Microsoft: Blu-ray Will Be Passed By As a Format
Microsoft thinks consumers will bypass Blu-ray altogether... except PlayStation 3 gamers, of course.
Could physical media discs be a thing of the past within the next five years? That's a growing debate as consumers continue their shift to digital distribution platforms such as Apple's iTunes and Valve Software's Steam. Downloadable and streaming digital content has become easier to obtain in recent years as hardware specs continue to climb in PCs, consoles, and handheld devices. As it stands, the Blu-ray format may not enjoy the same lifespan as its predecessor, the DVD.
Microsoft's Xbox & Entertainment Director Stephen McGill recently spelled out Blu-ray's doom in an interview during a Halo: Reach launch party, echoing the company's stance against using the costlier Blu-ray optical drive in its console. Although at one time Microsoft did offer an external HD DVD player for watching movies through the Xbox 360, McGill made it clear that the "old school" DVD drive isn't holding the console back in regards to its overall lifespan.
"I think people may have spoken about that originally, but that's long gone," McGill said. "I think people now recognize what a smart decision it was to keep the pricing low, and actually Blu-ray is going to be passed by as a format. People have moved through from DVDs to digital downloads and digital streaming, so we offer full HD 1080p Blu-ray quality streaming instantly, no download, no delay. So, who needs Blu-ray?"
As it stands, it's apparent that the next Xbox console may not feature a Blu-ray drive. In fact, it's possible that the console will be void of any optical drives whatsoever. Still, despite the digital demands of consumers, writable Blu-ray optical drives are finding their way into mainstream PCs and stand-alone Blu-ray players are becoming a standard device in the living room. With 3D infiltrating into the Blu-ray market, it seems that the format will be around for a lot longer than McGill implies.
So what's your take? Do you purchase more Blu-ray discs, or do you prefer digital downloads and streaming?
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90% streaming
10% bluray
the quality of streamed movies is no where near the level of a good blu-ray movie. so i use both. but one day it will, and i can see where blu-ray and any other physical media whill be obsolete. until then. having both is a must.
Digital downloads all the way. I have a blu-ray reader on my PC that rarely gets used. Compared to 12 TB of hard disks...
It is already obsolete.
I have cancelled completely the idea of having a blu-ray reader or burner, 25GB or even 50GB capacity isn't worth it.
With today's multi-TB HDD drives, and 20+Mbps internet, there's absolutely no point in storing data on a (fragile) CD-like format.
Buy a game from Steam (or similar), download it in less than 1 hour, play. Even faster than going to the store to get the disk. End of story.
Sore losers. At least Toshiba got over it.
Blu-ray's future is inversely proportional to ISP download caps. Those are becoming more popular.
If they ever go drm free like mp3s are now I might consider a downloaded movie, but until then I'll be sticking to disks.
Blu Ray will still be around, same way they still have DvDs with the Blu Ray discs, along with the digital downloads. Ya, digital download is great, and that's how I get almost everything, but high speed internet isn't in everyone's home, and to go digital only is just gonna shoot them in foot. One day, yes, but that day isn't today, and it's not gonna be tomorrow, maybe 5 years down the line when high speed internet is more saturated, but not quite yet.
The terrible broadband backbone will keep blu-ray alive for many years to come.
Hmm more MS crap ? OKJ Xbox360 has done quite well using just a bog standard DVD drive, but lets face it... its much harder and expensive to copy Blu Ray discs - so If MS want to tryand prevent more piracy of Xbox titles or even PC software then put it on blu ray.
I thin kthe bigger point is that MS wont adopt Blu Ray because Sony beat them to it and it would be a little like admitting defeat.
yes but does streaming allow for the use Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High-Resolution Audio Decoding??? Blu-Ray sure does LOL.
i find that most ppl only care about the picture. ZOMG! we need 1080p LED TV's!!! wait, would about sound?? O just use the TV Speakers... sigh.
As far as I can tell; the 360 when streaming Netflix doesn't do a great job with audio. Yes, I know it has Dolby Digital on the 360 but that is it!! it isn't even Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD!
my advice to M$, release an external Blu-Ray player OR patch the 360 to enable HD Audio.
Downloads sure, but streaming is a whole different game. Between the fact that most people have painfully slow internet that cannot keep up with HD streaming and ISP caps Blu-ray isn't disappearing yet.
Blu-Ray will have a place but it will never be as big as DVD or VHS
DD and streams with services like Netflix has taken off really well
there will be a market for Blu-Ray
I think plenty of people will buy blu-ray layers but buying as many discs as before, I don't see happening
While downloads and streaming are handy. I still want to OWN what I buy. Sorry.
The industry gets way too much power over the customer when its all locked in DRM and the like. I'd also like to SELL a DVD/BD/whatever if I choose to.
The publishing industry has been after the 2nd hand book market a long while. I'm sure all the companies out there are salivating at the ability to eliminate 2nd hand sales.
I like having my movies bought on DVD or burned onto DVD after buying it, personally. If I can't burn it onto something I won't be paying for it, except for what I watch streamed off Netflix...
Easier to let my family use a DVD than to use money I don't have to setup some sort of awesome Media Center that can stream to any TV in the house...
Blu ray blank discs are cheaper now too. I might be in the minority of people though considering there are a lot of movies I like to watch more than once... Streaming content isn't always available.
Having a large collection of physical media has saved me a couple times really. Like last time we moved we didn't have TV or internet for an extra couple weeks, so we had tons of DVDs to watch when it got late and we felt like vegging.
I think it's nice that if you purchase a movie/game on either DVD or bluray, you have the physical copy. You can sell it to someone else if you so choose. With a digital download, wouldn't you just be stuck with what you purchased?
in what imaginary world does MS live in where they think people are going to download 25GB games? +bandwidth caps. +extremely slow speeds.
BR burners are way too expensive at present to purchase on a whim. Maybe in a year or two when the price of both the burners and discs are competitive with DVD or even 9DL DVDs, I might entertain the idea of buying it as a storage/backup solution.
Ugh, there are Blu Ray files already available, its called the .MVK format.
THese are basically close to being a BLU RAY format and the files are not as large as 20GB but they are more than 7gb which would be a DVD.
And NO, I dont believe that the next gen systems will not sport a HDD because the console will need to store upadates and will need internal memory. So maybe it might not sport a HDD but it may have a large SSD by then.
Blu-Ray isnt going anywhere.
Microsoft has long had a vested interest in digital download and making Blu-Ray go away.
That is the same microsoft that had me calling some frickin call center in dubi every time my LEGAL copy of windows had to be installed. Apparently I changed the inside of my rig around so many times they thought I was puting it on a new machine. Thats alwasys a fun 45 min. So screw microsoft and their control tactics
Second, there is something very posessory about having a physical disk. I bought it. Its mine. Ill have it forever. Now, a few years back I got the game Panzer General online for 5 bucks...well...subsequently my drive got wiped and I had to go back to the company to get another copy....turns out they lost my original purchase and I had to pay another 5 bucks to get rights to the game again. Pure streaming + corporate profit motive + BS bureaucracy created = bad news.
Also, if everyone starts streaming...the internet will get clogged...period. Now, there is a niche for streaming and in a perfect world it might be a good replacement. But not this world. Keep makin the disks.
1080p streaming is usually nowhere near Blu-Ray quality like junkisd said.
I do see a future where physical media will be obsolete, but we're not quite there yet...
local storage will be even more important. so you can have multiple games quickly accessible. and with SSD prices coming down we could see some impressive performance from next gen consoles. can you imagine the *loading* time from an online streamed game? no thank you..
I was on the blu ray buying bandwagon back when 1080p was the hot thing most people didnt have yet,2006-07. But now 1080p to me is yesterday with my 2560 x 1600 main panel and a 37 inch 1080p samsung secondary panel I use for hdtv viewing and some computer use. I now only buy the best movies on Blu, transformers, Iron man 2, etc the ones worth buying everything else I download in 720p/1080p in a couple hours and watch them digitally. Its just faster than messing with a physical disc. I buy all my games via Steam as well, its just less trouble now.
Sore losers. At least Toshiba got over it.Blu-ray's future is inversely proportional to ISP download caps. Those are becoming more popular.
By the time Blu-Ray becomes a household standard something even better will be out. Just like with CD and DVD. Its the rule of the technology relm.
As soon as everyone has the greatest, it becomes the worst and a new great is out.
Yeah, they always hate losing. Especially when they made the "WRONG" choice.
I dont know what kind of perfect world these guys are living in but if they think that digital distribution will be the standard in 5 or even 10 years maybe longer, they are sadly mistaken. The internet as it is is not up to the task of distributing all this media and at the rate that ISP's are going it wont be for some time. And even if the bandwithd is availble to some its no guarantee they can afford to have it with todays ridiculous pricing models.
How do they expect to cover 100% of the market when a large number of people still dont even have internet access(or dont want it ie. grandparents and such) or the infrastruture in their area to allow high rates of data transfer. They simply cannot leave them in the dust. And who is going to provide the storage for this media, even with todays large drives it will be a problem.
i think blu ray will be around for at least 10 more years. Untill all movies are beign streamed at 1080p, or at least the highest resolution it was recorded in. Also there are sevral people like me, i have at the most a 756kb connection, and no 3g or 4g where i live so unless netflix and others start allowing me to fully buffer a movie, i will have to use physical media. Also to fully buffer a 150mb-500 mb 1080p movie on my connection would take at least 8 hours to download.
I think we will see a decrease in store bought disk though since the price of netflix is to hard to beat when you want to watch blu rays.
bluray isnt going anywhere, but i wud be fine with installing my games on an extremely large HDD
of course, microsoft would probably price a 1tb HDD for no less than a grand.
I guess this reaffirms MS won't allow us to play Blu-ray in W7 anytime soon. I love clumsy 3rd party addons that load 5 programs in the background that you have to disable with msconfig. Last I knew Cyberlink wouldn't even let the powerdvd directory to be moved without recreating it in the main tree. Such garbage.
With today's multi-TB HDD drives, and 20+Mbps internet, there's absolutely no point in storing data on a (fragile) CD-like format.Buy a game from Steam (or similar), download it in less than 1 hour, play. Even faster than going to the store to get the disk. End of story.
I get your point, but where i live (NSW) Internet anywhere near 20mbps in my area is impossible to get, the best we can get is 17mbps and even that costs $300 a month at ADSL2+.
I'll remember this article when the next Xbox includes a blu-ray drive, lol.
So many of you are forgetting that there are millions of people out there without access to high speed internet so streaming of anything isn't possible.
Personally I see at least one more physical format release beyond Blu-ray before we're to a point where full streaming of everything comes to reality.
what is blu-ray?
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