PS3 without the Blue-Ray is like the Wii without Wiimote.

RE will always have racism, on Blu-ray discs.

Good.

BluRay rocks. Sure it's slower than a 360 DVD drive reading a single layer, but its speed will show once 360 devs are forced to use 2 layers, or more than one disk.

When you see some of the stuff that can be streamed off a bluray in real time in games like Uncharted, Killzone, even Lair as an early example of visual splendour, you wonder why other devs need to force installs at all.

Makes sense to me. PS3 games are all on Blu-Ray disc, so what's the point of a PS3 with no BD drive? You'd essentially have a PS3 that cannot play games.

PS3 games are made on blu ray discs....

A PS3 with no Blu-Ray.

That's okay there's still PS1 games and PSN games to play.
PS2 games too if you're lucky enough to have bagged a 60Gig PS3 with no Blu-Ray.
Analysts that make obvious statements are bad enough. Analysts that don't know jack and make bollocks up are taking the biscuit (time and money).

no captain obvious needed on this one

Man, I remember that guy. What the hell was he thinking?

The Blu-Ray drive is necessary to play all PS3 games. Did he mean take out the movie reader functionality? What, a driver and a bit of firmware that probably costs Sony $10 or less?

We all know what the guy was really saying: "I know absolutely nothing about the PS3, videogames, or electronics in general. I think PS3 games are made on special "game discs" that require a reader not based on either Blu-Ray or DVD."

"Outside of being professional guessers..."

This statement is laughably ignorant.

But look at UMD! I know Jim ends on this note but come on. The PSP section at the local big box stores is a quarter of the size it was six months ago, and the rumors are flying that the next iteration of PSP (whether a reboot, or entirely new system) isn't going to include UMD drives. Good. Retailers don't support UMD, who cares if Sony does? I've got a sizable enough memory stick in my PSP to hold the games I play on UMD.

Blu-ray adoption for movies isn't as high as it was expected to be, and honestly I would buy many more games over broadband instead if I had the chance. Not every game that comes out on Blu is stuffed to the full 25/50 gigs on the disc, and many of them are coded redundantly to account for the PS3's slower read speed. Anecdotely I'm looking at Best Buy, blu-ray for movies hasn't expanded that much. No movies are exclusive to the format. Amazon is cutting blu-ray prices to move stock: 300 titles this week are half-off. I mean when DVD hit two years stride it was almost impossible to buy something new on VHS.

And look at 360. Some of the same games come out for a system that has a DVD drive, admittedly with compression, but still are comparable. I'm just going to say: This is not as a pie in the sky idea as some make it out to be. Maybe PS3 will be the Phantom! Lapboards for everybody!

@DinnertimeNinja: I hear ya. There are plenty of people who take on the moniker of "analyst" and are likely unqualified to do so. I'm just saying, the numbers that are published by legit analysts aren't simply pulled out of thin air and are much more than just educated guesses.

As with any profession, there are those who are better at their jobs than others, but I hear a lot of people on this site (including, somewhat surprisingly, a number of the editors) that indiscriminately bash analysts as a group whenever one individual makes an unlikely and/or absurd claim.

That analyst should be fired. A PS3 without Blu-ray would NOT PLAY ANY CURRENT PS3 GAMES.