Sony to Push Blu-ray in New PS3 Marketing

[jed]

In an upcoming marketing blitzkrieg, Sony will promote the console's cutting-edge high-def capabilities, including its extensive studio support, superior picture and sound, and web-enabled connectivity.

Full story:
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/615

[devilock]

Isnt this the exact same thing that sony did about a year ago. Toot everything the system could do but play games. Maybe they should change their stratagy, because its not quite working.

[Vidfreek]

Well the way I see it is that Bluray is the only thing left for Sony to really push this console with, they are riding on the fact that Bluray is currently leading (although not leading much in the grand scheme of things) to push their console since actually pushing it as a console isnt working very well

Its in last place right now and is being outsold 2:1 by Nintendo's Wii and of course isnt even coming close to touching MS's numbers on the 360

personally I dont see this marketing blitz working very well, with HD media taking up like 2% of the market right now too many people arent going to care about Bluray and HD movies right now, they already arent caring enough as it is AND they arent really caring much about the PS3 in general, so lets just market the PS3 to the smallest amount of people who care now and thats the people who already support HD media formats, the general public isnt interested in the PS3 right now and throwing Bluray at them wont help them much IMO

Their marketing blitz needs to throw out a price drop, thats really the only thing thats going to help Sony climb up faster out of the hole they are in

And as I've said before the PS3 wont and cant win the HD format war for Bluray, it will be the wide adoption of one of the formats through stand alones and the general public finally switching over, but even that will be hard to do since about 100% of the market can play regular DVDs but probably 40% or so can do HD, HD needs to be almost 100% acceptance for one of these formats to "win" anything

[JU1CYFRU1T]

To me, it seems like Sony is almost saying... 'We give up on the whole gaming thing... let's not talk about this as a console... it's a great Blu-ray player!'

They already tried this... and it's not working!

[Aodh]

Originally Posted by JU1CYFRU1T

To me, it seems like Sony is almost saying... 'We give up on the whole gaming thing... let's not talk about this as a console... it's a great Blu-ray player!'

They already tried this... and it's not working!

No Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD for PS3 owners
And how will this news impact this campaign? Apparently it's not capable of bit stream audio so it can't transport advanced codecs over HDMI.

[Blumoon]

Originally Posted by Vidfreek

Well the way I see it is that Bluray is the only thing left for Sony to really push this console with, they are riding on the fact that Bluray is currently leading (although not leading much in the grand scheme of things) to push their console since actually pushing it as a console isnt working very well

Blu Ray is a definitely a piece of the PS3's appeal and value, but ultimately, the ps3 has been turning into quite a machine, and almost all of it users agree. Analysts have been predicting the majority of PS3 purchases will happen in 2007 holiday and 2008. While the PS3 may not walk away with over two thirds of the market like the PS2, it certainly isnt in a position that it couldnt surpass the 360 in enough time. Like it or not, 135k ps3's to 190k 360's, isnt exactly that favorable for 360. Sure its marginally ahead of the ps3, but it certainly isnt a number an establish tech should be carrying, especially compared to the Wii. The 360 has been loosing ground to the Wii and PS3 every month. Just a few months ago, 360 was killing the ps3 with a 9 to 1 total main unit sales. Then it dropped to 5 to 1, and today it is only 3.3 to 1. It would be silly to think MS doesnt see this as a threat.

Its in last place right now and is being outsold 2:1 by Nintendo's Wii and of course isnt even coming close to touching MS's numbers on the 360

If you had any idea how many of those 10m sold are already dead and in the trash, you may see that in an entirely new prespective. With the wonderful reputation of breaking down right after its warranty, go to some popular xbox forums even the official ones and see how many people with verifiable gamertags have gone through 2, 3, some 5 or more systems. If I felt like digging for it, I could post links to rental stores having to replace every stocked xbox at least once, others more within a short period. Everyone accuses sony of lying spinning etc etc when it comes to reporting numbers and what not, only a fool would think MS wouldnt purposely boast 360 numbers. And outside of the US - the 360 doesnt sell for squat.

personally I dont see this marketing blitz working very well, with HD media taking up like 2% of the market right now too many people arent going to care about Bluray and HD movies right now, they already arent caring enough as it is AND they arent really caring much about the PS3 in general, so lets just market the PS3 to the smallest amount of people who care now and thats the people who already support HD media formats, the general public isnt interested in the PS3 right now and throwing Bluray at them wont help them much IMO

The J6P demographic just hasnt switched to HD yet. It takes time. It will take at least 3 - 4 years before everything is day and date released.

Actually the interest is there for the PS3, its just not many wallets can handle to entry cost. Likewise with neogeo - had the least games available, and cost the most. Didnt make it any less awsome for us spoiled kids. Games still get released it on it, go figure.

Their marketing blitz needs to throw out a price drop, thats really the only thing thats going to help Sony climb up faster out of the hole they are in

I dont think they are in a hole. Sony is planning a long term strategy like with all of their products. Home isnt something that will take off overnight, it will take a couple years. The friends, IM'ing, video chat, etc etc, keep evolving and getting more intuitive on every update. Any PS3 user from day 1 will tell you, its maturing very quickly and is becoming quite an intuitive machine.
The Xbox has had like 20 months to reach 10 mil, sony has had one third of that time and has read a third of the higher end console market. Where are they going wrong? PS1 never walked off with the market, it was extremely slow and steady at the beginning.

The big question should be now, will MS use this year lead to cut the 360 short in its life cycle, say maybe about 2008 - 2009, and release a new console? I dont see a true ps4 till 2010 earliest, but probably 2011 - 2012.

And as I've said before the PS3 wont and cant win the HD format war for Bluray, it will be the wide adoption of one of the formats through stand alones and the general public finally switching over, but even that will be hard to do since about 100% of the market can play regular DVDs but probably 40% or so can do HD, HD needs to be almost 100% acceptance for one of these formats to "win" anything

Actually it was the PS3 effect that pushed blu ray ahead of hd dvd, and end last week a 71% - 29%. Blu Ray was hardly a blip on the 1% HD market map, until ps3 came out. The PS3 will not force mass HD adoption, but it could easily win the HD format war, as it undoubtedly pushed Blu Ray to the top choice in HD formats.

[bear89103]

Originally Posted by Aodh

No Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD for PS3 owners
And how will this news impact this campaign? Apparently it's not capable of bit stream audio so it can't transport advanced codecs over HDMI.

I know this is something that you're really hot to trot over Aodh, but as Ack_bak has responded to a couple of threads about this already, he's handily pointed out that we're only talking about HD-MA. See this thread... Oh Blu-fanboys...this is going to hurt

[Aodh]

Originally Posted by bear89103

I know this is something that you're really hot to trot over Aodh, but as Ack_bak has responded to a couple of threads about this already, he's handily pointed out that we're only talking about HD-MA. See this thread... Oh Blu-fanboys...this is going to hurt

End-game, yes, but that still doesn't affect the ranting about the PS3 and HDMI 1.3 (which will be part of the campaign) which is not needed to output PCM. This goes into the threads when we found out the Elite would only be 1.2 and previously where most HD DVD players were 1.2, but the PS3 was 1.3! Turns out it's no better than 1.2 in terms of audio.

Now when we're talking about audio on players, we're talking about a different scenario. We're talking about the players decoding the audio (HD DVD standard, not for Blu-ray) and outputting PCM. Now all HD DVD players and PS3s, as well as some Blu-ray stand-alones I'm sure, all are forced to decode internally and output PCM. Ack is right in that this impacts everyone, I wouldn't call it as much a loss as a change in perception. What value will receivers have not to decode advanced codecs when for the most part they'll receive PCM due to player restrictions.

[bear89103]

Originally Posted by Aodh

End-game, yes, but that still doesn't affect the ranting about the PS3 and HDMI 1.3 (which will be part of the campaign) which is not needed to output PCM. This goes into the threads when we found out the Elite would only be 1.2 and previously where most HD DVD players were 1.2, but the PS3 was 1.3! Turns out it's no better than 1.2 in terms of audio.

Now when we're talking about audio on players, we're talking about a different scenario. We're talking about the players decoding the audio (HD DVD standard, not for Blu-ray) and outputting PCM. Now all HD DVD players and PS3s, as well as some Blu-ray stand-alones I'm sure, all are forced to decode internally and output PCM. Ack is right in that this impacts everyone, I wouldn't call it as much a loss as a change in perception. What value will receivers have not to decode advanced codecs when for the most part they'll receive PCM due to player restrictions.

Please make this post on the other thread, as your post, while poignant, is off topic in this thread. I'm sorry. I was trying earlier to steer you back to that thread, but after re-reading what I wrote, I understood I did a poor job of that. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

[Icy Red]

I think many understand that the PS3 is a wonderful machine... but many, like myself, will and will continue to balk at the price tag no matter what sort of fancy advertising they come up with.

There's a reason the PS2 is still selling so well...

[Aodh]

Originally Posted by bear89103

Please make this post on the other thread, as your post, while poignant, is off topic in this thread. I'm sorry. I was trying earlier to steer you back to that thread, but after re-reading what I wrote, I understood I did a poor job of that. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Sorry, but arguing that a feature which affects Blu-ray playback on the PS3 in a thread where the PS3 is going to be marketed as a Blu-ray player seems on-topic. My original post had an open ended question, in light of the new news about bit stream audio, how is this going to affect the marketing of the PS3 as a Blu-ray player?

[RedRedSuit]

Originally Posted by Aodh

My original post had an open ended question, in light of the new news about bit stream audio, how is this going to affect the marketing of the PS3 as a Blu-ray player?

It won't. It's still the best high-definition player available, or at the very least one of the best. An obscure feature that no player supports will have no bearing on a marketing campaign.

[Aodh]

Originally Posted by RedRedSuit

It won't. It's still the best high-definition player available, or at the very least one of the best.

So they won't mention HDMI 1.3 at all? Or if they do will they call out that they don't support bitstream audio?

(And now the Toshiba's have it beat by matching the decoding capabilities as well as adding in the BD standards which aren't going to even be implemented till the end of the year.)

[bear89103]

Originally Posted by Aodh

Sorry, but arguing that a feature which affects Blu-ray playback on the PS3 in a thread where the PS3 is going to be marketed as a Blu-ray player seems on-topic. My original post had an open ended question, in light of the new news about bit stream audio, how is this going to affect the marketing of the PS3 as a Blu-ray player?

I see your point and I recant my previous statement. My response to you is just that you're basing your question on a half-truth. And since we don't know the exact plan that Sony is going to launch, how can one respond to it? We don't know what they're going to be saying in their marketing campaign, so how do we know how lacking HD-MA is going to affect the marketing. Especially in light of the fact that at the current moment, no receiver decodes it. AND most likely when they launch the campaign, there will only be a very few that may actually take advantage of it.

It's an unfair question used to detract from the issue. In the other thread you talk about how this is throwing it back in the face of people harping about the Elite not having 1.3 HDMI. That I can fully understand and appreciate. But when you start on this path, that's where you lose me. Your question is fully of unknowns that cannot be answered until they release the marketing plan.

[Aodh]

Originally Posted by bear89103

It's an unfair question used to detract from the issue. In the other thread you talk about how this is throwing it back in the face of people harping about the Elite not having 1.3 HDMI. That I can fully understand and appreciate. But when you start on this path, that's where you lose me. Your question is fully of unknowns that cannot be answered until they release the marketing plan.

The Elite is the most recent example, by I have written many posts stating that 1.2 is all that's needed in defense to 'The PS3 has 1.3' based arguments. And this applies to the majority of HD DVD players, not just the Elite (which can't output PCM anyways) where if the player is doing the decoding then you don't need HDMI 1.3, 1.2 will do for audio.

Also this coincides with the announcement of the Onkyo DTS-HD MA Receiver which was also announced today, and now we find out that the PS3 won't be able to output the DTS-HD MA stream to the reciever. This mainly affects the PS3 and Fox releases where they for the most part included DTS-HD MA tracks in place of PCM.

As for the plan, we won't know how they talk about it, but now we'll have to be critical when they mention HDMI 1.3 or Advanced Codecs.