Disney and Lionsgate Follows, why do you think the HD-A3 would continue to fall after Toshiba won the format war? Why would Toshiba need to lose hundreds on every player?
The price jumps would've happened through discontinuing older models & releasing newer, pricier ones. No more Toshiba 1080i models; the A30 and A40 would've been sold at the $300+ price point. Venturer players would be released and sold for $200-250. A2/A3/D2/D3 models would be discontinued.
More research asserts that Blu-ray adoption isn't apt to surge soon {Engadget HD}
May 14th 2008 8:28PM (sigh).
My maroon-coat is in the closet. I still have my HD-DVD player but won't buy another HD-DVD except maybe Star trek season 1 if it hits $50 on Amazon. HD-DVD got me into high def, and eventually I bought blu-ray because I thought it was an inevitable victor. Paramount changed things but not as much as I had thought/hoped for at the time.
If in "alternative universe", Warner and the rest chose HD-DVD, those $100 players? Gone. The HD-A3 would be back up to $300 price levels, or it would be discontinued.
By now Toshiba might've announced the HD-A40 player and it'd retail for $400 or so. They'd probably offer an XA3 player or other variation. The low end market? They'd leave that to Venturer, but those players would be $250 and up. You're forgetting... TOSHIBA LOST HUNDREDS ON EACH PLAYER when they sold it for $100-$200. With the format war over, they weren't going to keep subsidizing players; they'd allow the market to adjust based on regular market pressures & developments. If they wanted to ensure HD-DVD would survive, they'd have to entice other CEs to join them in making players, and at $150 prices, you weren't going to see many CEs make these players that cost $300+ to make.
Disc prices would be more expensive but with the "twin" format, it would at least be somewhat more user friendly. Without TL51 or enhancements to bandwidth, we'd still see assorted limitations- reduced PQ and AQ, fewer features.
I'm not a big blu-ray fan, even now, but a lot of the attacks on the format are scurrilous. We're in the "Early Adopters" phase in the "Innovation Adoption curve" of Blu-ray. We're just barely past the "Innovators" stage (first 2.5%) and are not at the point of the "Early Majority stage" (occurs after 16%)
http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_rogers_innovation_adoption_curve.html
More research asserts that Blu-ray adoption isn't apt to surge soon {Engadget HD}
May 14th 2008 4:37PM Margins of error do not grow much by surveying more and more people, but the result (more HD-DVD owners than blu? almost as many standalone owners as ps3 owners?) tells me that this survey isnt as representative of people as it could be.
Rumor: 360 dashboard update to support game installs, 'motion sensor devices' [update] {Joystiq}
May 14th 2008 12:17PM How about letting people use the hd-dvd add on to read game discs, especially if your main dvd drive is borked.
Viva Piñata and Scene It? sequels are real! {Xbox 360 Fanboy}
May 12th 2008 1:51PM I'm hoping the VP sequel has an easier interface and less busy work. I played it briefly, enjoyed it but never played it again.
Cinematical Seven: When an Animated Series Goes Live Action ... and Gets it Right {Cinematical}
May 9th 2008 12:40PM There is no way TMNT should be on a list of decent live action adaptations of the cartoons. The "choreography" of the fighting was abysmal. The most recent CGI movie was eleventy better than "go ninja go".
120GB HDD pricing analyzed and it's overpriced {Xbox 360 Fanboy}
May 8th 2008 1:17PM The bottom line is that with the ps3 console, I could pay as much as $80 (if I didn't try very hard to find it cheaper) to get a retail 2.5", 120gb sata drive. This is $100 cheaper than the xbox 360 upgrade. This price difference is simply insane, and wipes out any and every price advantage that the 360 has over the ps3.
