How will Ricoh's "Superdrive" affect the PS3?

[r0x0r]

Hi everyone,

As you probably all know by now, Ricoh has announced that they have developed a new drive that can read pretty much every type of optical media available, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. This is great for us, the consumer, because if the format that we supported ends up dying then our hardware is still useful.

However, one of the PS3's main selling points was the included Blu-Ray drive, which Sony had hoped would sway people to the Blu-Ray camp. Now that Ricoh have thrown a spanner into Sony's works, I ask you:

How do you think Ricoh's new "Superdrive" will affect the PS3?

 

[elpresidente2075]

It won't really. Its a gaming machine, not a dvd player. Now, Blu-Ray, on the other hand will take a big hit. Now it doesn't matter what kind of movie you buy! Just get the one that you like that is in your price range and you don't have to get screwed by sony!

Its not like we didn't expect it:

Betamax
Minidisk
ATRAC-3
UMD

Blu-Ray

 

[cafuddled]

I can’t see this hurting Blu-Ray at all, if anything this will help them immensely. Since the people who buy these units will not be lost to HD-DVD they will simply need to be won to there format.

Think of it this way, if you have a closed format that can only be played on your hardware and your hardware only. You will need to keep buying that same disk regardless of whether the other format has a better quality advantage or not. Kind of like what happened to Betamax, you had to make a choice back then. And everyone went with the best advertised and the cheapest hardware JVC. But now that the format is an open one and you can get hardware that runs all formats of disks, means that this will not likely happen again. It will be down to the quality of the media and the stronger factor, the price of the media.

Think of the current market as it stands just now, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are almost split 50/50 in sales and market coverage, which makes sound competition. But the amounts of units actually sold make a very disappointing number. But once the PS3 is released that will soon change. The PS3 is due to sell millions of units in the first few months after release. Meaning that the Blu-Ray market share will increase immensely, your looking at an increase that’s in the thousands percentage wise. Now given the fact that people will now have access to what is most likely going to be there first HD unit for playing back HD media other than Sky HD they will be after movies to watch on it.

This is where HD’s problem with the all format DVD set top comes in to play. If people did start buying those units, everyone that has them is going to want to go with the most popular standard that has the best quality of image with the cheapest price tag and that’s where it could become a no loose situation for Sony and there Blu-Ray format. Because what will happen when the sales of Blu-Ray format sky rocket, is that not only will the movie industry embrace it more meaning that the range of movies available on the format become much wider. The Blu-Ray format will actually become less costly to produce, meaning that the price will come down making it as equally attractive as HD-DVD is right now in the profit margin and final sale price.