Kotaku has one of the new Sony PS3 commercials on their site and it, in a word, is boring. Oh, it's got a neat message and all, but it's just techno mumble jumble and a cracking floor. You can view it here. I probably talked you out of bothering to watch it, but I will say the extreme close-up of the sunflower in the commercial is pretty cool. Fans of macro photography should check it out.
But what I'd like to really bring to your attention is that once again, Sony is talking out of both sides of their mouth. In the commercial, Sony tries to visualize how much extra space there is on a standard DVD (5 GB), an HD-DVD (30 GB), and of course their BluRay Disc. They claim the BluRay Disc has 50 Gigabytes worth of space. And that the extra space on the disc is going to equate to better games on the PS3 compared to the X360 and Wii.
However, when IGN posted photos this week of their unpacking of their PS3 review-kit, there are BluRay Discs clearly visible in the photos with an offical label proudly exclaiming not 50 GB, but 25 GB worth of space. So, if we're to believe Sony, not only does the actual BluRay Disc have half the storage they claim it to, but it actually has 5 GB less than the competitor's HD-DVD discs.
Click here for the photographic evidence.
Congrats Sony. You never cease to confuse us, yourself, and all of your would-be customers.
Personally, having played through "Gears of War" for example, I think the whole concept of needing more and more space is a bit exaggerated. While I no doubt understand that the jump to 1080p (in 5 years) will require the greater space on the discs for the textures, "Gears of War" has an amazing variety of very detailed (i.e. non-repeating) textures and sounds and quite easily fits on a single DVD. Not only that, but it's also head and shoulders better looking than other Xbox 360 games on the market and better looking than anything I've yet to see from the PS3. Sony will have you believe that in order to truly experience the next-generation of gaming, you have to have a media format with more space on it. No you don't. It's the age-old quality versus quantity argument and jamming more and more crap onto a disc doesn't justify the upgrade. Epic clearly shows with "Gears of War" that you can pack a substantial amount of quality-made gaming goodness onto a standard DVD and have it run exceptionally well at 720p and outshine everything on the market. Don't buy into the space hype.
And by the way, if BluRay and 1080p are so important to our enjoyment of Sony's product, why not even include at least a pair of component cables in the box? Actually, even an S-video cable would have been nice. All that cutting edge technology in the console and they pack-in a measly set of RCA composite cables. I used better cabling on my PSone!
2 comments:
I see and agree with your arguments, but I don't think you're giving enough credit to the commercial, which -real world aside- is very cool.
Sorry bout that, it must have been the narrator's voice. My eyes were telling me I was looking at pretty imagery, but my brain kept insisting that I was listening to Ben Stein and would eventually be asked to purchase eye drops (American commercial reference).
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