The irony of the single format dream

[Soi]

Single format dream? More like a nightmare. This generation's consoles are so cheap for one reason - competition from 3 fierce rivals. If there was a single format there would be vastly reduced competition, little or no spur for innovation, and much higher prices.

Consoles, as we know them now, are pretty much ideal for games. They exist for a limited period (say 4 years) in which time they provide a pretty much stable platform. PCs need upgrading feverishly in order to still cut the mustard with new releases. I got my PS2 over four years ago, and it is still capable of playing the latest games. How good would a 4-year old PC be at playing the latest games today?

[Brats]

DVD Players are a single format and they're hardly expensive nowadays.

A true single format would actually increase competitiion, not reduce it.

[MartyG]

There are a group of budget level players that use the same shared firmware and decoder chips that are cheap - there here because the format is mature. There are plenty of players around above and beyond this.

However, video/audio is a different beast to software - there has not been a sufficient advance to warrant replacing DVD technology. Similarly CDs are still top of the music reproduction pile, DVD-A and SACD have made little impact there. The technology jump in the console generations is much greater, hence people want to upgrade.

Were audio/video formats appearing every few years that did mean a technology leap, you'd be in a similar situation to the PC/Console market. New technology = higher cost.

Regards
Marty

[Brats]

But new AV formats do appear every few years.

First there was VHS, then there came S-VHS, Laserdisc, Video CD, Digital Tape and others. They were all better than VHS, but none of them caught on in any big way until eventually DVD arrived.

The DVD format is mature yes, but why can't a console be mature? The hardware that powers the current PSone is completely different from the insides of the first PlayStation, but it all works fine. It is perfectly possible to have a various designs for hardware that all power the same software without any differences.

DVD-Audio and SACD are significantly better than CD, but they haven't caught on because the public thinks the increase in quality isn't worth the risk of purchasing a new format that may go the way of Betamax.

Sooner or later, newer consoles will not offer anything that much over the then current generation. This is the point when a single format would make perfect sense.

[evilmatt]

There are plenty of players around above and beyond this.

Such as progressive scan players. You could almost argue that we do have a single format in a sense - Playstation - and the likes of us buying minority formats are the same as the people on AVForums discussing progressive scan players, HDTVs and THX sound (from very expensive setups!) Its just that the difference in newer/different technology in AV is significantly less obvious than in games, hence far less need for the "casual dvd viewer" to upgrade or worry about.


Or not

[AllYourBase]

PS2 is far from a single format, whilst it is predominant. The split between the 3 consoles gives all 3 a much bigger slice of the pie than DVD vs it's rivals in standards, it's far from comparable

[MartyG]

There's not much difference in VHS/SVHS/Video CD quality. Laser Disc certainly improved things, but the format was bulky and storage capacity restricted, also pricey so didn't catch on. DVD arrived at the right time, in the right format at the right price.

The point at which technology advancement doesn't make a next generation console viable, becomes the point at which a single format becomes a posibility.

I wasn't disagreeing that it will never happen

Regards
Marty

[evilmatt]

AllYourBase - I know, my point was kinda tongue-in-cheek to be honest


Although - what competitors to DVD are there? DivX maybe, there's plenty of that online - I'd guess many, many people have DivX or MPEG videos on their PCs (especially blokes. With broadband connections ) Whilst not directly comparing the hardware, or necessarily the way the hardware is used, they are competing standards of a sort. Same with MP3 vs CD, portable MP3/WMA/whatever players are taking off in a big way the last year or two and online music downloads are (we are told!) threatening the CD format (not that I'd believe it just yet)

[tankplanker]

Hopefully people won't take my contrary view point the wrong way, but it seems that there is

alot of (possibly delibrate) ignorance of how exactly the DVD pheonoman came about. I appologise in advance for the long post, I still haven't put all of my points across, but hopefully you will get the gist of what I am saying.

DVD sales only really took off about 4 years ago, before that it was a niche market, and was

so for the 4 years prior. For those first 4 years the manufactors only made expensive DVD

players (nothing under 300 pounds), players that have been superceeded quality and format

wise by cheaper players today. Also the range of DVDs was relavitly small compared to the

massive back catalog of VHS titles, I'd put DVD during this intial phase on a par with laser

disc contents wise. The majority of DVD content is less than three years, with a lot of the orignal content being reissued in new and improved versions more than once.

he move to DVD has seen the reissuing of content that was published (and earned its "development" cost) on previous formats, such as the cinema, VHS, laserdisk. THis massive back catalog of content can be ported relativley cheaply to DVD and sold for almost total profit - I doubt there are many games that this can apply to, and the few that it can (street fighter, metal slug, KoF are the obvious examples) haven't sold well.

Is this really the model that we expect (and want) game publishers to move to? DVD publishers have other profitable revenue streams, many game publishers do not, can they afford this lean period of take up?

I'll give another example of a new standard about to hit the mass market (18 months tops) - DVD-A and SACD. DVD-A and SACD haven't let taken off for three reasons:

1) The hardware to play the standard hasn't reached the price point that the mass market

wants to pay
2) Lack of material to play on the players
3) Two standards that do more or less an identical job, with some shared content and some

exclusive content (sounds rather like competing consoles to me) - this is addressable by

dual format devices, but this obviously raises costs

All three reasons are reducing in their impact as the manufactors continue the rollout of

the new format(s), I've seen SACD enabled DVD players for 300 pounds a few months ago, how

long before its a standard feature for all DVD players? And how long after it becomes a

standard feature before the take up of new disks accelerates?

Have you actually listened to a good SACD or DVD-A system? I'd say that finally we have a

medium that can beat record players for the warmth/feel of sound. Obviously the average home setup isn't going to hear that quality rise in quite the same level, but this hasn't stopped the take up of cheap widescreen TVs and DVD players, which look pretty awful to my eyes, and people saying that they see a massive improvement in quality.

There is let another new format just on the horizan, one that will replace DVDs, at least in the US and Japan, and as this is an import forum I think that these are important market places to us. This new format is Blue-Ray, and its new competior - HD-DVD. The take up of HDTV sets, particularly in the US over the last 12 months has been rapid, this in turn (complete with US govenment backing - they recently forced Fox to start moving to HDTV) is/will drive US TV Networks to start broadcasting more and more HDTV content. HDTV has a higher quality picture than DVD, and who is going to buy an inferor DVD of a show/film when they have watched the HDTV version, and possibly recorded it onto their HD Tivo? Hence these two new standards, which should beat broadcast quality. This new DVD standard raises another point, even with a "single" format, you are going to have to upgrade your system (and for most people I expect this to be less than 5 years since they brought a DVD player) and possibly your DVD collection if you want to make the most of your new player.

These new DVD standards are still at the early stages, yet have been available to buy in Japan since last year, just like DVD was, just like VHS, just like CD. THis is how new formats get rolled out, first Japan (who seem to be happy to pay for the formats development costs during "beta" testing), then the US, then Europe.

One final thing, the reason there is a single DVD format was as much due to luck than anything, pretty much all previous digital formats (CD being the one exception, its competiors never got passed the standards stage), and all of the current new wave of formats have one or more incompatible competiors - how is this any different from consoles? One format has won (VHS, DVD / PS1, PS2), yet the other formats still had take up that supported them for a while (Betamax, Laserdisk / N64, Xbox) yet with consoles the manufactores don't tend to give up, they come back for another round.

[Ady]

all of the current new wave of formats have one or more incompatible competiors - how is this any different from consoles? One format has won (VHS, DVD / PS1, PS2), yet the other formats still had take up that supported them for a while (Betamax, Laserdisk / N64, Xbox) yet with consoles the manufactores don't tend to give up, they come back for another round.

I see your point there, however you also have to consider that in the console market, these competitors also develop their own software. The manufacturers of laserdisk, for example didn't create their own laserdisk-exclusive movies.

[tankplanker]

I think laser disk is a poor example of that, I think the mindisk / philips tape thingy is a better example. These where to competing formats that had exclusive content - Sony music for mini disk and Phillips for the tape. I think the same might happen for the next round of HD DVDs, its certainly happened for DVD a and SACD - but I hope dual format players will get round this.

Laserdisk did have some exclusive content, I'm pretty sure that Star Wars came out first for the home market on laser disk - its still my prefered version of the film.

[Ady]

This still doesn't prove (to my mind, at least) that the PlayStation is the video game standard in the same way that CD is for music and DVD for film.

Developers are quite happy to release content (exclusive or otherwise) across all three main formats and the sideliners (Microsoft and Nintendo, in this case) develop their OWN software for release on their own systems.

Additionally, PlayStation consoles (along with others) still require incremental upgrades as technology continues to evolve.

The only way I can ever see any machine coming close to providing a standard is if constant upgrading wasn't necessary.

I have a DVD player. I don't need to buy a DVD2 to play newer films, (and maybe a DVD3 after that). This is where the PC parrallels come in...

[tankplanker]

But this is my point, you will (at least if you live in the US or Japan) in a few years. HD-DVD (or blue-ray, or a halfway house between the two) is pre-ordained to take over - there is no way that people will pay for inferior content, and thats what the current DVD is compared to HDTV. I'd go as far as to say its as big a difference between SVHS and DVD - at least for NTSC it is.

Also DVD and CD are pretty unique, both very nearly didn't exist and are a result of the combination of competing formats before release to the general public - they are the exception rather than the rule. Its dishearterning that the big manufactors don't learn the leasons of mini disk, laser disk and so on, and work together to produce a single standard, as judging by the single standards success (CD & DVD) its what the purchasing public want.

PC isn't really a single standard, developers still have to optimize their code to run well on both ATI and Nvida hardware, not to mention different specs of PC, OS versions and so on. Why do you think there are so many patches? And as for getting older games to run on new hardware, please.

There will always be a need to obslete hardware, otherwise you'd never replace anything, and Sony, Phillips etc would never sell in the volumes that they enjoyed with CD/DVD players.

With HDTV they have a nice little cash cow for the next ten years or so, they are already working on its sequal. Same with phones, 4G has been in development for ages.

[Ady]

But this is my point, you will (at least if you live in the US or Japan) in a few years. HD-DVD (or blue-ray, or a halfway house between the two) is pre-ordained to take over - there is no way that people will pay for inferior content, and thats what the current DVD is compared to HDTV. I'd go as far as to say its as big a difference between SVHS and DVD - at least for NTSC it is.

Have to wait and see what happens there. Not every "pre-ordained" new fangled tech takes off.

As far as Joe Average is concerend, they just want to watch films or play music and any device that easily facilitates that is enough.

PC isn't really a single standard, developers still have to optimize their code to run well on both ATI and Nvida hardware, not to mention different specs of PC, OS versions and so on. Why do you think there are so many patches? And as for getting older games to run on new hardware, please.

Good points, but what I was really getting at was the fact that a standard format console would pretty much function in much the same way as a PC does now (albeit more streamlined).

[tankplanker]

Then why the rapid take up of DVD or CD? Its not all down to marketing

I'd be extremely surprised if HD DVD didn't take off, I'll summrise my points:

1) Rapid sales of HDTV sets in the US
2) Govenment backing for HDTV as the replacement for analog TV (still considering the switch off of normal TV)
3) HDTV PVRs like the Tivo launching

Why on earth would anybody pay for a inferor copy of a TV show, e.g., alias, on DVD, when you can record it in HDTV goodness on your PVR?

I'm still not convinced that a single format would be good, I can see it only coming about in a couple of senarios:

1) Sony win the next generation by such a big margin, and the xbox2/gc2 are such flops Nintendo & MS decide to call it a day and either license the hardware from sony (MS) or just make games for it (Nintendo). This would result in total domination from Sony, you would see with the PS4 a propritory disk format (publicly to reduce piracy) - limiting the pressing and thus the authorisation of all games to Sony. Don't forget that SCEA hate 2D, and anything "hardcore" - I'm conviced this would lead to an end of games like Ninja Gadien (at least with that difficulty level), Street fighter, Metal Slug and so on - but a growth in eyetoy based games, which are fine multiplay with non gaming friends, but not my choice for single player stuff at all. This dumbing down and even the end of certain genres is not what I want at all.

2) Sony, MS and Nintendos losses from the next generation are so bad and there is no clear leader they put aside their differences and work on a single platform. This is better, it would be more like the DVD model, and publishers would only have to meet certain basic requirements before publication. While this would result in more games initally, you would quickly see a couple of market leaders in each area, such as pro evo and FIFA for football, swallowing up all of the punters cash, leaving no room for new comers. We wouldn't see whole genres disppearing like with the option above, but you would see much less games, and possibly less innovation. Would splinter cell have done anywhere near as well as it did if it had been a PS2 exclusive? I very much doubt it, as Metal Gear has that market by the scruff of the neck.

Obviously senario 1 is much more likely to happen, still want your single format?