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Game Consoles – February 2009 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

The February 2009 NPD figures are in. Typically a slow month, February 2009 will prove to be an important one particularly for Sony as it hopes that end a quarter long streak that has seen all of its consoles fall in sales compared to the same time last year, in a time when all other console sales were up. With Killzone 2 being introduced late in February, it may just give Sony what it needs, or will it be a case of too little and too late (certainly, very late in the month). You can read last month’s analysis here. The figures are from NPD, a marketing research firm that releases games console sale data every month.

The figures for US sales in February 2009 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (February 2008 figures also shown, including percentage change):

Wii: 753,000 (Total: 19 million; February 2008: 432,000 – up 74%)

DS: 588,000 (Total: 29.1 million; February 2008: 587,600 – up 0.1%)

Xbox 360: 391,000 (Total: 14.5 million; February 2008: 254,600 – up 54%)

PS3: 276,000 (Total: 7.3 million; February 2008: 280,800 – down 1.7%)

PSP: 199,000 (Total: 14.8 million; February 2008: 243,100 – down 18%)

PS2: 131,000 (Total: 43.8 million; February 2008: 351,800 – down 63%)

NPD February 2009 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of February 2009)

My prediction from last month was:

So my prediction would be a slight increase in PS3 sales, with lesser increases for the Wii and Xbox 360, but with the ordering of consoles remaining largely unchanged. It’s unlikely that the PS3 will outsell the same time last year, but it may have better luck in March when Killzone 2 may help in terms of hardware numbers (it’s late release in February won’t affect that month’s figures).

I think I was largely right. In fact, I think I was spot on with pretty much everything. PS3 sales did increase, and it did increase more so than the Wii and Xbox 360, but not enough to change the ordering. And I was almost wrong on the “PS3 won’t outsell same time last year” statement, but almost wrong still means I was right. As you will see from the software figures, Killzone 2 did “kill”, but it wasn’t enough to give the hardware numbers a boost.

And while Sony were so close to breaking their bad luck streak in terms of hardware underselling compared to last year, all three PlayStation consoles again recorded sales drops compared to the same time last year. Both Nintendo and Microsoft again also managed to outsell the same period last year, with the Xbox 360 recording a huge jump and its best “non-holiday” sales since the release of Halo 3 (despite having no A-list exclusives this month). The PS3 was so close to outselling February 2008, and I think had Killzone 2 been released a week earlier in February (it was released on February 27), then the PS3 would have done it. But as they say, timing is everything and with Killzone 2 straddling between two months, it might just distribute sales enough where neither February nor March will mean good enough numbers for the PS3 for it to outsell 2008.

The PS2 is clearly on its last legs, and the PSP’s momentum has stalled, so Sony has to put everything into the PS3 now as it no longer has any other options. And the decisi0n to release Killzone 2 so close to the end of the reporting period may have hurt the chance of adding a number 1 title to the PS3’s list of achievements (or is that Trophies?), even if it meant taking a hit in Febuary. And Killzone 2 further highlights why high hardware prices are a bad idea, because can you imagine this title not being number 1 if it had been released on the Xbox 360 or the Wii? Sony’s insistence on high hardware prices has meant that they have missed out on a lot of revenue from their high profile release (such as Killzone 2, and LittleBigPlanet, as well as multi-platform releases such as GTA IV) – I don’t have access to Sony’s accounts, but can the extra loss in hardware revenue from faster price drops be offset by the extra gains in software revenue (thanks to the superior number of hardware in people’s homes)? And would this have meant that the total loss in revenue would have been manageable enough and much more sensible from a mid term perspective? But only Sony knows what they can and cannot afford to do.

The sales surge for the Xbox 360 is hard to explain. There were no price drops, no hit releases (exclusive or otherwise, Street Fighter IV included), and nothing that would suggest an increase was on the cards. Perhaps its status as the cheapest console on the market is finally providing dividends as the economic situation worsens. The Wii and the Nintendo brand contines its march towards total domination of this game console generation.

Let’s get to the software charts. This is at least one area that will give Sony a much needed boost, because the PS3 top 10 sales finally managed to beat the Xbox 360 sales. Neither got near the Nintendo numbers, of course, but it just shows what a critics favourite like Killzone 2 can do for software sales. Another bit of good news is that despite 2:1 hardware advantage for the Xbox 360, the multi-platform Street Fighter IV managed to sell practically even for both the 360 and PS3. This either means that PS3 owners loved SFIV more than Xbox 360 owners, or that at least on the software front, Microsoft is about to lose its status as the console with the best software sales ratio. Killzone 2, as mentioned earlier, did quite well but not enough to seriously challenge Wii Fit/Play, nor SFIV. So good news for Sony as they 23.6% of the market, which beat Microsoft’s 20.7%. All the Nintendo “must-have” releases are still on the list, for both the Wii and DS, so they took nearly 56% of the top 10. Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

Wii Fit w/Board (Wii, Nintendo) – 644,000
Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360, Capcom) – 446,000
Street Fighter IV (PS3, Capcom) – 403,000
Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 386,000
Killzone 2 (PS3, Sony) – 323,000
Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii, Nintendo) – 263,000
Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360, Activision Blizzard) – 193,000
Mario Kart (DS, Nintendo) – 145,000
New Super Mario Bros. (DS, Nintendo) – 144,000
Guitar Hero: World Tour (Wii, Activision Blizzard) – 136,000

Next month should be a big one for software sales, as Resident Evil 5, Halo Wars, and GTA: Chinatown Wars all make their way onto their respective consoles. There is also the left over sales from Killzone 2, and any hardware effects that may show up. My prediction for March 2009 would be that PS3 sales finally beat the 2008 equivalent, thanks largely to Killzone 2 and RE5 (March 2008 was also a very slow month). The ordering of the hardware sales would still remain the same though, as RE5 is no longer platform exclusive for the first time. It will be interesting on the software front, because you would imagine RE5 selling better on the 360, although perhaps only by the same margin as SFIV, and Killzone 2 should do better than the averagely rated (relatively speaking) Halo Wars.

See you next month.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 2 Comments »

Weekly News Roundup (15 March 2009)

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

Yesterday was my birthday, and I enjoyed it very much. So much so that I didn’t even want to write a WNR today, but as they say, we’ve all got to work harder for less money in these economic times, so I can’t afford to take a day of. I finished the PowerDVD 9 review during the week as well. To sum up, the new version is very nice and features some useful new features in particular DVD upscaling and the media center mode. Is it worth the upgrade from version 8? That really depends on your needs, and if you need DVD upscaling to your 50″ HDTV, or if you want better Windows Media Center integration, then version 9 is for you. And despite Windows 7 offering lots of video support, it won’t support Blu-ray, so you will have to come back to one of PowerDVD, WinDVD or ArcSoft TotalMedia.

Starting with copyright news, a new MPAA study says that America needs a Patriot Act like bill for dealing with piracy.

Once again, the MPAA is comparing movie piracy to terrorism, and to refer to such a controversial bill as a model is just plain bad taste and shows how out of sync the MPAA is with the general public. If most people in the world believes that the Patriot Act is inappropriate even for dealing with something serious as terrorism, why should they think that it would appropriate for dealing with kids downloads movies at home? And do we need a “Gitmo” type insitution for dealing with pirates, although instead of physical imprisonment and torture, perhaps ban them from signing up to ISPs and using the Internet which for some people, is considered a form of torture.

IsoHunt’s P2P trial will continue after IsoHunt’s lawyers failed to get a summary ruling that it did not infringe copyright. it was always going to trial anyway, so this is not a huge surprise. There are certainly lots of important trials going on at the moment or awaiting judgement, IsoHunt’s trial in Canada, iiNet’s trial in Australia and of course The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden. But the more the industry fight against piracy, it seems the public is less and less enthusiastic about the crusade to rid the Internet of it. A new study shows that more than half of Internet users in Canada and Spain pirate music, films and software, while only 5% believe that piracy is criminal behaviour. Either people are becoming more and more unethical, or that they are so used to how the Internet works, where many things are free or at least made available for low cost, that they see P2P as just another way to get what you want when you want it. If the success of digital game delivery services such as Steam tells us anything, is that people are willing to pay for content as long as it’s delivered in the way they want it. The low prices do help, of course.

Steam shows that better delivery and pricing, not more DRM and lawsuits, is the way to go towards fighting piracy

So instead of fighting piracy with lawsuits and DRM, perhaps they should take a look at Steam and see how it became a successful delivery platform (even if it has DRM), and why people are willing to pay for games this way, but not the boxed version at stores. Of course, some people will never learn. Steam and Valve’s Gabe Newell recently delivered a verbal attack on DRM, but Aladdin’s John Gunn disagrees and has published a rebuttal. Aladdin provides DRM services (of course they do). The main points of attacks seems to be that there are stats showing DRM helps drive sales, which I find hard to believe not because these stats do not exist, but because they are incredibly hard to obtain (how much growth is related directly to having DRM, and how much is it related to other things like better products and services, or just natural growth). Mr. Gunn also goes to say that “good DRM is proven to reduce piracy”, which again depends on what the definition of “good DRM”. Theoretically, a DRM that cannot be broken should help sales as if you can’t pirate it, and you really want it, then you’ll have to buy it. Mr. Gunn points this out in his article as well. But the problem is that such DRM does not exists, because I have yet to see a popular commercial game or application with DRM that hasn’t been cracked, usually within hours of release. Note that I used the term “popular”, as there are apps that don’t get cracked simply because nobody cares enough to do it, and most likely, nobody cares enough to even pirate it anyway. The fact is that the majority of DRM schemes do nothing except annoy legitimate customers. They are about as effective as those unskippable copyright warnings at the start DVDs (funnily enough, only present on legal versions, and removed for the consumer’s convenience on pirated ones). Piracy rates have not dropped since the introduction of tougher and tougher DRM, this is a fact that cannot be disputed. So what exactly does DRM do anyway, other than to provide revenue streams to companies like Aladdin?

In the end, it’s all about convenience to consumers, and reasonable pricing. Both of these will fight piracy much more effectively than the world’s best DRM scheme. When The Pirate Bay is providing downloads that are faster, less intrusive, less restrictive, then you know you’re going in the wrong direction.

High Definition

Onto HD news. Toshiba has launched another attack on Blu-ray, which suggests that the rumours of them accepting cash from Sony to quit the HD game and to shut up about it, might not be entirely accurate.

TiVo Australia - no download quotas for Internode customers

This time, Toshiba says that downloads will replace Blu-ray. Sounds like sour grapes of course, but this statement is true in the long run. Music downloads have already replaced CDs, and with increasing and cheaper bandwidth, it’s only a matter of time before downloads replace movie discs too. If there is a trend in 2009, it’s the ever increasing move towards media-less distribution. Here in Australia, TiVo has launched a download service that operates through their set top boxes and with an active Internet connection. Internode, one of the largest ISPs here in Australia and my current ISP, has now teamed up with TiVo to offer unlimited downloads through TiVo’s download service – downloads that won’t eat up your monthly quota. While this does not solve the speed problem, it solves the bandwidth cost problem and we’ll most likely see more and more of these types of ISP/content provider deals in the short term. Then there’s the story of a Lionsgate executive predicting streaming movies on the Wii will be available soon. Again, this isn’t some wild prediction, because the PS3 and Xbox 360 already have it and so the Wii, or the next Nintendo console, will certainly offer some kind of movie service. With HDTVs, TiVo, game consoles, Blu-ray players, smart phones, portable media players and almost every other device (including in-car devices) offering movie streaming and downloads, that’s a lot of devices offering movie downloads, a lot more than say the number of standalone Blu-ray players. So maybe Toshiba does have a point, and what are the odds that all Toshiba’s HDTVs will start offering movie streaming capabilities in the near future?

Blu-ray sales are doing alright, although definitely down compared to the highs of the holiday period. Blu-ray sales stats show that Blu-ray sales have dropped to levels of around the middle of last year, the market share is down a third (5%) compared to the holiday period. Both Blu-ray and DVD sales have slowed down, but if anything, DVD is holding up a bit better than Blu-ray. With many people still undecided over whether to get 720p or 1080p, it just shows that extra resolution isn’t really the most important factor when it comes to movie buying, not when upscaling quality is improving all the time. However, as a rule of thumb, 1080p is the way to go from now on (and has been for a while).

Another story about expensive HDMI cables being a rip-off, this time with actual studies providing the fact. Still, it’s hard to get over the feeling that the salesman may be right when he says that your brand new $1000+ purchase “demands” that you pay a proportionate amount for cabling as well. But have you ever asked a computer salesman for a high quality professional grade USB cable, if there’s even such a thing. Both USB and HDMI are digital cables, so if you’re happy to use the one that came free with your printer, than you should be happy with paying the least amount of money for the other. I would still go with a recognized brand though, to avoid buying a dud or one that breaks because of poor workmanship. But if build quality is not a problem, then the only criteria should be pricing.

And in gaming, Sony has shut down the rumours of a Blu-ray-less PS3. Not much of a surprise really, because it was never going to happen as long as PS3 games used Blu-ray media. Nothing much happening here, although I find it increasingly hard to listen to PS3 fans talk about how the “PS3 experience” is better than anything out there at the moment. It’s a freaking game console, not a journey to the center of your soul for crying out loud. It reeks of marketing speak that’s been eaten up by PS3 fans seeking to prove their consoles is the best when nobody even cares, and this is coming from someone who makes money from telling people which console is the best. You know how you can tell nobody cares? Because if a barely working, badly designed console like the Xbox 360 can sell so many boxes, you know people just don’t really care about the “experience”, only games and how many and how cheap they are. And Microsoft aren’t immune from this either, what with their “New Xbox Experience” – PowerDVD 9’s “FancyView” is a much more appropriate term to describe the new Xbox 360 UI, in my opinion. And all the Nintendo Wii stories about how it’s helping injured people, blah blah blah … who cares?

Boil down to it, all the consoles have their good and bad points, and if you have the money, you should buy them all, if not, then buy the ones that have the games you want on it. It’s really that simple.

The February NPD figures should be out next week, and we’ll then see what kind of impact Killzone 2 has made. My predictions is probably not a lot, because I haven’t heard Sony scream about it from the top of every roof. We’ll find out soon enough.

That’s that for this week. Have a good one.

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (15 March 2009)

Weekly News Roundup (8 March 2009)

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

A somewhat quiet week in terms of news, but for a site like this, there’s always some excitement whenever there’s a new version of PowerDVD. I’ve had a little bit of time to play around with the new version (PowerDVD 9 Ultra), and I must say that the new features are all pretty useful. TrueTheater HD adds DVD upscaling that worked as well as WinDVD 9’s All2HD function. There’s more Blu-ray and HDMI support, and basically it all adds to an already quite feature packed player. I went through a list of “what’s new” in my last blog post, so have a look at that if you want to know whether it’s worth upgrading or not. And don’t forget to use the PowerDVD 9 discount deal if you do plan to purchase or upgrade.

Let’s start with the copyright news. The Pirate Bay trial is over, which I thought was rather quick. I guess it’s not like on TV where a court case goes on for what seem like years.

The MPAA versus all its (current) enemies

I have no idea how it went, and what the verdict will be, but with these sort of things, you always fear the worst. But if The Pirate Bay people can get a victory, even if it will be appealed, then that’s a massive blow for the MPAA. The verdict will be known in a month and a half’s time, but if I had to guess, I would say it’s a win for the MPAA. The “system” is all set up to favour the “big” companies, and I can’t see the MPAA going to court without being somewhat sure of a victory. Let’s hope I’m completely wrong (good odds on that!), and that TPB’s victory can start a chain reaction in terms of the industry’s opinion that litigation is better than mitigation (mitigating the risk of piracy by introducing more consumer friendly services to compete).

The MPAA’s other big profile case at the moment is against Real Networks, for their RealDVD software. The MPAA now claims that Real Networks destroyed evidence and that RealDVD is based on work by hackers. Of course they’ll claim that. They’ll says Real Networks worships the devil if it helps them win the case. I actually think Real Networks have a good chance to win this one, because you cannot say they did not try to prevent piracy, as one layer of (easily hacked) DRM became two layers after processing in RealDVD, and it became harder to crack as a result, not easier. The only area which they look vulnerable is the CSS licensing area, where they allowed CSS content to be played without the original disc, which the MPAA has won cases on before.

Boy, it sure was a busy week for the MPAA. They also took time out of their busy court schedules to report on a study that said that piracy equals terrorism. The usual scaremongering from the MPAA, nothing that we have not come to expect from them. But what they’re really saying is that, in their warped minds, terrorism is just as light as an offence as movie piracy. Doesn’t this give comfort to terrorists, to make them think that what they’re doing is only as serious as what millions of other people are doing at this very moment? Make of that what you will.

With so many things on the MPAA plates, and despite their budget being cut by $20m due to the economic crisis, you would think the piracy situation is so desperate that action must be taken now while they still can. And you would be wrong. Ticket sales increased by 17.5% in 2008, even after a record breaking 2007. We all know that piracy has increased, at least from what the MPAA tells us. So does piracy equals ticket sales? You won’t hear the MPAA say this out loud, that’s for sure.

High Definition

To HD news we go. Windows 7, which will supports a whole lot of video and audio formats, including Blu-ray’s H.264 (and VC-1, which of course will be supported as it’s a Microsoft format). But Windows 7 will not support Blu-ray playback.

Windows 7 won't have Blu-ray support

Now the first reaction people may have is that this is Microsoft’s way of hitting back after backing the wrong horse in the HD format war, but it really isn’t the case here I don’t think. The problem with having Blu-ray support is that if you add the licensing costs for AACS, Dolby, DTS, BD-J and the Blu-ray licensing fee, you end up increasing the cost of each Windows 7 version by $10 to $20. Times that by the millions of copies that Windows 7 will sell, then you have a serious cost problem for Microsoft, especially considering that most people won’t even use their PCs to play Blu-ray movies, and that’s if they have Blu-ray movies to play in the first place. So this is a sensible decision, and it looks like we’ll still have to rely on third party software like PowerDVD 9 to make Blu-ray playback possible. Speaking of PowerDVD 9, one of the new features is “Cinema Mode” which better integrates it with Windows Media Center, and this is very much welcomed for those with home theatre PC setups.

The HD format war may not be entirely over though. Warner Bros, the company that sealed HD DVD’s fate when it went Blu-ray exclusive, is now supporting HD DVD’s sister format, the CBHD format. But don’t worry yet, this format is a China only format for the Chinese market. It’s not the best of news for Blu-ray, because it is also trying to get into the Chinese market so it can lower overall costs for the rest of the world, but that’s assuming CBHD makes it as a format. I think it will struggle, because without a “global” format to back it up, it’s going to be hard to get studio support. Warner has always been eager to get into the Chinese market, they even supported VCD and SVCD at one point, but I can’t see other studios being that keen, especially when they’re also major Blu-ray backers.

Samsung's 9 Series may help cure me of my plasma bias

Now I’m a big fan of plasma TVs, but ever since Pioneer announced that they would pull out of the plasma market, I’ve been looking around for alternatives. I’ve never really liked LCD TVs, mainly due to the main weaknesses of the format, including backlight bleeding, poor black definition and such. But LCD TVs with LED back lighting, such as the Samsung 9 series which has officially become Australia’s most popular LCD TV, seems like something that can finally give plasmas a run for its money. I started this blog by writing a few posts about choosing the right TV, and perhaps it’s time to update that again, but the things that I listed in that post are still relevant today: HDMI inputs (the Samsung has 4 of them, which is quite generous), Resolution/Refresh (most are not 1080p, and with support for 120 Hz, which is nice to see), PC inputs and how it deals with SD content. So I can’t say that I’m totally convinced by TVs like the Samsung 9 series, I can safely say that they are definitely one of the favourites for being my next TV. That or if OLED comes to the market sooner than my next TV purchase, which given my current economic situation, might very well be a reality as it might be years before I can afford a new TV.

And 3DHDLEDTV? Maybe for the theater, but not for the home theatre yet, at least according to the director of the new animated film, Monsters vs Aliens.

And in gaming, not much happened. The usual “PS3 is awesomer than the Xbox 360” and the “Xbox 360 is king of everything”, and of course the “Wii kicks ass all the way” type of news stories that I won’t even bother reading, much less post here. All I will say again this week is this to Sony in regards to improving PS3 sales : “It’s the price, stupid”.

Back to dreaming about my next TV. See you next week.

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4 | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (8 March 2009)

Weekly News Roundup (1 March 2009)

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Welcome to March. I love March. Not only because my birthday is in this month, but you know it’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and Autumn in the south, both lovely seasons to have after the cold/heat. Spring time means spring cleaning, and I’ve done a bit of it by rounding up some of the news posts that I’ve been posting and starting a new section for them. That new section is the Deals & Freebies section. This new section will have all the latest and best bargains and the occasional free stuff, for everything from Blu-ray to PowerDVD to free games. Even some stuff totally unrelated to this site will be covered, because a bargain is a bargain whatever it is about, right?

On with the news. Copyright news first, President Obama’s pick for the new boss of the FTC is a bit controversial. The new man, Jon Leibowitz, is a former MPAA lobbyist and this already has many concerned as to the direction the FTC will head in.

Fortunately, Mr. Leibowitz is not a current MPAA employee, and hasn’t been associated with them since 2004, when he became the Democratic FTC commissioner. Consumer groups have welcome the appointment, which is usually a good sign.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - get it cheap for $4.99

Last week, I talked about how cheap games equals less piracy and more profits through specific examples on Valve’s Steam download platform, and this is interesting again because of the new Deals & Freebies section. Even though Steam has DRM, when you’re paying peanuts for games, it doesn’t really matter all that much, does it? It’s only when you’re paying full price and then find out that you can’t play the game because haven’t fulfilled the DRM’s usually ridiculous requirements, such as finger on nose counting backwards from 10, that legitimate consumers are a bit peeved. In one of the latest deals I posted, you can now download Lost Planet: Extreme Condition for only $4.99 on Steam, part of their weekend only 75% off offer (as I posted last week, 75% off seems to be the sweet spot in terms of sales/profit). Now the game is pretty good, although nothing special, but it is still on sales at Amazon and other places for $19.99, so $4.99 is a bargain really. And I know people who paid the full release price for it too. This might be one of those games you never thought about buying, but you might have downloaded it (illegally) anyway since there’s no financial risk. By putting the game on sale for $4.99, you attract the same people since $4.99 is nothing these days, and you get a fully licensed and legal copy for online multiplayer, and that makes it even more attractive than a torrent. If game companies can get more of these types of buyers, and cut down these “casual” piracy by turning it into profit, then they fight both piracy and loss of revenue, grow their user base and it’s a fantastic way to get less than stellar games to sell. And no, I’m in no way associated with Steam, either through an affiliate program or otherwise, so I don’t get anything for promoting this. But as someone who doesn’t want to see game companies go crazy in their fight against piracy, this is a much better approach that should be applauded and promoted.

High Definition

In HD news, Panasonic is launching a new Blu-ray player in the UK that has a built in HDD to record programs from free to air broadcasts using the built in digital tuners. This isn’t a Blu-ray recorder, per se, but it’s half way there.

The reason I posted this is also to highlight how something like this may not be available in the US due to concerns of copyright. These concerns are usually much less of a problem in the UK, and here in Australia, where DVD recorders and HDD PVRs are a dime a dozen. Another reason for highlighting this is my believe that Blu-ray recorders aren’t necessarily a must-have. Of course it would be nice to record 1080i/p broadcasts onto Blu-ray, but with the cost of media added, there’s almost never a justification for doing so. I have a DVD recorder with HDD recording, and 99% of the programs that I do record are only to the HDD and erased soon after watching – there’s only a handful of programs that I will want to archive to DVD, and for these, DVD is enough. What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that if I had to make a choice between having a Blu-ray recorder without a HDD, or a Blu-ray player with HDD recording, then I would choose the one with the HDD.

VUDU now allows you to buy HD movies, not just rent them

Now I’m not saying “death to optical media”, but optical discs are great for archiving, but not good enough for most other things. Cataloguing them is a pain, and they break or get lost and storage is another problem. With all digital stuff, everthing becomes much easier. VUDU will start to sell permanent HD downloads soon, compared to before when they only made HD stuff available for rental. This is what I like to see. With permanent HD downloads, you can watch the video as many times as you want, and if you accidentally lose or delete the video, you can re-download free of charge as many times as you need to. In other words, your movie library while being stored locally, is also available remotely and that also means backups are not necessary. The only problem now is download speed and HDD size, but these problems will be solved in time.

Back to Blu-ray. There is a perception that Blu-ray is too expensive, which is not really entirely true anymore if you look through Amazon’s extensive range of Blu-ray deals. But perception is reality, as they say, and that’s where Blu-ray is still suffering. Take millionaire basketballer Shawn Marion, when asked about switching to Blu-ray:

Hell, no! Blu-ray [Discs] cost too much. They cost like 35, 40 bucks apiece. I’m going to stick with the $19.99s. $14.99, $19.99, widescreen, I’m good.

He then mentioned that he was happy with his existing HD setup, which suggest DVD upscaling. So the perception of many people, even people as rich as Mr. Marion, is that Blu-ray is not worth the extra cost when upscaled DVD gets you 90% of what you already wanted anyway at lower prices.

The new Intel Atom processor can handle 1080p video. Or not.

Part of the problem with Blu-ray pricing is the licensing fees, which can get very complicated when you have a dozen different audio formats, video formats and disc technologies you have to pay for. So much so that Apple boss Steve Jobs even called Blu-ray licensing “a bag of hurt”. The people behind Blu-ray have finally realised that this is a problem, and have decided to simplify, if not reduce the cost, of Blu-ray licensing. It’s a move in the right direction, at the very least.

Wallpaper that doubles as a TV screen? Not so far-fetched, and could lead to huge TV walls just like in those sci-fi movies. YouTube’s 720p H.264 experiment is still going on, and there’s a guide that tells you have to test it out if you have the patience to upload up to a GB of video at a time. With even web video requiring fast CPUs for decoding, Intel is promising their new GN40 Atom chipset will be able to do 1080p video decoding, although many are doubting the claim. Assuming it is true, this could mean netbooks that can also double as Blu-ray players, once you add the external drive to it. At the very least. 720p YouTube videos should now play without stutter.

And finally in gaming, there’s the somewhat hard to believe rumous of a PS3 without Blu-ray, as a way to reduce cost. This one has popped up time and time again, just like the “Blu-ray add-on drive for Xbox 360” rumour. Neither has any element of truth to it, I suspect.

First of all, how would a Blu-ray-less PS3 even work? All PS3 games are published on Blu-ray discs, so do you then have a PS3 that won’t play *any* of the current released games? Will publishers have to produce and release two versions of the game, one on DVD and another on Blu-ray, to satisfy users? How much would this cost, and how many developers would simply stop making Blu-ray versions of the games? Most likely, if the rumour has any truth to it, is that the PS3 will still come with Blu-ray hardware, but it would no longer play Blu-ray movies. This would save a bundle on licensing, although most of this money goes to Sony anyway, so it’s not a 100% saving. And with Blu-ray hardware still required, and the PS3 hardware still the same, there’s almost no justification to doing this even in terms of purely financial reasons. But then again, the Wii doesn’t play DVDs and look how well it is selling, so maybe there’s something to it. Most likely not though.

And just to give you some cause for concern, too much gaming can cause a skin disorder from holding the controller for too long at a time. It can also make you lose social status, gain weight, cause another skin disorder called pimples and basically behave like an idiot on web forums arguing about how much more awesome the PS3 is compared to the Xbox 360 (or vice versa). Too much of anything is bad for you, and that includes writing a blog that’s too long.

So see you next week right here, and also on the Deals & Freebies section hopefully. Have a great week.

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 1 Comment »

Weekly News Roundup (22 February 2009)

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. This part is the introduction, where I will usually comment on some of the activities I’ve been up to during the week, either in the production/maintenance of this website, but mostly not work related because I rarely do any work (although I haven’t played Fallout 3 in ages). This week, I did do some work, although nobody seems to have noticed it. I’ve added archived downloads to Digital Digest’s software section, for software updates from now on. An example of this is for ffdshow, which gets updated more often than I brush my teeth. Not really all that useful, but all the other sites have it and I thought, what better way to waste a whole week. I’m starting a new mini project for Digital Digest next week, which will be much more useful I think.

I also managed to write up the January 2009 NPD analysis. Same story as the last few month, Nintendo wins, Microsoft holds on, Sony struggles.

Let’s start with copyright news for the week. The FTC asked for comment regarding DRM, and not surprisingly, most of them were negative, and most came from gamers. It looks like the next battle over DRM will be in the gaming arena, and I hope gamers are ready for the fight because I think this is another that can be won, just like the music DRM battle.

Steam sales stats show the cheaper games are, the more money they make

A couple of weeks ago it was reported that Valve founder Gabe Newell ripped DRM a new one by calling it stupid and counter-production (Newell: “there is evidence anecdotally that DRM is increasing piracy rather than decreasing piracy”). Valve owns the Steam platform for digitally distributing games, and they have run a little experiment of sorts to see if there’s another way to combat piracy and also make users happy, and I think they’ve found it. They discounted games through Steam, some by as much as 75%, and found that sales increased beyond the amount discounted – in other words, the cheaper games are, the more money they make from them. This is not really rocket science, but nobody really knew what game pirates would do if faced with the choice of cheap games or free downloads, and it seems many choose to pay the cheap price, rather than take a moral/legal hit and feel the guilt of their actions. My post goes further and puts some real numbers into the sale stats, and it turns out if game companies sold games at 25% of the current pricing, they would be making more than 3 times in revenue thanks to pirates converting into customers. And they won’t even need DRM anymore. Everyone wins in this scenario, except it will never happen because of (irrational) greed.

Lawsuits are still the industry’s preferred way to deal with piracy, and the test case against The Pirate Bay has started in Sweden. After they sue the sites that offer torrents, they will then go after the ISPs to try to attack the problem from two sides. One way to help them in this second quest is to force ISPs to keep meticulous records of *your* Internet usage. With help from the US government, they have forced Wi Fi access point providers to keep records on user usage for two whole years. On the surface, they say this is to help law enforcement agencies, but this would also benefit parties like the RIAA who may now have up to two years worth of people’s download records. Scary stuff.

Then we have DRM, and if something can’t be squeezed in, then the solution would be to deny users the service. The latest case is Blu-ray recorders, or the lack of them in the US. These things have been widely available in Japan for nearly 3 years, but will not show up in the US because the powers that be are afraid people will turn these into “piracy boxes” to record TV programs and other things. Even if they block the digital recording path, there is always the analogue way, and we’ve already seen the MPAA try (and fail) to close this so called “analog hole”. If the industry are willing to ruin a format (Blu-ray) that they created for themselves, just because they’re afraid a some people might save a few bucks off a movie purchase here and there (which probably won’t even happen, because they won’t have intended to buy the movie anyway), then they really are intent on shooting themselves in the foot, aren’t they?

High Definition

In HD news, you won’t hear the Sony PR people tell you this, but Blu-ray sales have been very flat since the start of 2009. The last week of data was another one where Blu-ray did relatively poorly compared to recent efforts. The stats were pretty much the same as September 2008, before the Iron Man and The Dark Knight led booms, which seems to have died down despite TDK still being the week’s number 2 title (where would Blu-ray be without TDK?).

Of course, a large part of this is due to lack of decent releases, but you could say the same for DVDs, but sales have been up for the last few weeks. Of course, DVD has the advantage of having a bigger install base, more titles and cheaper ones, so even in a poor release week, there’s always about a million sales going on and plenty of titles people will buy simply because it’s so cheap, they won’t care about wasting money. This is what Blu-ray doesn’t have at the moment, and something it can only get when it moves away from an enthusiast/early adopter format, to a truly mainstream format with 30%+ market share. I believe this will happen, but I have no idea when – I think it won’t happen in 2009 though.

Disney's Pinocchio's Blu-ray version will also include the DVD version

One way to counter this effect, particularly with titles that don’t usually appeal to the normal Blu-ray crowd, is to do something that Toshiba in their infinite wisdom thought to do with HD DVD – combos! Not in the same way HD DVD does by having everything on one disc, but by packing both the DVD and Blu-ray versions, on separate discs, in the same package. Sure, prices will go up, but it gives those with DVD players and thinking about Blu-ray a reason to make the step up, but not necessarily immediately. They can build their Blu-ray library right now without even having a player. The only problem is pricing, and if this package is going to be more expensive than even the Blu-ray only version, then you can forget about it. Sony laughed at Toshiba for doing this, but it looks like they had the right idea about how to win the format war against DVDs, even if they were a bit clueless about winning the format war that actually mattered at the time.

Wireless HD is something you’ll hear about a lot in 2009, I suspect. Unfortunately, the spectre of a format war is looming on the horizon, but hopefully common sense will prevail and it won’t be as tedious as other format wars since this is only about cabling, or the lack of them. The best way to think about Wireless HD and other formats is basically to think of it as wireless HDMI/USB/DisplayPort. I’ve blogged about this before, but I’m still excited because I hate wires, and I manage them badly as it is. The application is not only limited to the home theatre, but also to your computer, imagine having no cables other than the power cable, and that’s nearly possible now with wireless USB, HDMI/DVI, KB/Mouse, speakers, networking … what else is there left that needs wires?

Onto gaming now, Microsoft says the worst of the Xbox 360 Red Rings of Death problem is behind us. But the problem was so bad, it really doesn’t mean anything. If 50% of consoles died due to RRoD before, and now only 25% of them die, then Microsoft aren’t lying when they saw the worst if behind us, but it’s still not good enough.

Custom made fully silent (and unbreakable) Xbox 360

I just don’t understand that with modern technology available, why can’t Microsoft make a console that won’t break, and is also much quieter for the bargain. Even if they have to make the console a bit bigger, then I don’t mind. Except they won’t do it, but it doesn’t mean someone else won’t, and custom made Xbox 360’s are now available with these design features to finally make one that won’t break and is deadly quiet as well.

PS3 gamers are the oldest, while Wii gamers are the youngest. I don’t know why that matters, but it might interest someone out there. This would suggest Xbox 360 owners, like myself, are right in the middle. Except I also own a Wii and a PS3. PS3 firmware 2.7 will be released soon, and some details have already leaked out. Doesn’t look like Sony will be addressing the “firmware breaks PS3” problem that hundreds of thousands of people have experienced so far. Shame.

And I’ve already mentioned the NPD stats for January and it’s not pretty reading for Sony. I think I would put money on a PS3 price drop sooner rather than later, because this can’t go on for much longer unless Sony wants to kill the PlayStation brand.

Okey dokey, that’s all for this week.

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 1 Comment »

DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Archive for the ‘Gaming’ Category

Game Consoles – February 2009 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

Weekly News Roundup (15 March 2009)

Weekly News Roundup (8 March 2009)

Weekly News Roundup (1 March 2009)

Weekly News Roundup (22 February 2009)

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