What’s Holding Up Playstation 3?

When they first announced that the PS3 was delayed, they more or less generally blamed the fact that Blu-Ray wasn’t quite ready yet… which, if I may say, is kind of dumb. They’re integrating a brand-new un-consumer-tested device in something they need to succeed. Sounds like more of a risk than should be taken. Xbox 360 is doing well (or well enough) with regular DVDs, and they’re adding HD-DVD support later. (How? Dunno.)

Anyway, more specific news has come out. The Blu-Ray drive is difficult to manufacture, but the main reason they seem to be waiting is because the copy-protection software hasn’t been finished yet. Does anyone else think it’s stupid to halt production until they’ve finished the “perfect” DRM? Knowing Sony, I’m afraid of what this thing’ll do, haha.

In related news, it’s been estimated that new, empty 20GB Blu-Ray Writeable discs will cost about 20 to 25 dollars A PIECE. For ONE. That’s EMPTY. The 50GB Blue-Ray Writeable discs will cost about 48 to 60 dollars A PIECE. For ONE. That’s EMPTY. Goodness sake, a dollar a gigabyte. I realize that DVD-R/RWs were expensive when they were first released… but still, the price better drop fast.

I have a personal limit on how much I’ll spend on a game. 60 dollars is the absolute maximum I’ll spend on games that I’m not really attached to in the first place. (Myst, for example.) $40 is really nice for games I’ve never played before… anything less is so much the better. Since DVDs are usually a matter of cents these days, the game content itself is usually what you pay for. (Well, including marketing and packaging.) But since you’d have to have those for Blu-Ray games anyway… Would Sony seriously sell $80 to $100 games that’ll be $60 to $80 on Xbox?

Anyway, I just found all this interesting. I’m not sure the market actually NEEDS Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, yet… so I’m really not looking forward to the storm that’s about to be unleashed. There always has to be just TWO battling formats, doesn’t there?

…and in the midst of the fray, Nintendo is slowly churning away at their own “little” console. About ready to unleash their own storm upon the gaming community. GO REVOLUTION!