First of all, yes, I am a Nintendo gamer. I have been since the 8-bit days. I don't like to call myself a fanboy, there are too many negative connotations to that term. I don't bounce from board to board spouting "ZOMG P$3 suXX0rz". I do, however, think Sony seriously dropped the proverbial ball this generation.

Don't get me wrong, the PS3 is a serious piece of hardware. I don't know the exact numbers, but I'm sure it's dozens if not hundreds of times more powerful than the Wii. This is exactly its problem.

First and foremost in Sony's ball dropage is the Blu Ray. Its inclusion resulted in short supplies, launch delays, and a hugely inflated price. Blu Ray, again, is a fantastic piece of technology. However, HDTV penetration still isn't that high. No one without an HDTV will see the benefit. Also, consumers are wary of buying into the technology while the format war rages on. While Blu Ray gives Sony a high definition title of some sort, it just isn't needed at this time.

The main advantage over current generation DVD is the storage capacity. Okay, so we can have 50GB games now. And...? No game comes anywhere near that, and probably won't for at least a few years. They don't need it. Look at Gears of War: 4.7GB. And that game is beautiful. And while the Blu Ray drive offers better capacity and graphics, it is still a relatively new technology. The result: a 2x drive that gives snail-like loading times.

Leaving out Blu Ray could have cut $200 from the PS3's price. Hell, I would have been tempted to buy one at $300.

The Blu Ray also cost Sony delays... upwards of a year depending on the market. The delay cost Sony exclusives and gave Microsoft a yearlong head start.


So what should Sony have done? Slapped a current generation DVD drive in that puppy, ditched HDMI for component, and called it the PS2.5. Give us Blu Ray in 3 years when it will make a difference.

Actually, what you sya is all true..... It is ahead of its time, I was reading in a article one day that a some important person that in the gaming industry said that the Wii and the 360 were going to ne more succsessful then ps3. I agree that for one thing that if they took out the blueray then i would be tempted to buy it but preferably im a nintendo fan and will always be one..........oh yeah

thats the whole thing with the ps3 your basically garuanteed that your console is future proof. even when hdtv does become standard in most home (which it might already be) your ps3 has hdmi 1.3 and can support TrueHd. i cant say the same for neither the wii or the 360

There is definitely some merit to that. But remember, Sony is banking on a 10 year lifespan (minimum) for the PS3. I've never heard such statements from Nintendo or Microsoft. While I wouldn't expect a PS4 inside of 7 years, I could easily see Nintendo's next big thing hitting shelves in 4 or 5. Microsoft is already taking steps in this direction with the Elite; although I (and I'm sure about every 360 owner) would have sooner seen an upgradeable system than an entirely new SKU.

Some exellent points there. With the rate that technology, gaming aside, is growing, the question is right now the PS3 seems viable to be powerful in 10 years time, will it keep up with the newer consoles released then? This is the big issue with PC's at the moment (well, actually ever since they hit the main market), its common place to spend £500 on the latest graphics card, and 1/2 years down the line it is massively outdated (not to mention 60% cheaper). Not due to power, but due to the technology used (voodoo5 anyone?). Although at the end of the day its a bit moot, as we won't know until then. The ps3 has already dropped by over £50 in the UK, give it 6 months and hopefully itll be cost effective and, as has been said, still WELL up there in quality

I dissagree with you. Why? Because honestly, its too early to tell how it will play out. You said what games use up to 50 gigs these days? wait 3 years for blue ray? Well heres the thing, there are games out right now that use up to 20 gigs. Lets keep in mind developers have to compress, downscale, and limit their games because they are affraid of making a product that excedes the limit of the disc. It also takes 2-5 years to develope a game. So lets think, 2-5 years down the line and blue ray is already there when these games are being released.

Theres a game out there called TheDarkness. Its being developed by starbreeze studios, makers of the popular Riddick game. In an interview they basically said they were able to put a lot more bits of content in the blue ray version and not the regular dvd the 360 uses. This multiplatformer will have one console having more content than the other. In the game, you will find tvs, radios and movie theatures throughout the free roaming world. You can watch full movies, episodes.. ect whatever the developers want to pack in there without worrying about space limitations. Blue ray is already being played around with by developers, and it will be interesting to see how they take advantage of this new storage medium. This is important because it sets the pace for the rest of gaming in general.

As for gears of war on one dvd? the developers did an amazing job at making the illusion greater than the actuallity of the game. Meaning, they reused a lot of tricks to make it look great. But then you have to ask yourself, how big is the game really? It uses the unreal engine, uses streaming textures and a some graphical filtering with solid animation. Its a solid well built game, but the reason they got it to work and look the way it does is because they had talent to use the tricks needed to make a game like that on a dvd. Most developers are not that skilled.

I believe Blue Ray is better released now than later, it lets it sink in.. though a bit slowly.. but once it hits, a new standard for gaming will appear. Just as Nintendo and Sony are making it a standard for motion controll. Consoles are going through a time of change, its in peuberty right now but once it grows up im sure we will see how it turns out.

That isn't true. Blu Ray and HD DVD may prove to be both unsucessful in future, as games and movies may be bought on the net in digital format and stored on HDD. Likewise, what will happen when developers DO use all 50GB for a game, on the PS3's 2X drive? It would take ages to do certain things.

There is no such thing as future-proof. There's only calculations and educated guesses at best.

sony should have not used blu-ray, made some decent games, concentrated on gaming, as it is a gaming console, and slashed the prices. How ever they didnt, and now they're going to lose millions.

The PS3 isn't ahead of it's time. If anything computers are. Quad core processors, new graphics cards that make CGI cut scenes like Finding Nemo the movie in real time. Real time ray traces, and high end pyshics that blow away any console. The problem is the PS3 isn't the highest gaming machine on the market, it's the computer. And it's becoming cheaper to buy a new computer than it is a PS3. My Dell can push almost graphically as high as the PS3 and costs $300 less. Blue Ray players next year should be $100-$300 cheaper than the PS3. Nintendo and Microsoft knew this. Nintendo went for a cheap console, and Microsoft went for a console that upgrades more like a computer, 360 Elite.

Later the 360 will even have a new processor that will exceed Cell. The upgrade is around $100.

Shift-

The inclusion of BR player is unnecessary for this gaming generation. If anything, it is a commodity for videophiles that need their fix of HD movies. However, I agree with you in that there are developers who will take advantage of the additional space, but they will be the exception, not the majority. This additional space, however, will not revolutionize or immensely affect the length or content in games. For one, developing games is already expensive enough. And two, the trend of supplying additional downloadable content will continue. I really do not see a reason for BR, when HDD have been implemented in the consoles already... it's either one or the other.

As for big games on DvDs, just look at Mass Effect and Oblivion; both have stunning graphics, immense environments, and seemingly unlimited content, all one DvD. I don' think anyone can condemn dvd as a format after looking at Mass Effect in action. Yes, some developers have shown that they are capable of compressing and using "tricks" better than others, but I think that part of the problem is with PS3 dev-kit (i.e. Oblivion) not the developers.

Also, look at what Nintendo was capable of on the GC with 1.5GBs. A perfect albeit overused example is RE4. This game was the pinnacle of graphics on the GC, and arguably one of the best looking games of last-gen, all packed into a mini-disk. When this game was ported to the PS2, it saw a downgrade in graphics and effects and a minor upgrade in content. Was the use of a DvD (4.8ishGB) necessary? No, but I bet Capcom went the easy route and filled most of it with uncompressed data.

I think that the PS3 will definitely impress everyone in the future, but it won't be because of BR, but because of the games and Cell. As I've said before, I love the playstation brand and would choose my PS2 over my Wii any day (ready the pitchforks), but Sony lost me as a customer with the addition of $200+ that resulted from inclusion of BR... all to win a format war.

You can't always say that such consoles are past their times. By three or four years, if the Blueray has not been reaped of all potential benefits, it will have been outdated. That's like saying save 2007 technology for 2010. In this day and age, technology is increasing VERY rapidly. You never know what developers will take advantage of the Blueray and how it will help games develop in the current day and age. Bringing it out earlier is better than later so that right now games will contain the benefits of it, starting in 2007, not 2010 or whenever they "should've brought it out". We are living in exponential times, you know. Watch this interesting video that better explains my points somewhat about increasing technology ando ther things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIqk4agzKPE

Ahead of its time is a pretty strong statement. That means that some time in the future PS3 is guaranteed to be popular and demand. That is by no means a certainty.

That's good and all, but how often have technological advances been rejected because either the public, the industry, or the government did not approve of it or was not ready for change? Yes, everything is advancing exponentially, but at the same time, technology is highly regulated, same with pharmaceutical and medical advancements. It's easy to make improvements, but a lot harder pass testing and receive industry and public consensus.

I think for now, the gaming industry is not ready to cope for the expenses that will be generated from filling BR-discs to the brim...and the public will not accept an increase in game prices.

If what you say turns out to be remotely correct, it'll be like the Dreamcast. A console way more powerful than others, and just "ahead of its time". But Sega and Sony are too completely different companies.

Developers just aren't taking full advantage of what the PS3 is capable. They can't stuff 50GB of content into a game, because then there'd be no way to go multi platform. Exclusives are going the way of the dodo... the best way to make money is to push your product to as many consumers as possible.

When there is extra content on the PS3 version, what is it? Videos, music, "making of" nonsense that very few gamers are actually interested in.

And in the end, you still have a 2 speed drive pulling all that data off the disc at a snail like pace. Blu Ray was a mistake.

Yea!