Cnet: Just one year ago, HD DVD was selling tons of $99 players, Blu-ray players cost an unreasonable $400 or more, and we were advising buyers to hold off going Blu because the format wasn't quite ready yet. Now we're already wondering if Blu-ray is a commodity. It's a great illustration of how far the technology has come in just one year.
When a product is referred to as a commodity, that generally means that the differences between brands is so small that buyers treat all brands as essentially the same. For example, many would consider DVD players a commodity, and to a large extent we'd agree--aside from high-end models that offer exceptional DVD playback, most people don't care about the differences between players. That's we we've mostly stopped reviewing them.
If you look at our ratings for standalone Blu-ray players, it's easy to see that we clearly don't think Blu-ray is a commodity yet. Not all players are Profile 2.0 compliant, many don't have onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, operation speed still varies significantly, and quite a few players don't have perfect video quality when outputting a standard 1080p signal.
Gary Green said: You’ll be forgiven if you haven’t heard of the Ar Tonelico trilogy. The previous two games arrived so late in the PS2’s life-cycle that they simply went unnoticed. While most were tinkering with their shiny new PS3s, Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia and Ar Tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica were being ‘returned to sender’ by your local Game stores. Luckily, you won’t need to have played them to understand and appreciate this third and final chapter, Qoga (pronounced k-yoga) tells the story of a racial war between humans and Reyvateils, a breed of biologically produced female cyborgs capable of reproduction, while still having a digital mind.
Oh my god. I kinda wish this would get a remaster on PS5, it would be awesome. One of my favorite games on PS3.
That and 3D Dot Game Heroes. It's a shame that some stuff is stuck on PS3.
Ar Tonelico 3 is good I still prefer the first AT game. The music is solid in all the games and Akiko Shikata is a very talented singer bringing life to the game. Only annoying part is well I find is Saki I always choose Finnel or Tyria. KOEI so needs to HD remaster the franchise along with Ar Nosurge and Ciel Nosurge since it never came to North America. I would day one the Ar Toneliceo games and Ar Nosurge if they were remastered.
I still have the limited edition of Qoga unopened. Unfortunately it never went up in value like I had hoped all these years.
On Amazon, you can't get an RTX 4090 for less than this one from Gigabyte, which now offers great value after an eye-catching April deal.
Gary Green said: We have a juxtaposition of 2D and 3D visuals, flashy turn-based combat, quirky anime characters with cheeky dialogue with plenty of partial nudity; Yes, this is a Compile Heart JRPG. Whilst the engine is borrowed from Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, Mugen Souls is more of a Disgaea spin-off. It’s not a strategy RPG as such, it merely sits within Disgaea’s ever-expanding universe (Multiverse? Netherverse? Your guess is as good as mine). You won’t find cameos though, since Mugen Souls is a franchise which aims to stand on its own two feet.
And they say no.
SHOCKING NEWS!!
despite all the sales data, meh. Don't let that get in the way of your opinion.
"Just one year ago, HD DVD was selling tons of $99 players" really??
You can pick up a stand alone for around £150 in the UK now (so probably cheaper everywhere else), and many are thrown in free with HDTV deals. It wasn't all that long ago that I was paying similar money for a decent DVD player.
BR is in a relatively tough spot, hard to market, how do you show someone using a SDTV how much better HDTV looks like? And BR can only really grow inline with HDTVs, so with all that considered I think BR has done fantastically to date, with a better adoption rate than DVD received. Of course if you have a SDTV then it's pointless, but if like me you spent a small fortune on a good HDTV you want to watch the best, otherwise whats the point? You've got a thin TV with a worst SD picture than most CRT TVs.
Yay...
cNent owned by ms? need to say more? blu-ray is not a commodity blu- ray is a next gen format with prices as well as its benefits.
i don't know i mean i just reserved the dark knight so tomorrow i guess this commodity will consume me completely lol.
Let me just say this. Since watching my first Blu-ray I have not bought a DVD.