Playstation 3, all hail Blu-Ray.

So with all the hoo-haa about the Hi-Def format wars coming to an end, i’ve “kinda” decided to get myself a Playstation 3. Yeap thats right. All hail Blu-Ray. Its about time the format wars coming to an end. Ive been getting tired of having to wait and see which format would come out the victor. Seriously i dont think it makes sense to have both format out on the market when some of your favourite movies are released in one format or the other exclusively. It just hurts the industry in the long run.

In my opinion, i think that Sony made a rather risky yet strategic move to implement Blu-Ray technology in its latest Playstation 3 console. Its general direction of having the console as the hub of all your visual and audio entertainment needs in the living room have finally starting to pay off. I can still remember last year the harsh criticism given to playstation 3 about the feasibility of having such advance technology, such as the Cell processor and Blu-ray to the general gaming consumers. And with the hefty price tag, it makes the investment a real risky one indeed.

And yet if you look at it from another perspective, the market penetration of next gen gaming console, coupled with next gen Hi-def video is quite a brilliant move by Sony. The ability for the company to penetrate 2 different products to the masses actually tilted in Sony’s favor. Even now with the success of Blu-ray, it is not because of the Blu-ray players that gave it a significant market share, but rather the consoles bought by gamers which incidentally give the edge needed by Sony over Toshiba’s HD-DVD in terms market dominance.

As of now, the cheapest Blu-ray player you can get is the PS3. And thats not all. With the PS3, you can obviously play video games, listen to your favourite music, playback various videos, surf the next and engage in online gaming activities. The All-in-one concept is really starting to work for Sony. Lastly the PS3 is a dynamic, ever changing piece of hardware, made possible by software updates which is able to update its software as well as firmware for the Blu-Ray player, making it future proof for many years to come.

When Warner Bros. made a bold move to desert HD-DVD, it was the beginning of a domino effect on the fall of the format. Soon after, retailers and online rental companies such as Best Buy, Netflix and Walmart finally gave in to support Blu-ray exclusively. This finally tip the scale and caused Toshiba to fall out and made the inevitable of stopping its support and manufacture of HD-DVD. The format war is finally over.

What whats in store for Blu-Ray now that HD-DVD is no more? We shall see. But for the Playstation 3, 2008 might be an interesting year for the console. Will it make a roaring comeback to the gaming scene? Will games developers and publishers have another look at the PS3 as a potential piece of gaming machine of the future and start developing games for the console? Im sure that game developers would study this latest event closely and determine if the time is right to fully exploit the processing power of the Playstation 3 and create incredible video games in the years to come.

Meanwhile, do enjoy this video clip. 🙂