EarlCrapstone said:
Think about that a little....if they had Blu-Ray drives along with everything else, it would drive the already too high price through the roof and into space. And if they we're including movies with the games, it would drive the game price way up too. And each Blu-Ray disc is not cheap. It's like having a hard drive on CD, just the cost of the material for each game would double the price.
Well, the Blue-Ray drive just might increase the cost of the console, or it may not. Think about the XBox... Microsoft took a $100+ loss per unit sold. Perhaps Sony is prepared to take a loss as well. Besides, I doubt Microsoft will be making a lot of money per XBox 360: sure there is no Cell processor, but it's got 3 friggin' G5 processors... that's not cheap either. Both companies are probably willing to loose a fair amount of money on each console.
Both of the next-generation systems will cost more, no doubt about it. I'm sure they'll both be priced at around $350-400. These are not major money makers by themselves...
Going back the the Blue-Ray:
When and if this format becomes popular, by buying the PS3, you also eradicate the need to buy a second, "Blue-Ray Disk Player." So, any extra minor money you pay would be seriously offset by the cost of having to buy a whole second device for the purpose. I know somebody said that earlier in this thread... and I appolgize for repeating it. I'm just reinforcing.
You also said, "And each Blu-Ray disc is not cheap." Well... there are a few things that may prevent the difference from being as much as you believe it'll be.
Do you know how Blue-Ray works? Basically, it's just like any normal DVD or CD, but instead of a laser in the red spectrum, it's in the blue spectrum. The blue spectrum is at a higher frequency with less "amplitude", resulting in a "thinner" form of light. They are able to write more... cylinders... per disk. Physics, my friend. So, technically, they should be capable of using the same or a similar medium. Slight chemical changes might be nessicary, but that's really not too difficult for a chemical and electrical engineer. The only thing that would cost more is the burning process, because they would need to buy new burners. I don't see the cost of Blue-Ray being much more unless the realators of games decided to rape the consumers, and that is not Sony's fault.
[Note: if there are any experts on BD, then you are free to correct me on the paragraph above. I believe I am correct, but if y'all see any major mistakes on my part, then point them out. This is based on my average knowledge of Physics and Chemistry.]
Besides, even though it has a BR-drive, that doesn't mean for sure each game is going to be in BR format. If a game only takes up, say, 8 gigs, then they can use a standard DVD. Not all games will require it. So, not everything is going to be more expensive.
My 47 cents (I say that because I wrote more then 2 cents worth..
).
- Greg
