Those rumours are based on a misquoted, mistranslated, taken-out-of-context interview with the VP of SCEE, and with price figures incorrectly converted disregarding indirect taxes in Europe. Summary: worth shite.

Huh. You use rumors when they fit you, but disregard official information when you don't like it. Go figure.

Then why run with it in the first place?

That's a sword that cuts both ways.

And if you believe everything Toshiba says, you'd be using HD DVD since october 2005.

Of course, the question is how many people we're talking about.

That was uncalled for. Imagine if I said: "If you think for a second that the majority of buyers are going to go for a player with substantially lower available content, you're nuts"... but I won't say that.

You criticize Blitz6Speed for disregarding player price as a factor, and then you tout player price as the only relevant factor. Really, that's fanboyism at its worth - playing up the advantages of your chosen product, and downplaying its disadvantages. Tsk tsk tsk.

Many of those people have things like families, which sometimes include children, who have in the recent years developed a penchant for playing video games.

We'll see.

And I have doubts we'll see 200 HD DVD titles this year.

Blu-ray is superior in capacity, interactivity and content support. Now what is HD DVD superior in?

Because with the PS3 you get a free DVR and video games console. Oh, and 1080p output.

That's right, your guess. Blitz and others think it'll be the movies. You could be right, or we could. But calling someone nuts just because his guess is different from yours is not very nice.

And studio support won't follow if HD fails to take off. Your point? Unless player price suffices to provide enough traction for HD DVD in the next six months (which are pretty low on sales volume anyway), it will be steamrollered by PS3 in the holiday shopping season.

It cannot be denied as a factor. Whether it is huge or not, that's subjective (ie not objective).

Sony is so clearly beaten on economics in both Blu-Ray and PS3, of course some will totally dismiss it as a factor. HD is totally outclassed when it comes to potential library. What will the masses care about most? Time will tell.

I think the person that said "what is better a cheap player with few discs or an expensive player with lots of discs?" said it best.

And, faced with that choice, I think the vast majority of the HDTV-owning public (that excludes us all) will decide neither. They'll wait for either the cheap player to get more discs, or the format with lots of discs to get a cheaper player.

But, you're the one who posted it. Here is the whole quote again:

Now, 500 euros ~= $615. I understand there are different tax structures, but look at what else was said:

"it'll be expensive for the video games part"-- this means it will be more expensive than the XBox 360.

I think $600-$650 is a good quess between the Xbox (~$520) and the Sony BR player ($1000).

Another problem will be the supply. Right now, you can buy an XBox from Amazon.com for $671.22 (fully loaded). I assume the prices are high because it's still hard to find one. What will happen when the all the hard core PS3 gamers buy up all the PS3s? The actual street prices could inflate even more.

I don't know about others, but I'm not going to go through all the trouble to actually find a PS3 to buy when at best (although extremely unlikely) it will cost the same as an HD-DVD player. And the HD-DVD player won't be in short supply and therefore won't have an inflated price due to lack of supply.

I would guess that this Christmas, we're going to see PS3s selling for $800-$1000 on places like eBay due to short supply.

I posted the accurate translation (done by me), which is hugely different from the bastardized, distorted version that's been doing the rounds.

Enough with that nonsense. He's said a price range

(Console price) <= (PS3 price) <= (Blu-ray player price)

That may be the case in the US, but certainly not in France or Germany.

Yes, and $520 <= $615 <= $1000.

BTW, he actually said the PS3 would be expensive compared to other consoles, but cheap compared to the BR player which would mean:
(Console price) < (PS3 price) < (BR player price)
PS3 won't be equal in price to other consoles, it will be "expensive for the video games part".

I must have misunderstood. I thought you objected to a straight currency conversion of 500 Euros (= $615) because of the differences in the US economny (i.e. tax structure, etc.) vs. various European ones.

Anyway, like he said, it will be an expensive game system (compared to XBox 360), but a cheap BR player (compared to Sony's $1,000 model or Pioneer's $1,800 model).

But it will not be a cheap HD player overall (compared to the Toshiba $499 model).

So for the US, a $600-$700 price range looks possible ($520 <= $615 <= $1000).

If it's $499, I'll be the first to pick one up.

May I just point out something that seems to have escaped both sides of this argument? Euro price does not necessarily equal US dollar price. Even if the 500Eu price is final and correct, that does not mean it will come out at $600+ here to match through currency conversions. Could still be $500. (more likely $550, I'd guess) Europe often gets screwed on pricing like this, and it has nothing to do with tax structures. And Japan is usually higher still for game machines, just because they can.

It'll be funny to look back on this 2 years from now. You'll be able to pick up a BD player for $300-400, but the PS3 will still be at least $400. All this discussion is based on first month pricing of a brand new technology.

This is true. I'm just saying that Sony has said all along that the PS3 would be expensive (compared to other consoles).

It's going to be quite difficult to price the PS3 in line with the XBox 360 because of the BR drive ($200-$300 each) in the PS3. The XBox 360 has a DVD drive which costs < $20 each.

Sony's gamble is that BR takes off and the drives get cheaper.

Back to topic (which, by the way, is "Blu-ray vs HD-DVD software pricing"), a new studio has de facto announced pricing for HD DVD titles:

There are three Universal titles (Serenity, Doom and Apollo 13) up for preorder on amazon, with a list price of $34.98.

How do you preorder them?

There are 30 HD-DVD titles listed including Serenity, Doom and Apollo 13, but it says they're not available for preorder yet.

BTW, here is the Blu-Ray list on Amazon

There are two entries for each of these titles. These are pre-order-able:

Serenity
Doom
Apollo 13

Blu-Ray has a way better line-up, imo. HD-DVD has nothing that I'd buy :/

Total Recal, awesome..

These are just launch titles. You can't base a decision around that. Give it a year and then we'll see where they each stand.

The titles available at DVD launch weren't too impressive either.

I'd rather spend $500 to watch HD-DVD's lineup than $1000 to watch BR's.

Me too. Just saying I prefer BR's launch titles.

I agree to a point.

But, to be fair we all have an advantage here. If you truly wanted a PS3 for whatever reason (most people are buying it for videogames afterall), there is no reason to track one down. Pre-Order ahead of time at a respectable place who will fullfill it.

Anyone at this site or such others who complains in 6 months that they didn't get one (you know it will happen). Well... It was no one's fault but their own. Especially after what happened last year. People should know better.

But, your point works for the mass public who doesn't visit sites like these or knows nothing about it.

Pre-ordering 6 months in advance at respectable places didn't help many people get a XBOX 360 at launch. There are some who finally go their pre-orders filled just last month (4 months after launch). High demand and short supply can be a killer.

The PS3 will probably be even tougher to get on it's release day. You won't be able to easily find them on store shelves until March at the earliest.

LOTR on HD-DVD??!!
is this bollocks???amazon states theres no studio producing the title

It hasn't been officially announced. Amazon has a lot of "placeholder" titles in general.

I was lucky, but that did happen. Your right. Stay away from shops who didn't fullfill last time as it could happen again.

I am pre-ordering two from different spots just to better my odd's. If I happen to get two, I will just sell one to a family member as several want one anyways.

That's another problem you will face. People buying 10 and 20.

:lol: Famous last words.