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Posted by Doug Jacobs on 04/13/06 19:18
In alt.games.video.sony-playstation2 Jeff Rife <wevsr@nabs.net> wrote:
> Although it *was* another DVD player, it really wasn't that big of a
> deal. When the PS2 was released (2000), there were already about 10M DVD
> players in homes in North America
> By 2002, 43M DVD players had been sold in North America, but only
> 11M PS2s. So, the PS2 had 20% of the DVD player market (although there
> is no proof that DVD-Video playback was a big selling point), and there
> were a *lot* of other choices. Even if the PS2 couldn't play DVD-Video
> disks at *all*, there still would have been a DVD player for 2 out of 5
> homes.
The PS2-as-a-DVD-player had more of an impact in Japan, where DVD players
were still easily over US$500 when the PS2 launched. This made the PS2
the cheapest DVD player on the market for awhile, and indeed, many PS2s
sold in Japan were solely used as DVD players.
By the time the PS2 came to the US, there were already DVD players at
around $300, or maybe a little less. However, the idea of having a single
device that could do both was still very appealing to many American
consumers. The PS2 was my primary DVD player for about the first 6 months
of its life.
> On the other hand, on its release date, the PS3 will be one of a tiny
> handful of Blu-Ray players, and using DVD player sales as an example,
> there will almost certainly be less than 500K Blu-Ray players sold by the
> time the PS3 is released. If it sells 5M units the first year, it will
> be far and away the market leader for Blu-Ray players. But, if it isn't
> a good Blu-Ray player, then the extra $100-200 for that feature will make
> it sell a lot fewer units, except to hard-core gamers.
This is Sony's big gamble. By putting Blu-Ray into the PS3 for movie
playback, Sony hopes to use the PS3 to help them win the next-gen DVD
format war. Most likely, the PS3 will be one of the cheaper (if not THE
cheapest) next-gen DVD players on the market.
> What will make the PS3 a "good" movie player are the things that make a
> good DVD player (in no particular order):
> - remote control (including battery life, layout, etc.)
Judging from the PS2, Xbox and 360, I'm pretty sure a remote will be
available as a separate accessory. Bet on it being included in many store
bundles.
> - variety and utility of hardware audio/video outputs (i.e., what plugs
> it has)
> - variety and utility of software audio/video outputs (i.e., what formats
> it can output)
The next-gen players will be backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs. I
don't know about things like CDR or DVD+/-R[W].
The PS3 will definitely support analog video (composite, s-video,
component) just like the PS2, as well as HDMI, which I believe will be
required for movie playback of Blu-Ray DVDs at full resolution. (this is
still sort of fuzzy.) I'm guessing the PS3 will have the same audio options
the PS2 has - stereo RCA cables, or optical audio. Probably no digital coax.
> - output quality
> - config menu quality and ease of use
> - speed of load/eject/seek
> - software playback features (FF, REW modes, etc.)
Why does speed of loading/ejecting the disc matter so much? It's not like
I'd want my player to hurl my disc across the room at sub-sonic speeds
when I hit the eject button ;)
From using the PS2 as a DVD player, my biggest complaints were about the
FF/REW mode. If you wanted to ff/rew at greater than 2x, you had to hit
the button multiple times then hold it down. For instance, [tap]-hold
would be 4x backwards or forward, but it was hard to get the timing right
using Sony's remote.
Otherwise, as a player, it was "adequate". Sort of the commuter car of
DVD players. It'll get the job done reliably but lacked a lot of the
finer features you'd expect to find on a higher-end system.
> In addition, if you can sell a game console that includes a decent
> Blu-Ray player for $500, people are going to demand a Blu-Ray player with
> no game features for $300. Once this happens, whether the PS3 is a good
> player or not becomes unimportant, as it will stop being the market
> leader.
Few things to remember here:
First, Sony is hoping to use the PS3 to help Blu-Ray movies win the format
war. It'll do this by being one of the less expensive players on the
market, initially. However, serious AV folks will probably just ignore
the PS3 and go straight for the mid/high-end stuff which I guarantee will
be $1000+. The average consumer isn't going to have a HDTV yet, so the
whole next-gen DVD war is going to be meaningless to him since neither
player will give him any sort of improvement over his existing DVD player
on his old TV. So, even having the PS3 priced at $400-500 isn't going to
be that big of a problem either as it'll still draw the high-end gamer and
technophile fans.
The PS3 doesn't need to remain the top selling blu-ray player - it just
has to get people interested in blu-ray to help win the format war - as
well as appeal to gamers. After all, the PS3 is primarily a gaming
machine, just as the PS2 is. The fact that the PS2 was, for a short
period of time, an attractive option to buying a separate DVD player just
helped boost early sales of the console when its game library was quite
thin.
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