DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

A very very quiet week again. There really just wasn’t any “new” news to report, just the same old stuff from previous weeks being recycled. I guess some people have already gone on vacation, if not in body, than in spirit. Either that or I was too lazy to find any stories. I’ll have to do my best with what I did manage to find, so please bare with me. Or you can wear clothes while reading if you have to.

Let’s start with copyright news, there was a good rumour flying around that Apple will drop DRM on iTunes. And like any good rumour, nothing came of it. Now the word is that it will happen before the end of the year. Let’s hope it happens, because DRM is totally against Apple’s philosophies, at least the philosophies that they try to make us think they have, if that makes any sense.

The RIAA, MPAA's less glamorous cousin, wants a piracy tax imposed on Net users

A piracy tax being imposed on ISPs is just one of those ideas that refuses to go away. Some countries already have piracy tax on blank media and such, and it’s yet another example of the industry’s “guilty until proven innocent” attitude towards people who actually pay their salaries: consumers. This is an industry that instead of looking at the piles of money they’re currently making, chooses to look at the theoretical piles of money that they are potentially missing out on due to piracy – money that by simple logic suggests would never actually materialize. The just outcome in all of this would be the industry losing existing customers and revenue due to the greed in pursuing imaginary profits, the ultimate bird in hand situation, and I think in small ways, it’s already happening. Greed should not be awarded.

The MPAA is making a push on President-Elect Obama to get him to approve an ISP filtering system that filters out pirated content, and no doubt all sorts of legal content that the MPAA don’t like you looking at. Fortunately, President-Elect Obama is far too busy at the moment trying to distance himself from a bunch of people who have disgraced themselves due to their greed to associated with another bunch of people who have disgraced themselves due to their greed. Thanks goodness for small mercies. The whole idea of ISP filtering is just stupid, not to mention technically expensive, harmful to Internet speed and usage, not fool proof to say the least, violates the privacy of so many, and opens the door to something that’s very dangerous to the fundamentals of democracy. So to find the MPAA behind it all, it’s not a big surprise at all, is it?

Let’s move onto happier grounds, well relatively anyway. In Blu-ray news, Black Friday was kind to Blu-ray accoring to reports.

Despite the lousy effort Amazon pitched in (although they now have a massive 3 for 2 sale, which is the sort of massive sale they should have had on Black Friday/Cyber Monday, although we could have done without the price raising just prior to the sale and the luckluster titles … sort it out, Amazon!), Blu-ray sales were excellent during Black Friday, at least compared to last year anyway. Sales quadrupled, although it wasn’t very hard considering that at the same time last year, less than 40,000 players were sold. So 147,000 standalone players is a good start, but anyone want to guess how many DVD players or even Wiis were sold in the same period?  

The Batman is turning the whole town Blu, thanks to strong sales

Luckily for Blu-ray, this holiday season just happens to be one where one of the biggest movies of the new century so far is being released. Early reports suggest that The Dark Knight sold over 600,000 copies on Blu-ray, after selling more than 3 million in the first day. To compare, this year’s previous best seller, Iron Man, “only” sold 260,000 on Blu-ray! A bit unlucky is the current economic situation though. 

Now, I don’t agree for one second with those that say Blu-ray is doomed and that it will all fold sometime in the next year. Neither do I agree with those that say that Blu-ray is doing as well as expected. It is clearly not, and it has enemies everywhere in the form of other distribution technologies, and existing franchises that are rock solid in their adoption. So Blu-ray is very much a format that should have done better having had no equal competition, is still not doing too badly considering, but time is surely not on their side. Forget the 5 year strategy, and get a strong foothold now, before some more convenience Internet/purely digital based service comes in and steals their thunder. The people behind Blu-ray also has to make up their minds as to whether to market Blu-ray as an evolutionary replacement for DVD, or just a premium alternative.

This little baby holds more data than a Blu-ray disc (single layer), and is more portable and rewritable

As for the other distribution methods, imagine a set top box that accepts Blu-ray discs, as well as high capacity flash drives and comes with a broadband connection and perhaps some HDD storage. Some Blu-ray players/recorders already have these features, by the way. Now imagine being able to go to stores and download Blu-ray quality movies from a kiosk to your 32 GB flash drive, take it home to your media server or your HDD equipped standalone, upload the movie to it, and add it to your digital library. You can achieve the same by ordering movies from online stores (through the player) and have the movie delivered on Blu-ray discs, also ready to be uploaded to your media storage device. And of course, you can download movies straight from the net, or stream them live as you watch and have thousands of movies accessible at the press of a few buttons. In this quite plausible scenario (in my opinion, anyway), Blu-ray is reduced to just one of many content transfer options, and with faster Internet and higher capacity flash drives, it really doesn’t have much of a future. 

In the PC arena, ATI has followed Nvidia’s example and have opened up the possibility of using the powerful GPU as an extra CPU for certain tasks that the GPU excels at. One such activity already accelerated is of course Blu-ray playback and video decoding, but ATI Stream (or Nvidia’s CUDA) can now also do the reverse and allow for accelerated video encoding. It’s not a bad idea, but most of the major video software companies are still playing catch up. My early tests with ATI’s own video encoder app showed only minimal improvements. When they do add support, this will come in very handy for making home made Blu-ray movies as well as transcoding Blu-ray to another format. 

And finally onto gaming, what’s the most influential games ever in the history of gaming? Are they these ones? I think this is the sort of question that will have many answers, and most of them will be correct. I have to say that the Dune II/Command & Conquer has to be up there, but I would say that being a big fan of RTS. Wolfenstein 3D is another one. Street Fighter II/Mortal Kombat did amazing things for the video gaming/arcade industry. Super Mario Bros. on the NES and Super Mario World for the SNES. And Fallout 3 (not really though, but I had to get this one in).

But onto the current generation. The PS3 is being handled much in the same way by the media as Blu-ray. It’s either doomed one minute, and then the saviour of this holiday season the next, but the truth is always somewhere in between.

The 160 GB PS3: was bringing out an even more expensive PS3 SKU the right thing to do this holiday period?

There is certainly a line of thought, and this is from PS3 fans as well, that Sony aren’t doing a very well job of promoting the PS3, almost to the point of sabotage. I think Sony are doing as much as they can, but they are limited by the high cost of the console (cheap when you consider what it can do, but too expensive for “just” a game console, which is what a lot of people simply want). Like Blu-ray, the PS3 also has enemies around it, like the fun Wii or the cheap Xbox 360, which can play almost any game the PS3 can at similar qualities at least until programmers can unlock more of the PS3’s supposed hidden powers. And bringing out an even more expensive version of the PS3 for this holiday period? Who care? Or more precisely, who can afford it? Fun or cheap. Or fun and cheap. Feature packed but expensive (even if it is worth the price) isn’t going to sell this holiday period, I’m afraid. And also like Blu-ray, time is running out as you cannot let the Xbox 360 continue to gain in sales, build up a formidable user base in the US at least, and not worry just a little bit. I saw the most recent episode of ER where a sick kid asked for a PS3 as a Christmas present, which is the sort of thing Sony likes, but look at most movies and TV shows, and the majority of them show people playing the Xbox 360, and this is the kind of thing that makes Microsoft execs happy as a happy person who knows their product placements are working well.

Who says you can’t write 1500+ words based on only 6 news links? Not me. Hopefully, I won’t have to use my brain as much next week and other smarter people will make up some news stories that I can just copy and paste. See you then.

I didn’t think it was possible, but I played even more Fallout 3 this week than last week. It’s really becoming an addiction now. And I think I need professional help. Which is why I’m buying the Prima Official Game Guide for Fallout 3, which should help me to get over this addiction quicker by finishing the game quicker.

CPU usage while playing H.264 encoded Blu-ray in PowerDVD 8 Ultra

But I did manage to get some work done. I made one minor update to the Is your computer fast enough for high definition DVD playback? guide. With my new computer, I thought it would be interesting to see how it does with the test described in this guide, and as expected, it passed with flying colours. I also added a new 1080p trailer encoded with MeGUI’s “Standalone Blu-ray” profile (made very little difference to the test results though). Continuing the theme, I decided to test Blu-ray playback performance, and with CPU utilization of less than 10% most of the time, I can safely say that the ATI Radeon HD range is very much recommended for building a Blu-ray capable PC, especially since it has HDMI audio pass-thru support as well. In the same blog entry, I also went over year to date Blu-ray sale stats. It’s worthwhile reading if you’re confused as to why Blu-ray companies refuses to drop prices, as the stats explain partly why.

Okay, enough with the intro. Let’s start with the news roundup.

In copyright news, Valve software’s (makers of Half-Life) founder, Gabe Newell has said what everybody already thinks, that DRM is stupid. It really is stupid to have a strategy which alienates your legitimate customers so that software pirates are inconvenienced slightly more (the one or two days wait before finding a proper cracked version). Spore is now officially the year’s most pirated game, whether that’s due to the controversial DRM, the fact that it’s a great game (although there are other PC games that have been more in the “must-have” category, in my opinion, I won’t name names, except to say it ends in a ‘3’), nobody really knows. More DRM has certainly not helped matters, has it? And attracted mass protest and lots of bad publicity. And that’s why it’s stupid.

Nobody likes the MPAA. Nobody!

A couple of months ago, the MPAA came up with another one of their brilliant plans to add DRM to broadcasts. They then found themselves faceing very strong opposition from all sorts of groups (wow, what a surprise), and now they are saying the opposition to their evil plans has been astonishing. Should they really be that surprised? The MPAA will no doubt find out they’re one of the most hated interest groups in the world. Will they be shocked at this discovery too? Or that DRM is universally not liked by, well, almost everyone including many content owners? The biggest problem with DRM is that it’s a contract between content owners and consumers, but only one party has to hold up to the agreement. Already occurring many times is the situation where content owners switch to DRM-free content, turn off the DRM authentication servers, and leave DRM customers with useless files which they’ve paid for. If I go into a contract with you, with you paying me money for some kind of service, I shouldn’t be able to just walk away when it suits me. See, what content owners don’t get is that DRM is actually very costly to them, because DRM lasts a lifetime and that’s how long they have to support customers who purchased DRM. A team at Harvard argues that copyright provisions should allow DRM hacking when they’ve been abandoned, and legally speaking, it’s perfectly reasonable to break a contract when the other party has walked away from it.

A Danish court has slapped an ISP ban on The Pirate Bay. TPB is proving a very stubborn enemy for groups like the MPAA, because their popularity and political actions have propelled them to a different level. They’re not just some website that can be shut down, they represent a whole movement against established copyright traditions. If anything, groups like the MPAA should be working with TPB to find common ground and perhaps to see what can be done to both slow piracy and to improve Internet based services and pricing so people aren’t forced to pirate. And the current economic situation is forcing many more to go down this path.

Speaking of the current economic situation, and high prices forcing people to go towards piracy, Blu-ray prices are being kept high intentionally, at least according to Pioneer.

High manufacturing costs, low demand, licensing costs are issues, but the whole Blu-ray thing is now clearly being packaged as a high end alternative to DVDs, much like SACD versus the traditional CD. And it’s not just the hardware, but movie prices will remain high for the forseeable future as well, according to Sony. Now this must all seem a bit odd with Blu-ray currently trying to take over DVDs and not doing that great of a job of it. But is Blu-ray really here to take over DVD, or just to offer a high end alternative to get enthusiasts to hand over more money? A few days ago, I analysed the year to date sales figures for Blu-ray and what’s quite clear is that with the drop in DVD sales (or at least the lack of growth), Blu-ray is capable of more than making up for it, even though it is selling only in very small numbers. The year to date figures I have are obviously not a complete year, as we’re still in 2008, so if DVD sales make up the difference compared to last year in the time left and remain unchanged compared to 2007, then anything Blu-ray takes in (already $400+ million) is just a bonus for studios. And that’s all Blu-ray need to provide for studios to justify its own existence.

Amazon's Black Friday Blu-ray deals were disappointing

With lack of studio support, Amazon’s Black Friday sales were a clear disappointment when it came to Blu-ray. There were some bargains, like Indy 4, Kung Fu Panda, Iron Man all under $15. But the majority of Blu-ray titles remained at their high prices, and some even went up! There are currently lots of Blu-ray deals at the moment on Amazon, but none that really strikes me as a great bargain. If anything, there were more bargains at the same time last year, when competition with HD DVD forced the BDA to act. There were/are some hardware deals, such as Warner’s $100 off deal, but player prices are still too high to attract people. There were free movies with almost every Blu-ray player purchase last year, sometimes more than 5, but where are they now? If you do want a Blu-ray player, then the PS3 remains a good choice if you also want a media hub and game console. And it’s still the best performing (speed wise) Blu-ray player on the market. But it’s still overpriced, in my opinion.

Pioneer has developed a 400GB 16 layer Blu-ray disc that many players, including the PS3, will be able to read. Of course, one such disc may cost more than a PS3, or two, and do you really need 20 hours of content on a single easily damaged disc? 

And in gaming, the overpriced PS3 did badly against the Xbox 360 on Black Friday as expected, because Microsoft’s holiday bundles, NXE (New Xbox Experience), and various other things ensured it had the momentum to ensure a 3-to-1 sales advantage over the PS3. Here, you can get an Xbox 360 20GB (the older model) with two games for $299. The 60GB model with 3 free games is $399. To compare, the cheapest PS3 is $599 with one free game, and that’s on a special this weekend only deal. As a Microsoft rep said a few weeks ago, you can get an Xbox 360 plus a standalone Blu-ray player for cheaper, or a Wii, or save the money to buy 5 more games.

And the cheapest version of the Xbox 360, the Arcade version, now also has a built-in 256 MB of memory to use with the NXE, plus it may be using the new Jasper motherboard revision, which includes a new 65nm GPU to reduce heat and improve stability. The Arcade bundle with one game only costs $289 here, that’s $100 less than the cheapest Wii bundle as well.

That’s all we have for this week. Back to Fallout 3 now. See you next week. Bye.

My Fallout 3 addiction continues this week, and throw in the Thanksgiving holidays, and you have a pretty quiet week. I wrote a mid-week blog about my new PC, which ties in well with my If I were to buy a new computer today feature. I didn’t really follow my own advice there, did I, but then again this is a work computer I’m buying, even though it plays Fallout 3 at 1360×768 with 4xAA in high quality mode. Yep, it’s a work computer alright.

In the same feature, I also wrote some Fallout 3 troubleshooting tips. As great a game as it is, the stability sucks and there are a whole bunch of bugs. If you got the game on the PC, really the best platform to play the game on, then you’ll in luck as there are many ways around the bugs through the console interface (for example, bringing back dead NPCs that aren’t supposed to be dead). If you own it on the console, then you’re out of luck I’m afraid. One thing I did forget to mention in the feature is that you shouldn’t complete the main storyline quests until you’ve done all the other stuff, as once the main story is complete, the game ends and you can’t continue on playing. I’m done about 8 quests already, but only the first storyline quest, and that’s only because the game’s pretty pointless if you don’t get out of the damn vault. But even with all these problems, it’s still a great game. I even love the game’s soundtrack: “I’m as horny as Kansas in august” (I know, I know).

Anyway, onto the news that I managed to find in between the 4 hour long Fallout 3 gaming sessions.

In copyright news, France’s “3 strikes” copyright infringement law has been struck down by the EU, which is good news for everyone in Europe. It’s good that there’s a legal body such as the EU to provide oversight over “too eager to please the MPAA” countries and their ridiculous copyright legislation.

AFACT sues iiNet

The movie industry’s lawsuit against Australian ISP iiNet’s has been publicly condemned, and here’s another write-up of the potential consequences. Holding ISPs responsible for their customer’s possible actions is like holding the Yellow Pages responsible for the acts of every company that it lists. I just hope all of iiNet’s rival ISPs are banding together and contributing to iiNet’s legal costs, because a loss for them is a loss for every ISP in Australia. There’s already a lot of public outcry over the government’s ridiculous Internet filtering scheme, which fortunately looks like it won’t be voted in. Even though I voted for this current government, you just cannot support something as ridiculous as a National Filtering Scheme (read “government censorship”). The future of Australia’s Internet is now very much on the line, pun unintended. 

DisplayPort - HDCP is mandatory

Apple’s latest MacBooks now support DisplayPort, DVI’s successor in PC display connections. Unfortunately, DisplayPort also comes with HDCP DRM, and that has the Apple users up in arms. HDCP has been in DVI for a long time now, and it is already mandatory on HDMI. DisplayPort, being backwards compatible with HDMI and DVI, was always going to feature HDCP. iTunes content will now no longer play on non HDCP displays, and this is the source of the biggest complaint, but Blu-ray/HD DVD has been like this from day one. All HDMI capable displays are HDCP compatible, as are monitors with DVI input made anytime in the last year or two, so only older displays are affected. There are devices you can use to get around this though, I think. HDCP is a load of crock, I mean how many people actually strip the digital signal from DVI or HDMI to copy movies? Maybe professional pirates, but they also have easier methods to strip DRM. But the industry in general has moved on, and only Apple was behind when it came to the adoption of HDCP, so it’s now too late to do anything about it. On the subject of DisplayPort, it is a logical step up from DVI, since it supports audio as well, and unlike HDMI, it supports it two ways (web cams/mics built into monitors can now be connected through the monitor’s cable, for example). Plus, DVI bandwidth is beginning to be a problem, so DisplayPort will become necessary soon. Plus, it’s an open standard, so at least there’s some good news in this area.

SecuROM - it's all about control

Staying on the computing theme, the PC version of GTA IV is coming out soon and it uses SecuROM DRM like most of the recent games, including the infamous Spore. That’s not much of a news, except that Rockstar Games, the makers of GTA, had to come out and explain why they use DRM and how it isn’t as restrictive as the full set of SecuROM features allow (ie. it hasn’t been “Spored”). I like this, not the DRM part, but the fact that publishers now see the need to justify their use of DRM, when in the past, nobody talked about it (even though customers always complained). This reminds me of the early days of music DRM, and if gamers take the path of music lovers and demand DRM-free, they will get it. At the very least, any game that requires Internet authentication should now play without the original disc – I mean, why do you need two levels of authentication, when one’s enough. Authenticate the serial so that it can be used on an unlimited number of computers but never at the same time (with a few authentication free sessions after each authentication, so you can play without an Internet connection, but only for a few times before you need to re-authenticate), and that should kill off casual piracy that consists of your friends borrowing your game CDs to install on their computers. After all, that’s what the DRM is there for isn’t it? DRM-free is even better, but that relies on publisher making good content that people want to buy, and that’s just too much to ask isn’t it? But I do feel that people who buy games won’t pirate, and vice versa, so no money is actually lost anyway. 

Let’s dig into Blu-ray news, Home Media Magazine has published in it’s latest digital edition of the magazine figures for year to date Blu-ray (and DVD) sales. Blu-ray held 6.11% of the market based on dollar volume (but as Blu-ray is more expensive than DVDs, the actual disc volume will be less than this – counting only the top 20 titles by disc volume, Blu-ray only held 4% of the market). That’s not too bad I suppose, because this time last year, Blu-ray only had 2 or 3% (with HD DVD holding a further 1 to 2%), so Blu-ray has absorbed HD DVD owners, plus increased uptake a bit. Hit titles such as Iron Man (number one selling Blu-ray title of the year, but soon to be displayed by The Dark Knight) held as much as 17% of the market, although less stellar titles often fall towards 5%. It’s the 5% that Blu-ray needs to improve on, because 17% is pretty good at this point in Blu-ray’s development.

But a survey of shoppers suggest that this holiday period won’t really be a key one for Blu-ray, as consumers say they are not planning a Blu-ray Christmas. Amazon’s Black Friday sales has started but it’s all a bit underwhelming (although I picked up Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda and Indy 4 on Blu-ray for $14.99 each in their early bird special, which wasn’t all that early for us Australians as it was 9pm here when it started). There are some cheap titles in there, many under $11, but you really do expect a bit more. The early bird specials were okay, but that’s only like 6 titles, and only 4 of them are new releases. More sales like that, then we’re talking.

Blockbuster launches it's new set-top box

But you can’t help but feel that some of the Blu-ray backers are now thinking that Blu-ray alone won’t help their fortunes. Panasonic, on the the main backers, is now talking up 3D technology and want to add it to the Blu-ray specs. If HD can’t do it, if BD can’t do it, then let’s go 3D. Blockbusters, another company that backed Blu-ray early when it went Blu-ray exclusive months before any other company, is now launching their Blu-ray killing next-gen video streaming service. Not really though, because SD video streaming and HD Blu-ray are not really competitors, other than in the general sense that one service takes away money that people can spend on the other. Video streaming may kill off DVD, but until Blu-ray quality video streaming becomes a reality, Blu-ray will have a place in the market. From a technical standpoint, all you need is a non theoretical speed of 50 Mbps to be able to stream Blu-ray content, and BD-J can already accommodate streamed Blu-ray movies from what I’ve read. 50 Mbps is still out of reach for most people these days (if you’re already downloading stuff at 6.5 MB/s, then you’re good to go, but I can barely do 650 KB/s at the moment), and even more so when everyone will be streaming stuff at the same time. Of course, this is assuming the the Blu-ray movie is at the maximum specified bitrate (basically max out video and audio bitrates), which most movies do not reach. Plus, it also assumes realtime streaming, and not a partial download/streaming service (say 2 hours of wait before you can start watching – that’s stil quicker than buying Blu-ray discs online, or even going to the shops sometimes). Plus, video codec improvements will mean reduced bitrate, but still the same excellent quality. But anyway, the first step will be to get people used to having streaming movie set-top boxes, and Blockbuster, Netflix, Microsoft, and even Sony have already made moves in this direction. 

And finally in gaming news, a new PS3 firmware should now be available by the time you read this. I like Sony’s commitment to providing regular firmware updates, but the problem is that these firmware do not get the testing time they require, and that’s why almost every single firmware release has been buggy, not helped by there being so many PS3 SKUs. Overall, I still prefer Microsoft’s bi-annual major updates (with lots of small silent updates in between). 

In other gaming news, Fallout 3 is awesome. That is all.

Speaking of an awesome game, I’m off to play one now and hope I don’t set the world on fire. See you next week.

A relatively quiet week for news, and not just because I’ve been playing Fallout 3. Honest. I did manage to get the October NPD analysis done, which incidentally was before I started playing Fallout 3. Just a coincidence, I suspect. Okay, let’s not waste any time, I’ve got some “stuff” I need to do later on. 

In copyright news, the MPAA led coalition are now targeting ISPs around the world, and Australia is the latest victim, with movie companies suing one of Australia’s largest ISPs, iiNet. I am a former customer of iiNet, but all Net users in Australia should be worried at this development, because if the movie companies win in court, then all other ISPs will become targets too. I just hope iiNet can win this one, because you can’t tell me that ISPs are now responsible for the Internet usages of their customers, and that they, as private companies, have the right to monitor private communications for signs of impropriety.

Can you spot the pirated Blu-ray?

While the studios are fighting the ISPs, the real pirates in China are now able to pirate Blu-ray movies by converting the movies to another format, such as AVCHD. If Blu-ray media was actually cheap enough, then they would have just made 1:1 copies, but as such, Blu-ray recorder’s slow uptake is helping to fight piracy for the time being. Just goes to show that with all the effort and money spent trying to protect Blu-ray from the pirates, it didn’t take very long for these resourceful people to find a way. The news has the BDA scrambling, and as you’ll note later on in the HD news section, they are launching Blu-ray in China ASAP.

And while they’re usually on the other end of lawsuits, this time, Sony has lost a patent infringement case for its PSP handheld console and have been ordered to pay $18.5 million in damages. There are some very innovative devices on the market today, and it’s perfectly reasonable to think that someone has probably already patented the idea some time back, but without the actual technical know-how or resources to produce the devices. Expect DS, Wii, iPhone and all other devices to come under attack if Sony cannot successfully appeal this verdict.

Onto Blu-ray now, Sony execs are the latest to downgrade Blu-ray’s fortunes for 2008. They still expect Blu-ray to be a top seller this holiday period, but because the whole retail situation is extremely bad at the moment, being at the top of a very small mound does nothing really for the format.

Blu-ray sales not going as well as Sony, studios, had planned

This comes a few days after studios also downgraded the expected Blu-ray sales. Previously thought to reach $1 billion in sales, this figure has been slashed by up to 35%. And it’s not just Blu-rays, but DVD sales are also feeling the pinch from the economic meltdown. Most of the sales drop are in the higher priced new releases, which shouldn’t surprise anybody. Blu-ray is supposed to be the saviour of the steadily declining DVD sales, but they’ve marketed the thing as an even higher priced upgrade to DVD, and that’s just not helping. Of course, if they market it as a low or same cost alternative, then it means no extra profit (or a small loss, considering the higher manufacturing costs of Blu-ray), which defeats the purpose of having a new format in the first place. Stuck between a rock and a hard place probably best describe the situation concerning DVD and Blu-ray.

At least the retailers are still on Blu-ray’s side, and Wal-Mart will do their best to promote Blu-ray for this year’s Black Friday sales by selling a $128 Blu-ray player. It’s a good deal, even if the player in question won’t do everything the more expensive players will do. Hopefully, there will be some movie deals to go along with the cheap player.

And in a bid to fight off competition in China from Toshiba’s “China Blue High-Def” format, and to fight piracy, and possibly to try to lower prices a bit thanks to the economy of scale principle, Sony will launch Blu-ray officially in China. I would gather the reason they did not do so earlier was because of the fear of piracy, but now that Blu-ray piracy is already starting there (see above), there’s no harm now to launch a legal alternative.

And last week I talked about the HDMI con. This week, I’ll talk about the extended warranty con, another favourite product or service that salespeople like to push onto potential customers. I must admit that I fell prey to this one several times, and usually of my own doing without much of a push from the sales person. I guess to buy a false sense of peace of mind is probably worth the price for some people. Like myself.

And in gaming news, Microsoft’s New Xbox Experience was launched in the week. I installed it, and it took a lot less time than I had imagined (compared Sony’s normal and buggy PS3 firmware updates, this one took no time and I’ve had no problems with it since, although I might be one of the lucky ones). The new interface is very nice, and the Mii rip-offs Avatars are a nice touch, possibly even better than Nintendo’s originally effort. The install to HDD option is great (no so great is my lack of HDD space), and games now play much quieter without the constant whirl of the DVD drive (and the numerous times when I’ve had the “faulty disc” problem as the drive overheats). If the Xbox 360 can come with a decent sized HDD, something like 500 GB, and then the full HDD install option might become essential. If they can also do something so that no disc checks are required (easy to do if they force you to connect to Live to authenticate your HDD install), then that would be perfect.

Fallout 3 on the PC is a Games for Windows title, and my favourite at the moment

Also looking perfect for Microsoft is the fact that the Xbox 360 is selling games for myriad of publishers to establish itself as the platform of choice for publishers, at least according to the NPD figures. I’ve kept track of the monthly NPD numbers for a while now and it’s clear that the Xbox 360 is selling the most games. Most of the top selling monthly titles have been Xbox 360 games, and unlike the few times when a Wii title has stolen the spot, most of the games are third-party efforts. This is why publishers will want to publish on the Xbox 360, because they know they have a chance to have a number 1 title. Not so much on the Wii due to the strong first-party efforts by Nintendo, and no chance on the PS3 due to the relatively low hardware install base. Also being pushed at the moment is Microsoft’s Games for Windows platform, which basically brings Xbox Live to PC, along with things like Gamerpoints and achievements. Just press the “Home” button on your keyboard, and it brings up the PC equivalent of a dashboard, to chat with friends or check out your achievements. I’ve been using this feature with Fallout 3 on the PC, and it’s a pretty neat system that works flawlessly (not something I can say about the actual game, which is a crash-fest). Say what you will about achievements, but they do add a new dimension to playability and it’s no surprise that Sony saw fit to rip-off for their own PS3’s Trophies, which will now be mandatory for all games in 2009. 

Speaking of Fallout 3, I’ve got to go now. Got to get back to Megaton to have a bit or R&R, do some trading, before launching an all out attack on the Super Mutants (and their Centaur companions). See you next week.