Here's an interesting little piece from a New Zealand news site that paints a picture of the current HD movie format war. Basically reinforces the view that there is still no clear winner in sight and perhaps that both may co-exist.
Certainly raises the question of how popular hybrid players might become...
A brutal reset, a smarter story, and a return to what made it great—Mortal Kombat (2011) revived the series.
Underrated comment. I used to hate that game so much that any time my siblings asked me to play it, I just picked Hom and shut myself down mid-match.
15 years went by so fast. I remember playing through the story mode at launch.
Why did Sony push Shuhei Yoshida out of his role leading PlayStation's first-party games? He'd overseen some huge successes. Well, apparently, he didn't listen.
Yeah I can see that for sure. Shuhei Yoshida should have been in charge not Jim Ryan.
It should be free highway for him now.. but Sony are too stupid to see this, especially that moron Hulst
Wtf why all that anger. PlayStation is dominating on every level. Besides I think there is a little more to hiring a CEO than just who is available. Its not like its a athlete your team wants to buy.
S2Killinit
live service failures, chasing trends, closing studios. yes dominating
Sony is Dominating because competition is not existing. Compared to previous gens this is the poorest in terms of software offerings.
Last gen we got Uncharted 4 Lost Legacy and TLOU2 from ND alone.
This is so far a remasters gen, with no competition to lift up the quality
..."PlayStation is dominating on every level"....
...Really???
PlayStation are soon heading into a new generation in the not to distant future. They currently have the worst customer satisfaction they've ever sustained as a company. The company is heading for a huge crash while at the same time they'll need to be planning how they are going to try and win back that favour and the build up to their new releases.
Yes financially they're winning but they're going to have to ride out this complete public corporate disaster. No one has faith in the company or the product anymore. They've damaged their public image so much this generation. Greed can kill anyone.
He would've done the same thing and fire Jim Ryan and Shuhei would be the villain. Why?
Because Elite creates the narrative and distraction for gamers, users and citizens.
More confirmation that Jim Ryan is the culprit for what has happened to Sony. Hulst needs to go too. What sucks is that a lot of the good top heads at Sony are no longer there. I wish that guys that were forced out prematurely by Dumbo Jimbo like Shuhei and Layden came back.
Yep. Yoshida was responsible for bringing one of the best games of this generation to playstation (Stellar Blade). He is an actual gamer and is in touch with what gamers want (creative, fun games, not GaaS and agenda pushing). He also seems like a genuinely nice guy if you watch some interviews. Of course they got rid of him.
Makes you wonder if MS even thought about hiring him after Phil and Sarah were leaving. He certainly couldn't make their situation any worse.
All the gamer/consumer lead heads are gone across PS and Xbox. shuhei gone phil's gone (questionable) but gone. The future of gaming is somewhat uncertain across the board.
Former Naughty Dog artist Gabriel Betancourt explains why the "sweet spot" for game teams is under 200 people and how AAA "factories" kill creativity.
There’s definitely some truth to this. When teams get too large, coordination starts to outweigh creativity—layers of approval, risk aversion, and tight deadlines can turn bold ideas into “safe” ones. Keeping a team under ~200 people sounds ideal for maintaining clear communication and a shared vision. That said, massive AAA projects also come with huge technical demands and expectations, so scaling up isn’t always avoidable. The real challenge is figuring out how to keep that small-team creativity alive inside big studio structures.
More than that, it's logistically untenable. Inevitably, when teams get too large, how do you keep tabs on accountability? I suspect this massive team size is a consequence of the perfectionism streak Naughty Dog has.
I wish we could have so many people working on something and it turns out great because I'm all for collaboration in spirit - the problem is too many people as part of the larger team and smaller units. Suppose for example that you have too many people in the art department; you will very often come up against fiercely competing visions for how things should look. That competitive vision will cause friction between team members, team doesn't work as a unit, the back and forth can further delay parts that the other departments are waiting for, etc etc.
A 200-person team says, to me, that we need to scale back game development. Even if it means we go back to PS2 era costs and scale, why not? Those games are still great fun, the budgets were in check, and you could literally break the 200-man team into like 10 20-man teams working on different projects.
A."The decision not to build the HD DVD player into the Xbox console means it does not work as a Trojan horse as the PS3 does for Blu-ray. But those who choose to buy an HD DVD attachment for the Xbox are definitely motivated by a desire to buy and play discs in the new HD format."
-TRUE
B."On the retail side, the battle is also taking some interesting twists. In a recent blog on the website Digital Trends, Rob Enderle said that US retail giant Wal-Mart plans to bring in "a massive number of low cost HD DVD players for Christmas". Such a move, although unconfirmed by Wal-Mart, could be decisive. Wal-Mart uses DVD sales as a loss leader to attract shoppers and accounts for between 40 per cent and 45 per cent of all DVD sales in the US."
-TRUE
C."In Europe, the HD DVD Promotion Group has also been busy signing up smaller European studios to the Toshiba format, hoping to "build a local ecosystem" for HD DVD software. The group is able to leverage the fact that replicating HD DVD discs is cheaper - the equipment is an upgrade from DVD replicators and there are no regional code controls. "
-TRUE
D."But perhaps the biggest problem is that even the cheapest standalone players cost more than $US300 each, which is too high to spur mass consumer adoption.
Given the high stakes for both hardware makers and content companies, neither side is likely to stand down easily. In fact, this format war might not have a clear winner and loser. "
-TRUE..
This for everybody that thinks BLUE-RAY has already won. I don't think this will be over any time soon.
This is really bad for the consumer when these two companies continue to go at it.
The only reason I picked blu-ray wasn't because of the PS3 but because of the disk protection.
Blu-ray uses a special coding thats really good compare to hd-dvd.
How can HD-DVD's use the same protection as dvd's when they can store 6x more data? The same scratch on a dvd will be unplayable on an HD-DVD.
With PS3 sales not as big they had hope. Blue ray cannot win completely without also gaining the retail market. The real batle will be at the retail market. So far as of today if you count Blue ray retail players vs HD dvd retail players. HD Dvd has the lead. Although being beaten by total players (counting the PS3), its still selling movies. The cheaper they get the more they will sell. I saw in my nearby Costco in L.A, Ca HD dvd player for 349.00 last week or 379.00 I forgot which one was it. Today I went to get more stuff and they where gone. As to how many where sold I dont know. But I would say last week I saw about no more than 10. This battle is way from over but I think both formats will still be here for a long time. All in all the consumer suffers.
i don't beleive either will make it mass market like dvd/vhs. by the time they start to get a grip on the market cd disk media will be on its way out.
Look what happened to cd's. i don't ever use them anymore. hell dvd's are a rarity (for me). currently all my movies are either mp4/wmv (would have been avi's but i watch them on my 360) and are stored on either my portable hd or my usb pen.
i don't think either will surpas dvd, as the techie people interested in this kind of stuff are migratting away from disk media and the non techie people are gonna just stick with dvd's till digital media becomes the norm.
i don't know what the price of b/r ot hddvd is in the us but here in scotland they are like £25 ($50) each which i will NOT be paying when i can get them of torrents or sky for free.(about £12 is acceptable imo)
i prefer things like what the video marketplace is,
when internet connections (generally) speed up to like 15mbs+ streaming and downloading (renting or buying) is going to pick up steam and blow away all of these arguements
its all down to money and a global market in everyones home will drive down the price
VHS might still win this fight.