Game Reviews Index
There is much discussion right now about Toshiba’s claims that Sony’s victory in the high definition disc format will be short lived - largely due to the rise of HD digital video downloads over broadband, which the company claims was one of the key reasons for abandoning HD DVD.
The General Manager of Toshiba Australia, Mark Whittard, said in a press conference recently, that while the US film and retail industries’ recent shift to support Blu-ray may have ’’sealed the fate’’ of HD DVD - there were also other factors at play in the abandonment of Toshiba’s high definition video disc business.
Mr. Whittard warns that HD discs could actually ultimately be rendered redundant, since the next generation disc format is well below expectations, as the digital movie download services continue to accelerate. As is usually the case with technology at large, sometimes formats tend to leapfrog over each other, through no fault of anyone in particular. But ask a gamer what he or she thinks of this latest advent, and there seems to be little concern about the issue.
Still, with Toshiba total sales of HD movie discs reaching only a mere $300 million last year, while $23 billion for basic DVD discs was racked up, Mr. Whittard’s claim that Blu-ray will find it difficult to replace DVD in the same way DVD replaced VHS, could be right on target.
Even though Toshiba says it sold less than one million HD DVD players worldwide, and Blu-ray achieved higher marks with the PS3, Mr. Whittard claims that the DVD format will be “extremely difficult” for Blu-ray to overcome. The fact remains that DVD players still sell in the tens of millions worldwide. Upscaling technology to get ’’ near’’ high definition quality just isn’t going to motivate most people to shift. But Mr. Whittard is savvy enough not to totally dismiss the advent of the Blu-ray development, while not confirming any concrete plans for Toshiba to jump to it.
Many gamers seem to feel that the whole thing is kind of silly, given that digital downloads as the norm, are a good 10 years from becoming a regular actuality. The majority of movies are rented these days, and many gamers will rent a game first, before buying it. The technical demands of downloads seem to be rising, and it is hard to keep pace and have enough of a hard drive space to endure countless downloads, which, at this time, still take longer than most people have the patience, let alone storage for.
The average person has a hard drive capacity of 40-80 gigs, and PC manufacturers just don’t offer 160-200+ as the norm. Even if the average hard drive size increase, in order to accommodate digital downloads, it will most likely be necessary to have a TB drive, rather than a GB drive.
The other issue seems to be that it is unlikely that ISPs will be fast enough to handle digital downloads as a commonplace reality. It takes around 7 hours for an HD download to completer via XBL. So in order for downloads to really take the place of rentals and disc purchases, ISPs would also have to amp up the MP bandwidth to around 10 - which, even then, would still take 4 hours to download.
Realistically, downloads could very possibly be the ’’future,’’ but that’s just what it is - the future, rather than anytime soon.
The General Manager of Toshiba Australia, Mark Whittard, said in a press conference recently, that while the US film and retail industries’ recent shift to support Blu-ray may have ’’sealed the fate’’ of HD DVD - there were also other factors at play in the abandonment of Toshiba’s high definition video disc business.
Mr. Whittard warns that HD discs could actually ultimately be rendered redundant, since the next generation disc format is well below expectations, as the digital movie download services continue to accelerate. As is usually the case with technology at large, sometimes formats tend to leapfrog over each other, through no fault of anyone in particular. But ask a gamer what he or she thinks of this latest advent, and there seems to be little concern about the issue.
Still, with Toshiba total sales of HD movie discs reaching only a mere $300 million last year, while $23 billion for basic DVD discs was racked up, Mr. Whittard’s claim that Blu-ray will find it difficult to replace DVD in the same way DVD replaced VHS, could be right on target.
Even though Toshiba says it sold less than one million HD DVD players worldwide, and Blu-ray achieved higher marks with the PS3, Mr. Whittard claims that the DVD format will be “extremely difficult” for Blu-ray to overcome. The fact remains that DVD players still sell in the tens of millions worldwide. Upscaling technology to get ’’ near’’ high definition quality just isn’t going to motivate most people to shift. But Mr. Whittard is savvy enough not to totally dismiss the advent of the Blu-ray development, while not confirming any concrete plans for Toshiba to jump to it.
Many gamers seem to feel that the whole thing is kind of silly, given that digital downloads as the norm, are a good 10 years from becoming a regular actuality. The majority of movies are rented these days, and many gamers will rent a game first, before buying it. The technical demands of downloads seem to be rising, and it is hard to keep pace and have enough of a hard drive space to endure countless downloads, which, at this time, still take longer than most people have the patience, let alone storage for.
The average person has a hard drive capacity of 40-80 gigs, and PC manufacturers just don’t offer 160-200+ as the norm. Even if the average hard drive size increase, in order to accommodate digital downloads, it will most likely be necessary to have a TB drive, rather than a GB drive.
The other issue seems to be that it is unlikely that ISPs will be fast enough to handle digital downloads as a commonplace reality. It takes around 7 hours for an HD download to completer via XBL. So in order for downloads to really take the place of rentals and disc purchases, ISPs would also have to amp up the MP bandwidth to around 10 - which, even then, would still take 4 hours to download.
Realistically, downloads could very possibly be the ’’future,’’ but that’s just what it is - the future, rather than anytime soon.
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