DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

A very slow news week. Actually, the volume of news articles I read wasn’t reduced, it’s just that most of them are just rehashes of old stories, or clearly PR releases that have absolutely no news worth. Unfortunately, there are more and more of these types of fluff stories. But that’s why we’re here. To filter out the crap, and the stuff that I didn’t want to or was too lazy to read.

In copyright news, Mark Cuban, the Chairman of HDNet expressing his opinion that piracy is better fought with promotion rather than prevention. Or perhaps just make better movies. The Dark Knight is a success not because nobody was able to pirate it, but because it’s a good movie. The other point of view that Mark expresses is that piracy will always be around and that people who pirate are usually those that would never have paid for it in the first place. I think this has always been the case, and those so called studies that say “X amount of money lost due to piracy” are all a load of crap, with the faulty assumption that people who pirated would have paid for it if piracy had been prevented. The studies then lead to more laws and funding to fight piracy, which can’t be fought anyway. Anti-piracy is now a billion dollar industry borne out of greed and stupidity.

Sony PlayTV will come with DRM

Speaking of stupidity, Sony will add DRM to its PlayTV add-on. This means programmes recorded using PlayTV on the PS3 can’t be transferred to another PS3 and may be lost forever if, for example, your PS3 has been replaced or repaired. To be honest, it’s not a surprise for Sony to add DRM to everything, but it does seem a bit restrictive considering you can do the same thing on PCs and standalone boxes without DRM.

And onto politics for a moment, Senator McCain and potential President of the United States has released his net-neutrality and anti-piracy policies. Not good reading for Internet users, but then that’s what you would expect from a big business backed candidate. Well at least McCain knows what the Internet is, given his age and all (sorry, cheap joke that’s been used far too frequently).

Onto HD now, Warner Brothers is releasing a couple of movies on HD Video-On-Demand. What’s interesting is that the article classifies both Blu-ray and VOD as a threat to DVDs. I think HD VOD has great potential, with a large pool of cable subscribers to draw from, plus the ease of use of on-demand viewing versus searching online for cheap Blu-ray prices, purchase, wait for it the arrive and then insert disc. VOD is a threat not only to DVD, but to Blu-ray as well.

The PS3 still the best Blu-ray player?

And if you’re wondering what’s the best Blu-ray player around, the answer apparently is still the PS3 according to Criterion, publishers of the Criterion Collection for serious movie fans. Paramount, now firmly in the Blu-ray camp after their earlier defection to HD DVD (which I bet they don’t want to bring up), is backing Blu-ray by providing a new rebate promotion. Selected Blu-ray titles will feature a voucher that along with a proof of purchase for the same title on DVD, gets you $10 back. This will help to get users who have DVDs to upgrade to Blu-ray, and with some titles going for under $15, it’s good value. It seems Paramount has spotted the fact that many users don’t buy Blu-ray movies that they already own on DVD as a potential problem for the HD format, and have done something about it. It’s a shame they couldn’t work something similar out for HD DVD.

Speaking of HD DVD, Toshiba has just released their next generation DVD player. It’s basically an advanced upconverting DVD player that’s priced between DVD and Blu-ray players. Will it be a success? Who knows, but hopefully it will drive the Blu-ray manufacturers to improve DVD playback quality of their players too (unlikely, and some even suggest that DVD playback quality on Blu-ray players is deliberately sabotaged to make Blu-ray more attractive).

And sort of HD related, BBC’s iPlayer will now use H.264 and AAC to improve quality. The use of a more efficient code will hopefully allow for full HD streaming one day, when bandwidth is less of an issue (currently 5 MB/s or 40 Mbps is needed for full Blu-ray quality, easily obtainable on home networks, but still quite rare for Internet connections). The bandwidth bill might be a bit high though (400+ GB per month, assuming you watch 3 HD movies per week).  

And finally in gaming, I wrote up the analysis for July’s US NPD video games sales figures yesterday. Nothing surprising for this month. What was a surprise was that, for the first time ever, the Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 in Japan. Very likely just a one off event, but it was surprising to see the PS3 sell in so small numbers, 9,673 units compared to the Wii’s 38,506 and Xbox 360’s higher than average 24,962. Even the PS2 is still selling at 8,503.

Would you pay $2,000 for this "The Dark Knight" Limited Edition Xbox 360?

The Xbox 360 sales surge in Japan had nothing to do with the price cut, and all to do with a new game (Tales of Vesperia). But while the average Xbox 360 is now cheap as chips, you can also go the other way and pick up a limited edition The Dark Knight Xbox 360 console. It will only set you back $US 1,200!

For the rest of us, the new upcoming Xbox 360 dashboard is looking better everyday. In a demo video, the HDD installation of GTA IV is shown, which would be very much welcomed. This makes sense of the 60 GB model becoming standard, and the demo looked like it was a full install, so the disc itself is only needed for copy protection checking.

And so we come to another conclusion to the WNR, a short one for this week. Hopefully the next week will bring more worthy news items, but with the Olympics going on, it’s probably going to be another quiet week. See you next Sunday.

Welcome to another edition of our monthly NPD US game console sales figure analysis. We are going through what is traditionally a quiet period in terms of video game sales, but thanks to the Wii and the competition between the Xbox 360 and PS3, sales are still strong compared to the same period last year. Microsoft introduced their price cut this month, so it will be interesting to see if there was any effect. Read on to find out. 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 July are below, ranked in order of number of sales:

NPD July 2008 Game Console US Sales Figures

 

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of July 2008)

My prediction last month was this:

I’m going to go for a very similar situation to this month, except PS3 sales may drop a little due to MGS4 sales dropping off. Wii to dominate, PS3 to come second, and the Xbox 360 to struggle a bit as price cuts only come into effect half way through July.

With all things considered, it was pretty accurate. PS3 sales did drop almost by half (down 45%), but it was still enough to beat the Xbox 360 for the third month running. As expected also, the Wii still dominated, although it too experienced a sales drop (down 17%). The Xbox 360 held up better (down 7%), but as the price cuts only affected about half of the days that was included in the “July” figures, it is unknown whether it was enough to have taken the 360 above the PS3 had the cut happened at the beginning of July.

What is clear is that Microsoft still needs to do more if it is to keep up with the PS3, which still has a lot of potential to be discovered. The price cut, re-design of the dashboard, video streaming services, the more family oriented approach, bringing more previously PS3 exclusives on-board like the Final Fantasy series, will all help, but it’s hard to say if it is enough. Microsoft did have good news this week in Japan, where it topped the PS3 for the first time, all thanks to a single game release (Tales of Vesperia). So good software release can drive sales, and if the rumours that Microsoft is working on a Wii like device, then a Wii Sport like title may drive sales even further.

Wii sales did drop, and some sectors of the media decided this is just the first of many drops to come for the Wii as the hype fades. I don’t think this will be the case, because the Wii is genuinely fun and this will always attract users, even when the hype disappears.

The MGS4 led surge in PS3 sales predictably dropped, but it is still doing quite well in comparison to the Xbox 360. But this may not be enough. Just because the PS3 can easily beat a struggling competitor that may have already gone past its sales peak doesn’t mean that it can be classified a total success. For the PS3 to be dominant like the PS2, it still needs to reach much higher sales number, closer to that of the Wii. I think this will come as more software, peripherals become available, and when the PS2 reaches its end of life.

Let’s look at the software charts, where Microsoft had a relatively good month. Thanks to its almost exactly 2:1 total console lead over the PS3, it is still out-selling the PS3 on multi-platform titles. The number one title was a Xbox 360 release as well. MGS4 on the PS3 completely disappeared from the charts. The Wii, now the best selling console in the US, still had the overall lead. The Wii had 40.3% of the top 10 titles by units sold, the Xbox 360 had 31% and the PS3 with 16.2. The rest was for Activision’s Guitar Hero: On Tour for the Nintendo DS, a surprise hit whose sale is going strong for the second month running. The surprise title on the charts is Take Two’s Civilization Revolution, a traditionally weak type of games on consoles (turn based strategy) – with consoles becomes more and more PC like in hardware and functionality, games that are better played on PCs may make a good transition to consoles provided the control interface is suitably tweaked, as it has been with Revolution. Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

1. NCAA Football 09 (Xbox 360, EA) – 397,600
2. Wii Fit w/Board (Wii, Nintendo) – 369,600 
3. Guitar Hero: On Tour (Nintendo DS, Activision) – 309,700
4. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 284,000
5. NCAA Football 09 (PS3, EA) – 242,500
6. Soul Calibur IV (Xbox 360, Namco) – 218,900
7. Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii, Nintendo) – 174,500
8. Rock Band (Wii, EA) – 165,800
9. Soul Calibur IV (PS3, Namco) – 155,800
10. Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360, Take Two) – 147,600

And finally, the prediction for next month. I have no idea, honestly. I think it will be somewhat similar, maybe the Xbox 360 can overtake the PS3, maybe it won’t. There won’t be any dramatic changes, I don’t think. We are quickly approaching the peak period of sales, the holiday season, and things will be much clearer at that time than right now. See you next month.

The Olympics have started. I hope you’re watching it in HD, as this is the first Olympics to be presented with the superior resolution of High Definition. Events such as the Olympics are catalysts for huge surge in sales of TVs, and this one seems to have come just at the right time (when HD uptake is reaching a critical point).

Let’s not waste any time and get right into the copyright news. There is pressure in Australia on ISPs to become copyright cops and to spy on user downloads to check for pirated material. Not only is this a serious breach of privacy, and many ISP’s terms of usage, it has much larger implications as well. Plus, it adds additional monetary burden on an industry whose profit margins are dropping all the time due to increased usage (and yes, some of this extra usage is related to piracy, but most are due to legal uses, such as viewing YouTube or free online streaming that most major media outlets offer these days). The good news is that Australian ISPs, unlike those in the UK, are still rejecting this idea that they should become copyright cops. How long can they hold out though, is another question.

Will movie studios end up here?

With exaggerated claims of piracy, and absurd statements such as “Piracy could put film industry out of business”, there’s definitely a global push to protect the income streams of big media. Even though profits are going through the roof at the moment, with movies like The Dark Knight breaking all records left and right. Greed, as always, is a very dangerous thing. The whole situation is actually quite depressing, and I’m glad I’m not the only one. William Patry, a copyright expert who has hosted a blog on copyright issues, has shut down his blog citing the current depressing copy control climate as a reason.

Onto HD news now, nothing much this week other than the usual “nobody wants Blu-ray, new study finds” stories, which are just recycled stories from a couple of weeks ago. I don’t buy the stories that say Blu-ray will die as a format, but I also don’t buy the stories that say Blu-ray will take over DVDs in a matter of months. Expect DVDs and Blu-rays to exist side by side well into the 2010’s, and then for both to be further supplemented by Internet based video services of one kind or another. I’m still buying DVDs, just bought 13 movies yesterday. And I will buy Blu-ray for movies that I think deserve to be shown in their full HD glory (The Dark Knight, The Godfather Trilogy, for example). And I think this is the way to go for many people, until Blu-ray prices tumble down to DVD levels, that is.

Panasonic wins one of these for their work on MPEG-4 AVC

Panasonic is set to win a technical Emmy award for its work on the MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) codec, which as I predicted last year, has really established itself as the codec of choice across a wide range of applications. YouTube, Blu-ray, HDTV, mobile streaming … they all use one of the MPEG-4 AVC profiles. Which is why if you’re buying a new computer, you really do need to make sure it can decode H.264 @ 1080p. A fast CPU should do it, but these days, GPUs do a lot of decoding work too and you no longer need to spend hundreds on a dedicated video card … even integrated GPUs, such as Intel’s new GMA X4500HD chip, can do most of the decoding without having to rely on the CPU. It’s worth noting that VC-1 and H.264 are two different formats entirely and you should make sure your GPU supports acceleration for both (ATi is better in this regard than Nvidia). VC-1 is the other major codec used by Blu-ray, by studios such as Warner Bros, Disney, Paramount and Universal.

And in gaming, PC gaming is not dead, but its doctor is recommending a strict diet, exercise regiment and monthly check-ups, just to be sure. GTA IV is coming to the PC after all. There was also this rumour that Sony’s long awaited PS3 exclusive, Little Big Planet, will be coming to the PC as well. Most likely just a photoshopped image of the game box. But what was funny, at least to me, was the reaction of certain PS3 sites, who greeted the news with anger and sadness. I never understand the need for games to be exclusive to a certain platform … does it make the game better? No, of course not. Does it improve the game by making it gain more fans across the platforms. I think it does. Does it hurt fanboy pride that a game they thought was going to win some kind of imaginary war for them? Yes it does.

PS Home is finally coming ... erm ... home

Another favourite line from PS3 fans is that the full PS3 power is not being utilized yet. PS3 publisher Naughty Dog says only 30% of the PS3’s power is being used at the moment. That may be true on paper, but as with any multi-core/cell technology, it all depends on the software and more importantly, the type of software that can benefit from a multi-threaded environment. For calculations and statistical analysis, multi-threading can’t be beat, but for interactive content like games, the positives are less so and requires a lot more work to get just a little bit more. Basically what John Carmack of ID said last week about PS3 versus Xbox 360. Speaking of software on the PS3, want to run Windows Vista on it? Someone has tried it, and the results, as expected, were pretty nasty. Another software that will run a bit better is PlayStation Home, currently in closed beta, but you might be able to sign up and preview it for yourself.

Over in Xbox 360 land, there was a software update but it didn’t seem to add anything. Just another step towards to the new dashboard update, probably. The new 60 GB Xbox 360 seems to be the same as the old 40 GB version, but there has been some changes under the hood which should improve heat dissipation. It’s August now, so the rumoured Jasper 65nm GPU update should have arrived or be arriving soon, but who knows. I think I’ll wait for that one before exchanging my original HDMI-less 360.

It’s been somewhat quiet in Wii news, which probably means something big is on the horizon. Capcom talks about the new Wii MotionPlus controller add-on and how it plans to use it, but that’s about it.

And that does it for this week I think. I’ll be back next week with more news. If there’s more news. There should be more news, unless the world has ended by next Sunday afternoon (Australian time). I plan on watching all 6 Star Wars movies this week. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, or how it relates to the next WNR. I do get paid by the number of words I write, so that’s probably why. Except it’s not true, as I don’t get paid to write anything. So why am I still writing. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because …

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend recently. Those that have read this blog regularly will have noticed too. It concerns the tactics that organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA have been using to fight piracy: by killing off privacy.

Those in the UK will be familiar with the recent agreement between the BPI (British Phonographic Institute) and UK ISPs. The deal basically forces ISPs to spy on their users and to report piracy to the BPI for further prosecution (or is that persecution).

On the surface, this sounds fair enough. If you pirate stuff, then you should be prepared to face the consequences. Legal music downloads and movie purchases are cheap enough these days, and casual piracy means that you can always get make less than 100% legal copies of stuff from your friends’ legal copies.

But looking at the big picture, what has just happened exactly? Basically one industry group, a rich and powerful one, has just forced another industry group and all its members to start spying on their customers. The government was not involved for better or worse, so basically two private entities made a deal to invade the privacy of consumers to ensure future profits, with no oversight, on police or rights protection, and possibly not even a charter of what’s allowed and what’s not. When corporations start making deals with each with the effect of eroding our basic liberties, all in the name of profit and done so in such a public way, is this the time to start getting really worried? Not only has government around the world not acted to stop this, they have helped these organizations by creating new laws and legislation, such as the DMCA, to empower and legalise these actions. There is this quote that often comes to mind when I read these type of stories:

Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power 

— Benito Mussolini

Now, perhaps I’m overreacting just a bit. I’ve always been a fan of conspiracy theories, and so maybe this is just that side of me looking to be outraged. But the Internet is now possibly the most frequently used communications platform we have today, at least for people in the developed countries. If private companies are now allowed to spy on our most intimate communications, all in the name of protection intellectual property, then where will it stop? Random computer searches? Which is now easier than ever thanks to spyware. Searching laptops at airports for pirated material? Sounds far fetched, but amazingly, it’s already been proposed.

And when you look at the current political climate around the world, what with terms like ‘enemy combatants’, ‘Gitmo’ and ‘rendition’, plus ‘third degree interrogation’ techniques such as ‘waterboarding’ all becoming accepted parts of democratic society, is this really the direction we want to head in (and that’s not even mentioning those other countries that don’t care about human rights).

Going back on topic slightly, I know a lot of people who hate the movie “Starship Troopers”. In typical Paul Verhoeven style, it was crass, loud, extremely violent and many claimed that it promoted piracy. I thought it was a brilliant movie because of the message that it delivers … that any society can turn into a fascist one, and we probably wouldn’t even notice. Seeing Doogie Howser M.D. in an Nazi SS like uniform, and being one of the “good” guys, says it all really. In fact, all the good guys in the movie promoted fascist ideals, and that’s also why many people were outraged. But were they outraged that this was a movie portraying fascists as the good guys (and gals), or were they more outraged by the fact that it was so easy for themselves and other moviegoers to start cheering for symbols of fascism? And should we start embracing corporate fascism just because we want to do the right thing and respect the rights of artists. If this the cost of anti-piracy, then sign me up for the Swedish Pirate Party.

It’s that time of the week again when I go through all the news items of relevance in the week, or at least all the relevant news items that caught my eye, or perhaps more precisely, the interesting news items that I managed to find, but even more accurate, the interesting news items that I managed not to miss or ignore as I was preoccupied with other things like sleeping and watching TV. WNR: It’s the only thing you need to read every week! (especially if you don’t mind missing a few importance pieces of news here and there)

Let’s start with the copyright news that I didn’t manage to miss. The MPAA is trying to play the nice guy by offering links to legal movie downloads. The ones that they insist on infesting with DRM? At the very same time, the “bad cop” division of the MPAA is cracking down harder on movie streaming sites, with two smaller sites being targeted. Two much bigger sites are also targetted by Italian publisher Mediaset, Google and YouTube. These companies should really get together and discuss an unified strategy on who to sue: big sites, small sites or individuals. Porn companies, ever the pragmatist, have decided against going after individuals and will target P2P sites instead.

Are anti-piracy measures responsible for the movie's success?

But the question remains whether these lawsuits and other measures are working. Are people downloading less illegal content these days? The Dark Knight had it’s own 6 month intensive anti-piracy strategy. The result? 38 hours before the first illegal copy was found on the net. Is that a success? Warner Brothers thinks so. I think the success of the movie had more to do with the quality of the movie, than whether there were downloads or not in the first 38 hours. Do you see TDK dropping heavily down the charts now that downloads are available and in great demand? Nope, neither do I. A lot of these downloads are from college students with fast/free Internet access at dorms and such. Which is why the powers that be have singled them out and the new US college funding bills has anti-P2P provisions tacked onto it. Just how much money did it cost the RIAA/MPAA to get something like this done, I wonder.

This little thing is responsible for a lot of piracy

Gaming piracy is another major problem as perceived by the industry. I do agree that Nintendo DS piracy is far too common for Nintendo not to be concerned, although it has helped them take the market leadership position which is worth a hell of a lot more than revenue lost through piracy. But Nintendo will act and they will try to prevent devices like the R4DS memory cards from being manufactured to stop piracy. You can’t blame them, of course, but you must question the timing a bit: why has it taken them to long to act (after 4 generations of these memory cards have already been released). Perhaps even they realise that it helps more than it hinders, but now that they’re on top, they don’t need or want piracy anymore.

Onto HD news that I didn’t sleep through this week, China is ready to unveil it’s own version of HD, based on existing HD DVD technology but without the royalties, and it will battle Blu-ray for the Chinese market. China is large enough to basically ignore global markets if it wanted to, and so Blu-ray could still be *the* HD format elsewhere, and have absolutely no presence in China if the Chinese insists on it. There’s been some news about Blu-ray struggling, due to a poll or some other. It’s funny, because last week I was reading that Blu-ray was a hit and I’m sure I’ll be reading about it next week too. I trust the sales stats only, and Blu-ray sales have been steadily quite low compared to DVDs. Since I started tracking and posting the weekly sales stats on June 1st, the percentage has hovered around the 6 to 7% range. Not quite the 50% that Sony claim they will have by the end of the year. But remember, the most optimistic predictions say that Blu-ray will only finally get to 51%, and overtake DVD sales, in 2012. And with no competitor in the high density optical disc arena, Blu-ray has all the time it needs.

LG's Blu-ray and Netflix Player

And if you are a Netflix subscriber, than you’ll now have to pay a little bit extra for Blu-ray rentals. A couple of dollars per month is nothing really (that’s what, like 5 minutes worth of driving around with today’s petrol prices?). But it obviously hinders, rather than helps Blu-ray at this point. LG is coming out with a Blu-ray player that has Netflix streaming capabilities, and with the Xbox 360 also supporting Netflix streaming, that’s quite a bit of support for Netflix’s new service. I’ve been selling some Blu-ray movies on eBay under the username “dvdguy14”, and I think the interest in Blu-ray is still strong, but only if the price is right (which, after making a loss from the dozen movies I’ve sold so far, is a lesson I’ve learnt the hard way).

And finally in gaming, Xbox Live may become free, as more and more games have multi-player modes that don’t required the paid Xbox Live Gold membership. Microsoft’s response to Sony’s PlayStation Home? Perhaps. The new Xbox 360 dashboard is another item that will help to find PS Home, and you can already gain access to the leaked version of the updated dashboard. Another strategy Microsoft has against the rising popularity of the PS3 is to cut prices, this time to the Arcade model as well, which will place it actually below the price of a Wii. You do have to wonder about Microsoft’s strategy, because price cuts can’t go on forever.

ID’s John Carmack recently said a few things which seem to suggest he now prefers the PS3, including some comments about Blu-ray helping to reduce compression related quality problems for an upcoming game (Rage). John D. Carmack (I believe the D stands for Doom – the game he’s best known for), has now clarified his comments which basically boils down the same things many people have been saying forever, that the Xbox 360 is easier to develop for, the PS3 has more power but you need to work hard for it (as most of the advantages the PS3 has over the 360 are “in theory”, and not practically tested yet). I’m still not convinced by Blu-ray’s usefulness in this generation of gaming, because games that require 50 GB of storage will be a pain in the neck in terms of loading – both the 360 and PS3 are very much limited in terms of memory, much more so than your average PC from even a year ago, so how can they handle 50 GB of textures without causing serious playback problems? For A/V storage, including in-game movies/audio, then yes, Blu-ray is useful. Much like how in the early days of CD-ROM, most of the games were rather crappy FMV games (Rebel Assault aside, most of them were 3/10 stuff).

EA has had to apologise to everybody recently

There’s been some EA news recently too. They first had to apologise for dropping the ball on the Red Alert 3 PS3 port, and had to do the rather outrageous act of cancelling it altogether. Then they had to apologise again for concentrating too much on the PS3 and 360 (heh @ the PS3 comment), and not investing enough on the Wii. They are now trying to win back PS3 fans by providing some exclusive content for PS3 owners on some of their upcoming games. If so, then an apology to 360 fans seems to be on the cards from the gaming giant. During all this commotion, the PS3 had a new firmware update to fix some audio problems.

As for the Wii, Nintendo says the Wii’s successor is already in the works for when Wii sales start to decline. Hopefully when that happens, the Wii will get a price drop too and it will no longer force people to fake their own kidnapping in order to get theirparents to pay for a Wii.

Oh looky, we’re at the end of another WNR. It’s been fun folks, it really has, and I look forward to providing you with more news that I bothered to read throughout the week at the same time. And to follow up on last week’s end notes, I did go and see The Dark Knight. Boy was that a long movie. It was a pretty good movie, and given that I had high expectations, I still wasn’t disappointed. Not a 9.2 out of 10 as IMDb users puts it, but a solid 8.5 no doubt. Best Batman movie and best comic book adaptation, that’s for sure. Go and see it at the cinema or grab it on Blu-ray/DVD, it’s worth the money.