Blu-ray vs. Digital Download: Why Blu-ray is the Future
By EL1TE, 31 January 2008 - 20:19 55 comments
The war between the two high definition formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD, seems to have come to a bloody end. Company after company has pledged its allegiance to Blu-ray, and things look grim for Toshiba. However, many in the industry claim Sony's victory will be short lived in the face of a new nemesis, digital downloads.
Tech.co.uk's James Rivington goes over the facts and tell players why he believes that Blu-ray will survive in the face of digital downloads. I agree that Blu-ray is safe for now. Many people, myself included, want to actually own a physical copy of their media. If I have a catastrophic failure of my computer, I can always rebuild from the discs I have on hand. However, many distributers of digital downloads want to limit the time period and number of installs you're allowed to have. So in the event your game becomes corrupted or your CPU frags itself, you may actually have to repurchase your games if you bought them via digital download.
In short the digital download is renting or leasing where as Blu-ray is buying. Until they change that, I will be purchasing hard copies of all my media.
[Via Tech.co.uk]
News source: Gaming Today
Comments (55)
Pippin666 - 31 January 2008 - 20:36
Bonus content, 'nuff said!
Pip'
SIE - 31 January 2008 - 20:37
"Many people, myself included, want to actually own a physical copy of their media"
What a waste is all I can say, so much for the enviroment! As for the digital download's vs blu-ray, whats that gotta do with gaming? PC games won't come on blu-ray anytime soon, if ever, and PS3's don't have enough hard drive space for game downloads to be an option.
nemo - 31 January 2008 - 20:39
Skyfrog - 31 January 2008 - 20:38
Is anyone else getting sick of these articles? It's almost as bad as the Vista bashing or fake Windows 7 news.
darkpuma - 31 January 2008 - 21:44
delete 'almost'
and yes i agree, i'm getting sick of it, whereas a lot of actual good news is never making it to the front page. I dunno why i still bother with neowin, its one of two websites i visit every day (second one is mininova lol)... i should replace this news site with a better one for sure....
toadeater - 01 February 2008 - 03:01
Why don't you make microsoft.com your homepage and just get it over with?
Find a site where Vista isn't being bashed. There are none, except microsoft.com, because Vista is a massive disappointment and the entire world knows this.
George W. Bush and Microsoft Vista - two of the worst things to happen to America since Bill Clinton.
lt8480 - 01 February 2008 - 09:45
The main reason vista is "bashed" so much is because people want more... not because there is actually much wrong with Vista.
eth3l - 31 January 2008 - 20:39
Studio support is irrelevant to this 'format war'. Idiot "reporters" need to stop their ignorant yellow-journalism.
Skwerl - 04 February 2008 - 20:46
Are you on crack? Who is going to be buying the discs if there's no content on them?
Nose Nuggets - 31 January 2008 - 20:40
well, your basing the assumption that digital downloads wont win over the consumer on the idea that digital downloads will be "renting" and not purchasing. which i call BS on. there are more then a few systems in place now where that simply is not the case. the File Planet's Hit Points and digital download services logs your purchase to your account and you can download it when ever you want. the Steam product is the same. in fact, i PREFER to buy my games of Steam if i can because if i loose the CD or cd-key i have to re-purchase. as long as i remember my login and password i dont need to keep track of anything physical. which i prefer. Steam also gives you the option to backup any purchased games to media if you prefer to own.
so yeah, if the options are buy a physical disk or buy the one time download for the same price the decision is obviously a physical disk. but any company that runs this model will soon find out from irate customers who dont read the fine print its a loosing enterprise. just follow the Steam model, what else could the consumer want? its the best of both worlds.
nX07 - 31 January 2008 - 20:44
The danger of loosing a digital copy is really not existant; especially if they implement a system such as steam. You by the game, and enter a CD-Key.. your account is your library, you can crash all the PC's you want, you can just re-download without worry.
The issue I believe is bandwidth. There's no way people will download 10GB+ per movie when their ISP's either a) Throttle Speed, b) Charge Outrageous prices for anything of decent data transfer, and c) have caps of how much you can download a month.
You download 6 Hi-Def B.R. Quality movies, and you basically have eaten your Rogers Hi-Speed Express cap of 60GB, for example.
whocares78 - 01 February 2008 - 01:39
i'd luv a 60 gig cap, i have a 5 gig peak 5 gig off peak cap, so one movie and i'm throttled
GreyWolf - 31 January 2008 - 20:46
*deposits another 'opinion' on the quality scale*
seta-san - 31 January 2008 - 21:00
this sort of thing belongs in the forums... not in the main news. This isn't news. It's commentary and opinion. not worth anyones time.
Skwerl - 04 February 2008 - 20:53
Not necessarily. It depends on where the opinion comes from, and this particular opinion is of a predictive nature with reasoning to back it. It's different from saying, "I think Blu-Ray is crap!" The author is suggesting a contrary view to the suggestion that digital distribution could send physical media the way of the dinosaur. The source is from a fairly major tech web site and presents a view contrary to one we've read about recently, so I don't see why it's not worthy of being listed on the site.
Zilos - 31 January 2008 - 21:03
Soon there will be a new news article stating "Recent stats show that less and less users are visiting the tech site Neowin.net" lol
DaveBG - 01 February 2008 - 03:19
Less and less of which users? sony haters - proud hddvd fanboys?
Admit it , you lost./
ahhell - 31 January 2008 - 21:06
Complete and total crap.
What the hell has happened to Neowin?????
DaveBG - 01 February 2008 - 03:16
They are telling the truth?
Andrew Lyle - 31 January 2008 - 21:19
I was an HD-DVD supporter, until i noticed blu-ray was going to win, and I switched over to pro blu-ray, basically because it's the superior adapter, and the consumers really take to "blu-ray" (if you can't beat'em, join'em).
Now that blu-ray has the lead, why must people bash blu-ray, saying it's only due for a quick death? Blu-ray has won, give it up. Enough is enough already.