For gamers, the Blu-ray functionality included in the PlayStation 3 might just have been a side bonus. But now it looks like those that chose a PS3 as their Blu-ray playing solution might be better off than those that chose a standalone player.
BBC News says that some Blu-ray player owners may find that they'll eventually miss out on new features as their sets are not upgradeable A new picture-in-picture feature was just rolled out, but the majority of Blu-ray players sold to date do not have the necessary hardware to support this.
Unfortunately, the first players did not include provisions for future updates. But the PS3 is in a unique position, as it can take advantage of its firmware updates and online access to support these new feature releases.
Later this year, Blu-ray will upgrade to profile 2.0 (most players are profile 1.0 or 1.1), which will support the downloading of related content, like videos and ringtones. The PS3 is a shoe-in for these features.
Early adopters might miss out on these new features, but the most important feature - the video playback- will always work. You'll always be able to watch your beloved Talladega Nights.
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
9:43 AM on 01.15.2008
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can't wait for the next update on my PS3
can't wait to see the next update on the hd-dvd player of the 360 :)))))
Then again, that's just a rumor. Makes more sense than how MS is just sitting on its collective ass on the HD-DVD issue while the HDDVD world is imploding.
BD-Live (as profile 2.0 is known) will allow studios to inflict some crappy webstore on you from the disc and sell you all kinds of junk. It might also allow them to snoop on your browsing habits and your IP address. But is anyone seriously expecting much more from it? There might be a few showcase disks that do something interesting, but hardly anything worth caring about.
A more important feature would be mandatory managed copy. Maybe this requires BD-Live (I don't know). Players don't have to support this feature, but discs do. This is probably how Sony intend to allow PSPs to create portable versions of movies. That would be a feature worth waiting for but I suspect every player will implement it in a different way, if they bother at all. And its also possible that some studios will charge $$$ for MMC.
Early adopters know the risks.
It's called sales, man.
Most I paid for any one BluRay was $28 for Casino Royale.
I'm an HD-DVD supporter, but I'll purchase Blu-Ray if it becomes a necessity. I'm waiting until I have no other choice as I don't have a lot of confidence in the format as of yet... especially a medium backed by Sony.
My stepbrother has 5 movies (out of 15 or 20 that he owns) that he can't play because the most recent update available to his Blu-Ray player stil doesn't allow it to play those titles. There are other quirks too. One of his Die Hard movies (I think the newest one, that came as part of the collection) won't work, unless you boot up another movie (any movie) beforehand. Yeah. Real great technology.
You can talk about 1080i vs. 1080p all you want. What about movies actually working in your Blu-Ray player you bought less than a year ago? HD-DVD was the better format for consumers, it's just too bad that the studios have decided for us instead of us deciding for ourselves. Blu-Ray fans can talk all they want about Blu-Ray outselling HD-DVD by whatever ratio, but the fact is that neither format has really taken off yet and thus, the race was far from over...especially since HD-DVD players are more affordably priced.
Thank god for that!
As an informed consumer, I select the product that gives me the experience I am looking for at the price I'm willing to pay. I don't feel the need to pay a premium for a company logo, so I don't. When the ps3 retains the features(unlike the bullshit 40Gb model) and I feel the cost is reasonable, I'll add it to my collection.
The biggest problem that I see here isn't necessarily consumer confusion; it's $$. All the players involved(studios, hardware manufacturers, retailers) all want to make money; I don't like to give it away.