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Guilbert wrote:

> >Well I still have to lose 7 lbs before I buy my PS3
>
> Are you aware that Sony are no longer selling the 60Gb PS3, all
> stocks were sold out before Xmas.
>
> The only model now available is the 40Gb model, but this does
> NOT play PS1 or PS2 games (which the 60Gb model did).
>
> Not sure if it is an issue for you.
>
>

I really don't understand this fascination with backward compatibility, you may as well not bother getting a new console if all you want is to play your old PS1 and PS2 games.

I'm not going to spend a few hundred quid on a brand new console and play my 5 year old games on them, I want to play brand spanking new sequels to those old games that play in exactly the same way but with slightly better graphics
!wink!

>you may as well not bother getting a new console if all you want is to play your old PS1 and PS2 games.

So if you went out and bought a new DVD player you would be happy to go out a buy all your DVDs again. That is the same scenario.

My son has loads of PS2 games that are still very playable.

Most PS3 games are around the ?40 mark so it is no cheap project to buy a load of PS3 games.

Luckily we bought him a 60Gb PS3 before Xmas, but I bet a load of people are rather pissed that the shiny new 40Gb they bought over Xmas wont play PS2 games.

I'm swaying towards HD DVD even though things aren't looking too good for the standard

There are oh so many factors to this story both technical and business related but here are some of the things I've learnt having read a fair bit on the subject ;

Bluray
-------
* Discs can hold 25gb or 50gb -
All movies released so far have used barely half that for the film which in most cases has been oversized by creating the video at a higher quality than it was recorded in and so was a waste of space. For data storage on a PC\mac however 50gb on one disc is pretty damn good.

* There are several versions of the Blu Ray standard (v1.0,v1.1 & v2.0) - all devices except the PS3 can't upgrade from v1 to v1.1 and even the PS3 can't be upgraded to v2). This means when the Blu Ray standard is as good as final all the poeple who have a v1.1 older player will need to buy new kit in order to use the additional features offered such as web content and storage functionality.

* Blu Ray is a rogue standard in that it was not devised by the standards council that it's makers signed-up to. They went their own way as in the end they didn't like to conform (just think Sony and the AAC Audio, Mini-Disc, Beta Max, CD-ROM Root-kit stories and that about says it all when it comes to Sony forcing their ideas on people by wanting to go their own way). The true successor for which the features, functionality etc. where agreed upon by all including Sony and Panasonic is HD DVD.

* Units cost a lot of money -
Panasonic's cheapest quality player is still around ?400 and yet that doesn't have great reviews for it's picture quality.

HD-DVD
---------
* Discs hold 15gb or 30gb -
The discs space available for storage is smaller that Blu Ray but not for long as the actual physicallity of the HD DVD disc allows for triple layer functionality and potentially quadruple layer (at a limited space - roughly 1/2 of a normal layer meaning in the future the discs could hold 45gb or 52'ish gb) that brings HD DVD up to nearly the capacity of Blu Ray and yet all current HD-DVD devices will be able to play new those larger capacity discs because the possibility to read such discs was incorperated in the very beginning

* Interacative content, Internet connectivity and storage space -
HD DVD has always had built in to it the ability for interactive menus (very cool to see with swishy animated content - and I don't mean video style sequences like you get on a standard DVD's menus). In addtion network ability and access to internet content has also always been available along with device storage (for saving bookmarks, content downloaded via the internet etc.). None of these features are available with the Blu Ray standard until v2 for which brand-new hardware is required but even then the interactivity will be limited due to the limitations of the propriatory program language Sony developed to use for the Blu Ray disc's creation.

* Units cost relatively nothing -
A brand new top of the line HD DVD player can be purchase on-line for less than ?300 with several free movies thrown in.

---------------------

There is a lot going on at the moment about who is backing which formats but that essentially is all different firms giving each other multi-million dollar back-handers to jump ship from being either neutral or dedicated to one format exclusively and sign-up to the other. The money is normally involved to off-set the massive law suits that result because of breaches of 'exclusivity clauses'

Microsoft paid one firm $50 million to go from neutral to backing HD DVD and then Sony payed Warner Brothers $300 million to jump switch from HD-DVD to Blu Ray so none of the companies involved have the best interests of the consumer at heart. Warner reportedly said they wouldn't move to one format or another until they agreed with Fox as to which one they jointly wanted to back, until that is Sony threw all that money at them.

Then in the last couple of days the Financial Times came out and said that Paramount too was moving from HD DVD to Blu Ray which was later found to be a completely made up story so you see there is so much financial bull and no honesty involved in how things are going.

One Warner insider indicated the reason for the Warner change was because they were loosing so much money because of the drops in DVD sales in the states that they need to settle the nextGen war ASAP and so jumped back to Blu Ray as in North America (which is naturally WB's biggest market) is buying Blu Ray discs 2:1 compared with HD DVD discs.

HD-DVD appears to be selling much better in the rest of the world mostly on par with Blu Ray but in Europe it is doing better.

Sony are claiming more Blu Ray players are being sold as they are including the PS3 among the sales figures but as you can't tell if someone is buying the device as a games console, movie player or both (or even to play standard DVDs) the figures are a bit skewed. On the other hand Microsoft\Toshiba can count the HD DVD add-on drive for the XBox360 as it does nothing but play HD DVDs.

I for one kind of hope that Microsoft\Toshiba and the HD DVD gang win as Sony has screwed me over so many times in the past but in the end you could do what I plan to do which is buy an HD-DVD player (you could get the HD DVD drive add-on for the XBox36o for ?100 instead if you have an XBox 360 that is) which will work until the end of time and then if Blu Ray does win the format war you can then buy a 'by then' much cheaper Blu Ray drive that is of the latest version standard and b happy in the knowledg that you can play anything.

Cheers all,

Dizzy !nuts!

Guilbert wrote:

> My son has loads of PS2 games that are still very playable.
>
> Most PS3 games are around the ?40 mark so it is no cheap
> project to buy a load of PS3 games.
>
> Luckily we bought him a 60Gb PS3 before Xmas, but I bet a load
> of people are rather pissed that the shiny new 40Gb they bought
> over Xmas wont play PS2 games.



I agree.

I think Sony have shot themselves in the foot, as the there have more PS2 games sold than on any other console format.

In hindsight, I think sony will regret it.

Luckilly, I got my lovely jubbly 60gb PS3 last year !party!

Blue