*** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread *See Post 957, p. 32* - Page 3

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

Actually they don't. The games listed, with the exception of Ratchet & Clank and Gran Turismo: Prologue, they are as yet unproven titles. Titles like GTA are the titles that sell systems. With exclusive and non-exclusive titles like Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Bio Shock, Condemed 2, Halo 3, Mass Effect, PGR 4, Too Human, Turok, Assassin's Creed, Timeshift, F.E.A.R... , MS has little to fear from Sony's lineup.

While development costs have certainly been a factor in part of the change, Sony's inability to execute is more to blame. I haven't seen any of the MS exclusive titles jumping ship. As far as Sony's second party developers, that number has dwindled.

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Guys, you are aware that there is a Video Game Software forum here, right?

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This is true, but believe it or not, it definately impacts the HD-DVD Blu-Ray fiasco.


Halo 2 sold like, 7 million copies. There are about half that number of PS3's sold.


Grand Theft Auto will sell violently more on 360 than on PS3. And that used to be Playstations main title back in the day.

Sony has been LOOSING exclusives. Not gaining.

And once again, the majority of PS3's available this holiday, if not the only version available, will be the $600 version.



And then the Wii doesn't even play DVD's. What the hell.

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Actually, ANY title is unproven until it releases and garners acclaim, even sequels. Most of the titles I mentioned in that list are by developers with excellent track records.

As mentioned, half of those will be available on PS3. They'll both have great games, no doubt. But I still think that as far as exclusives go, PS3 has the better and more interesting lineup this Christmas.

Well I can think of two recent ones: Kane & Lynch & Crossfire were both previously exclusive to 360. There's also talk that Bio Shock is coming early next year. Anyway, it only looks bad on Sony's end because they had a monopoly on exclusives in the previous generation that are no longer financially feasible this generation.

So not Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo or Final Fantasy? Speaking of GTA, the newest rumor is Sony may be purchasing Rockstar (who's making a couple of exclusive games for them). Should be interesting if that pans out.

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Sorry 'bout that, Paul!

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Thanks for reply post #51, David. My lingering negative viscera over becoming an Amazon Marketplace seller is partly driven by my experiences as a buyer: those experiences have been much better with B&Ms selling online via Marketplace (i.e. Spun, Second Spin and Wherehouse) compared to individuals. It reached a point wherein I willingly pay small premiums to those merchants over an unknown because I know the product will be in as-advertised condition and ship promptly.

I'll give it a try with a couple discs. Just got the Reign Of Fire and Enemy Of the State BDs and am selling the SDs. I'd surmise those kinds of titles--older and which therefore have a glut already for sale--might move slower, if at all.

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Well, I think a key thing to remember with that data is that it included small children, people who hadn't purchased a PS3 yet, and failed to indicate if the person responding actually used the PS3. Meaning parents who bought it for kids and never actually paid attention to what it did. So if you include those 3 groups, it is conceivable that they don't know.

But the thing I'm having a problem with is that they don't know, which indicates to me some lack of interest in HD media.

Don't get me wrong though, I don't think it'll be persistent, I think it'll just take time.


Apologies in advance folks!

I agree with Thomas on this subject.

As far as those 3 titles go, Konami's signaling they intend to move over to supporting the 360, but haven't commited to this MGS on the 360 yet.

Gran Turismo can't keep selling forever, there's only so many times you can sell the same exact game.

Final Fantasy's lost alot of steam, no breakout since FF7, and Square's indicating an intent to go Multi-platform again, repeatedly emphasizing that their newest engine is easily portable.

Rockstar, IIRC, is owned by Take Two, so it's not a simple purchase. They're also an unreliable studio with *alot* of potential to be a black hole for cash. Hot Coffee wasn't cheap, and alot of their games are really pushing it on acceptability and are outright not permissable in some countries. Rockstar's Profitability has alot of "If's" associated with it due to legal issues, and like Gran Turismo, you can only sell the same game so many times.

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Hehe, if you're going to put a word in caps, best spell it correctly. We don't want you LOSING friends, do we?

/pedant

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I suppose it's fun to comment on certain things without having any real basis of fact but....

Final Fantasy VIII became the fastest selling Final Fantasy title in history when released. Final Fantasy X was one of the first Playstation 2 titles to break the 2 million and 4 million sales barrier. The most recent Final Fantasy release (FFXII) after one week of release in Japan sold nearly two million units. After one week of release in the US the game had already pushed nearly 1.5 million units out the door.

To say that Final Fantasy has "lost steam" or there hasn't been a breakout game since FFVII is not only short sighted but complete nonsense.

Again, this comment has no real objective or factual basis. From a sales perspective you're just wrong. The original Gran Turismo topped out at about 10.84 million units. Its sequel on the original PSX sold slightly less at a little over 9 million units. Gran Turismo 3, released extremely early in the PS2's life, sold an astounding 14 million copies when all was said and done. It's followup, Gran Turismo 4, has sold just under 9 million copies. Even ridiculously small releases like Gran Turismo Concept and Gran Turismo 4 prologue moved over 1.5 million units each.

The Playstation 3's primary issue is price. It's too expensive and the slow building install base is preventing a good number of third parties from comitting to full exclusive titles. However, thier fortunes can change when they proactively bring the price of the Playstation 3 down. I'm interested to see last months NPD figures as they will show what kind of true increase in sales the PS3 saw post-price drop. I think it would be foolish to discount Sony out of the console race. It's far too early...

It's purely subjective of course but I can't find a way to agree with that statement. Microsoft's console has an incredible holiday lineup (one of the best I've seen in the past few years as a gamer) and outside of a few key first party titles (like Uncharted, Ratchet, and Heavenly Sword) I'm not seeing much from Sony or its third parties to combat it.

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Blu-ray does have an advantage but twice nothing is still nothing. Only a fraction of consumers have been heard from. HD-DVD is the closest to reaching a mass market price. This could be critical in getting hd-dvd into the largest electronics seller in the world, the dreaded walmart. While they offer both formats online, they carry neither format in their stores. These consumer are unlikely to know which studio is supporting which. If it is not available in hd then they will likely get it in SD.

Will the strategy work? Who knows? However it was ordinary consumers who decided that longer taping time on vhs was more important than betamax's higher picture quality.

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And there is no comparison between for tape length when it comes to the HD formats. Arguably the closest we can come to is storage capacity and 9/10 of consumers aren't going to care what type of disc a movie is on.

I do believe this is all going to come down to value for the money, as all things do: the value of having a standalone BR/HD player versus a game system like the 360 versus the game player/media storage device like a PS3.

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ap article re: Q4

BDA going for the kill

Uni/Kornblau emphasizing internet features

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The thing I don't understand-and probably never will-in the AP article is Kornblau insisting internet connectivity and the "immersive experience" is going to decide all this. The average person doesn't care about ringtones or wallpapers or whatever other bells and whistles you can get on, say the HD 300 disc. In order to access these things, you need an internet connection. A high speed connection, to be specific. Are you always going to be in a position where a connection exists? No. Until we get the entire country working on wireless internet, it will be an artificial feather in Universal's hat.

(The same can be said about BR, for the record.)

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BD / HD
62 / 38 W
66 / 34 Y
60 / 40 SI

300 BD - 100
300 HD - 52.34

HMM Aug 12 - 18, 2007

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you are hitting F5 much faster then me

thanx for info...

Marek

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if we take 250,000 together for 300 :
% and numbers of units...

math by user from avs I was lazy to check, so I hope he is correct

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Well, I guess it's kinda of a situation where anything more, is something more.

My 360 is on wireless. I know I'm the exception, but it's handy.

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We could posit from this, that if Universal were neutral, they'd probably have moved an additional 30364 units of HOT FUZZ.

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Look's like both formats have an even split in the top 10.

5 for BD
5 for HD-DVD

Not bad for a so-called "dead" format.

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Even split? When each of those top 5 BD titles outsells the HD DVD version 2:1???

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To be fair, 3 of the titles are HD-DVD only, which only COULD have outsold 2:1.

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And Casino Royale COULD have sold half as many discs on HD DVD...



I would think that given the very consistent 2:1 ratio for dual-format titles, we *could* avoid debate on that projection.

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So at my local best buy today, the Toshiba HD-DVD player and TV were on an endcap display, with the Blu-Ray display shoved in the back.


And then to add insult to injury, the "next generation DVD" display was located with the HD-DVD right next to each other, and there was a big pillar RIGHT in front of the Blu Ray. I mean you have reach around just look at what was behind the pillar.

I took pictures on my phone, because I'm that much of nerd. It was funny I guess, because obviously Blu Ray IS outselling HD-DVD.


Question.


Because of this format war, do you sometimes feel more obligated to buy releases to support the hardware you invested in? (and by invest, you definately invested in more ways than one).

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Unless of course you factor in installed base, but why do something silly like that? You do realize that FF7 and FF8 both enjoyed PC releases right? And that the last FF has taken alot of flack for it's RT system. You are aware that Bethseda's Oblivion has sold over 3 million units, Morrowind did 4 million units IIRC, so FFX's numbers aren't all that impressive. Unless of course you'd like to present a case that Bethseda is the equivalent of Square.


So they you can prove definitively that people will continue to buy an identical product forever? The EASports division would love to see your data, I'm sure they'd like to quit wasting time rotating features and just upgrade the graphics every other year instead.

Once you've modeled the cars accurately, modeled the garages and upgrades, all you're left with is the tracks. Since Gran Turismo's an "Accurate" sim and not an "Arcade" sim, it loses alot of it's appeal from there. In short, when you're an "Accurate" sim and you've "Accurately" rendered the majority of popular cars, you're done.

So, from a logical standpoint, I'm right. Unless you can definitively prove that people will continue to pay for nothing more than graphics upgrades and new scenery without end.


The PS3's primary issue is that it's extremely difficult to program for, making it a poor choice for a title intended to be multi-ported, and more difficult to program for. A quick google search will turn up a number of Dev's who've stated this. Costs are so huge that unless a title's a guaranteed blockbuster, Dev's want to multi-platform to maximize income, and PS3 is so different from the other platforms it makes porting a diminishing returns issue as it requires significant rewrites. If you're running 8 threads for PS3's SPU's, you've got a problem when you want to go to the 360's 6(?) threads or the PC's Single->Quad core configuration.

The pricing was just the final nail, it was already an unattractive platform for development when compared to the 360 that migrates over to the PC market readily. So readily in fact, that the XNA suite does double duty without any significant changes to coding practices.

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Not quite sure how to take the question. If you've bought into one format but not the other, you're confined to buying what is released on that platform. if that happens to be a title you want, great. If the title you want is on the other platform, then for the moment it's too bad.

The only scenario I can see where this isn't the case is if you have the hardware to playback both formats, and the title is from either Warner or Paramount. What do you do then? Personally speaking, my personal choice of BluRay player has a superior picture quality on slow pans etc to trump my personal choice of HDDVD player. Everyone else's mileage is likely to vary.

Originally I'd only bought into BR - whilst there were/are several titles that were a no brainer purchase, I wouldn't consider buying a title that didn't appeal to me as a film just because it was on 'my' format. No amount of superior presentation will make me purchase a film I didn't previously enjoy, merely to support 'my' choice of format.

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I've bought five movies in the week since I bought my player.

Normally I buy maybe five movies in a year. I dont' really know why either, I love movies, I just never buy them.

There are multiple reasons for why I am buying more movies, but one of them is definately the fact that I do want to buy movies for the hardware I bought, in sort of an effort to ensure the survival of my hardware.

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That entire comment is hilarious. They already are! You can go on about your logic until your eyes fall out but you amusingly mention EA Sports and neglect the fact that Madden continues to be one of the top selling games EVERY single year! It's nothing new in this industry. Four/Five million copies of Madden sold every year prove you absolutely wrong. The sales data posted for the series you mention prove you absolutely wrong. Gamers talk a great deal about wanting "new" experiences but the reality is that a vast majority continue to buy the same old shit over and over and over again while a good number of quality new intellectual properties languish on store shelves.

And? The sales numbers I posted are of the original Playstation releases of the those titles. They do not take into account any PC sales so they are completely irrelevant to this conversation.

That is such a dubious comparison. Games like Knights of the Old Republic and Morrowind pushed the market to embrace western style RPG's much in the way that Final Fantasy VII helped to bring JRPG's into the mass market years ago. Those titles have very much become real competitors to the Final Fantasy's and Dragon Quest's on store shelves. It's the way the market has shifted here in the states but it does nothing to tell me that Final Fantasy as a brand has lost momentum. Especially in Japan where games like Morrowind/Oblivion are completely irrelevant. Morrowind selling 4 million units is impressive but Final Fantasy X selling more (and it has for the record) isn't? Alrighty then.

Final Fantasy XIII (and its suite of games) doesn't release until well in '08 which gives the Playstation 3 time to develop momentum and to hopefully build that install base. Even despite that Square doesn't seemed phased in its intiative to the bring the primary games of the series to the Playstation brand as it has done for years now. If you want to talk about a blow to the Playstation brand, lets talk about the loss of Dragon Quest IX to the Nintendo DS which is far more significant a loss to Sony's console in Japan.

It's readily apparent that third party titles have suffered due to thier transition from 360 to PS3. There is no arguing that. It's also apparent that these issues are helped/alleviated by developers building thier titles specifically on the Playstation 3 platform first and then moving it to other desired platforms as they see fit. We're seeing this with third parties like Pandemic and Criterion who are developing games like Burnout Paradise and Mercenaries 2 with the Playstation 3 SKU as thier primary SKU. Interestingly enough this situation mirrors the release of the Playstation 2 which was notorious for how difficult it was to program for. The difference being the PS2 immediately had a one up on its competitiors by releasing a year earlier and building a strong install base. But then that's the issue isn't it? The roles have been reversed. The install base isn't there to warrant third parties to commit thier titles to the Playstation 3 off the bat. Why is the install base not there? We come back to price which is far more important than you are giving it credit for....

Your average gamer that walks into an EB/Gamestop to pick up a system isn't concerned with the development woes of the platform. They are, however, concerned when they see a $499/$599 sticker price sitting underneath a Playstation 3 box. As much as Sony touts BD in the PS3 package thier marketing message with this system has been muddled from the outset. It's trying to be everything for everyone and that's just not working with your typical guy that goes into EB to pick up Madden '08 (and can get that experience cheaper and with a better selection of titles on Microsoft's console).

With that said, I do feel that Sony needs to be seriously proactive in getting that price down QUICKLY and effectively if they want to make the PS3 a success. The difference is that I'm just not willing to write them off after only nine months of the platforms existence as so many others seem eager to do.

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As they have for a year now.

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Actually they can both be classified as same player/media storage device/media center.

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And if Disney were neutral they could have moved another 20k of each POC film the first week of it's release. All exclusive studion are losing revenue. When the numbers of sales start hitting the level of 300 as a norm, all of the studios are going to have to seriouly look at their exclusive stance and determine if exclusivity is worth the loss of revenue.