130 bucks vs 400 bucks.
I’m not sure how much Blu-Ray really matters. The word of mouth from the non-videophiles I know with a PS3 that have watched Blu-Rays hasn’t been earth shattering. One has even said “yeah it’s not much better than my old upscaling DVD player.” They all do think it’s better, but none have been “oh my god you have to see the difference!”
I still say naw.
Though a price drop, a real price drop and not another of these bullshit illusiary price drops, some time in early November seems like a gimmie.
Because bundling a Blu-Ray Player with the 360 and not raising the price by 200 bucks would be impossible?
They’re crazy. Some upscaled DVDs do look pretty damned good depending on the transfer and movie, but Blu-Ray’s just much better.
I’m just relaying the sentiment of the folks that I know that I would put more in line with the “average” person than the folks on these boards.
Actually, it depends in large part on the kind of TV you have. Remember, people are going to be getting HDTVs, but if you buy a TV that has 720p, not 1080p, a Blu-Ray 1080p image has to be downscaled, while a DVD image has to be upscaled, and those can look pretty equivalent depending on the TV.
Heck, I bought a TV from Costco which I eventually returned in which the 1080p image from an Xbox 360 using a VGA cable was absolute crap compared to the 1080p image from just component cables. The component signal had vibrant colors and was beautiful, and the VGA signal not only had really dull colors, the TV wouldn’t let you change color settings from a VGA input. (This was a Sceptre TV btw, stay away from it). Meanwhile, any other monitor or TV I’ve tried since with the VGA cable, the VGA signal has been equivalent or sometimes better than the component signal.
So yeah, my point is: there are a number of factors. You can’t always assume that people are comparing things on the best equipment. In fact, most of the time, they aren’t. Most of the time they’re comparing things on the cheapest equipment they can afford.
Also of note, I’ve been to two houses in the last month where the person had a widescreen TV but they had their DVD player set to 4:3.
And not only that, but no doubt a significant percentage of people with a 720p or 1080p TV have their cable box or such set at 480i.
Sure man, riding on the release of the summer blockbuster movie and all its marketing. I’m not the least bit surprised.
I’m not surprised it did well.
I’m surprised that the 360 and PS3 versions didn’t even chart. Of course, it’s a pretty good casual game and it charted on the three biggest casual systems. Just my hardcore nerd bias showing, I guess.
My experience is that both of these statements are true. Also, Blu-ray (and hi def in general) are sold to people by what they see in stores, and we all know what an awesome job stores do at showing stuff off, right?
Also, I equate it a bit to what happened when CD’s replaced cassette tapes for music. Sure, you could tell there was a bit of an improvement, but for most people it wasn’t enough to justify buying new hardware and re-buying your favorite stuff in the new format, at least until the prices dropped. Right now the cheapest blu-ray player is $300+ and the movies and about $10 more than regular DVD’s. And that assumes the person already had an HDTV. We’re not at mass market adoption point yet.
I still think the problem Blu-Ray has is it doesn’t bring enough to the table other than quality. They really need to start pushing the features front. CD over tape let you do things easily like song skipping, random order, repeat etc. I’ve kind of been over all this before in other threads.
sure… but what features are really going to sell BR that much more?? More content? Hell most of the time when I’m renting a DVD (or BR) I don’t even look at the extra content.
I can’t really see how much more then can add feature wise to BR to really push it that much more advanced over DVD.
Pop up menus are nice, but I’ve seen quite a few BR not even support that!
So, it goes back to what it does really well vs DVD. Picture Quality… Even improved audio isn’t always as easily witnessed since it really requires some really nice audio equipment to fully take advantage…
I agree, I’ve heard too many stories about people not having the slightest idea of what they are doing with HD stuff. So, Blu-ray, even though way better, isn’t really doing it for folks. MS has a larger problem which is worldwide sales and honestly, while I’d bet FFXIII doesn’t do jack for sales in NA, it will spike sales, even if only briefly in Japan. Look at the Crisis Core bundle. If they manage to pack it in, holy crap it will be insane. MS will probably “win” NA, but it looks far less likely that they will manage 2nd place in world sales. Behind the almighty Wii of course.
Well, I don’t think this 360 problem is limited to your TV. I’ve tried the 360 on several monitors using a VGA cable, and component is always at least a little more colorful or saturated. I’ve seen other people report the same. But I agree Sceptre sucks.
And yes, I agree there are “other factors,” which is why I don’t put much stock in reports from Joe Schmoe.
But this is a sales thread, in which case Joe Schmoe is very much relevant.
I think the PS3 does a good job of auto-detecting your maximum resolution and sound settings and such, though. I guess we have to blame cheap TVs and ignorance.
I remember back a decade or so ago, proudly showing off my fancy new DVD player to a friend. I was all talking about the great video quality and the sound, and he was kind of nodding along, until I went to eject the disc. “You don’t have to rewind it any more? I need one of those!”
So yeah, I don’t think Blu-ray is going to sell to the masses, even if I refuse to watch movies on legacy DVD any more.
I noticed Charles hasn’t bothered to do his snarky at this rate, how many months until the PS3 passes the 360 in installed base? math this time. Guess it’s not as funny when it’s just a couple years.