Scott Hettrick of hollywoodinhidef blogs about a recent report from a Research/analyst firm, Understanding & Solutions, about Paramounts role in the hi-def movie wars and their failure to turn the market in favor of HD DVD.
Research/analyst firm Understanding & Solutions has issued a report today saying that Paramount's switch to go exclusive HD DVD has failed to turn the market in favor of that format and that Blu-ray continues to dominate the market with stronger studio support and sales volumes.
If they can't get it done with the cheapest players and three of the biggest movies of the year in "Transformers" and "Shrek the Third" from Paramount/DreamWorks and "Bourne Ultimatum from Universal," that doesn't leave them many options.
I wonder how Microsoft/Toshiba are feeling about that $150 million investment, especially since Toshiba's earnings have taken such a hit.
OpenAI has introduced a new series of AI models, o1, that are capable of complex reasoning and problem-solving - including game programming.
AI is completely unsustainable and expected to accelerate climate change. I expect government to take a harder stance on it within the next couple of decades, but by that point we may not even have a government or a gaming industry so….
When/ if it comes to this point, I have a massive collection spanning from the NES to current gen. No problem turning to retro gaming.
This is basically a more advanced model embedding the chain of thought technique by spending reasoning tokens while "thinking" before providing an output and is more suited for heavy specific tasks in coding, math and science.
I have used it for creating complex game puzzles (for role playing games) using tiered approach and multi step reasoning and it worked liked a charm.
It does not support vision at this point however or other multi modal features, nor does it generate images (no DALL-E 3 integration yet) and it has limits for plus and teams users in usage (20 and 50 messages per week respectively).
I have create an interactive guide for it for getting started here
https://view.caduceusapp.eu...
In any case, I believe that when the new models launch (GPT5 Orion, Claude Opus 3.5 and Gemini 2 along with Grok 3) we will see a big difference in gaming as well. Combined with text to video AI tools like Open AI's Sora, we will definitely see a decrease in quality in games and increase in. output, at least at the beginning.
In a few years where the models will be more fine tuned, we wont be able to tell the difference really
Mostly but not 100% right. o1-preview and o1-mini both have a 20 request per minute limit. o1-preview also has a 30 message cap per week for Plus users, and there is a smaller model I mentioned earlier, o1-mini, that functions similarly on math and code problems and comes with a 50 message weekly cap for Plus users. Combined you essentially get 80 messages per week w/ Plus. I work in machine learning so I wanted to clarify those points. Also, o1 itself hasn't been released yet, just o1-preview, but evaluation results of o1 have been publicly released and are comparable to o1-preview and o1-mini. I agree with the remainder of your points!
Correct! the 30 (which is not 20 as i wrote) and 50 requests I mentioned referred to the two models which I did not quote in the same sentence so it makes sense that it reads as if I am talking about the types of users (Teams or Plus).
Besides in my guide I have this information noted down as per OpenAIs website (I already exhausted my limit but was reset by OpenAI)
Yes the OpenAI model is part of the new reasoning models and has not been released yet. We now have access (as plus/teams of API Level 5 user) to mini and preview which are quite capable but limited in the scope due to their focus on certain topics.
Since you are working on machine learning, I suppose you should be excited about the new PS5 Pro performance or the new AMD offerings
Well AI would be necessary for the sword art online VR experience ppl are expecting to exist somewhere in the future. Aka full body VR.
Lex from Sirus Gaming wrote: The PS5 Pro boasts a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and a brand-new AI upscaling tech called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR). All of this translates to better image clarity and smoother performance, offering us consistent 60 frames per second with the best possible visual settings. The PS5 Pro also comes with a 2TB SSD and Wi-Fi 7. Question is, is a $700 price tag worth it?
Consoles definitely have their place because they're affordable and easy to use. But when you start changing those two things, that's when I stop seeing the value—especially now that exclusive content isn't really a big factor anymore.
When it comes to the PS5 Pro, I think Sony is asking for too much. That $700 quickly turns into almost $900 once you add the disc drive and taxes. Cutting corners by not including the drive and even the stand just makes the deal worse.
Still, there will be people who buy it. Some fans won’t mind the price. I just hope there aren’t enough of them, so Sony will rethinking this kind of pricing strategy for their future consoles.
Replies(2)I hope they take a similar approach to the Portal and not manufacture too many Pros out the gate to really see if the demand is there for a $700 premium home console. One thing I don't see being mentioned is that there is a healthy amount of PS4 owners who have yet to make the leap into current gen. This also might be an opportunity for Sony to capture that audience.
I’m pretty sure they will, because it’s advantageous for them to be able to say that the console sold out at launch.
As for PS4 owners, considering that the PS4 Pro had around 15 million users and many of those have probably already bought a PS5, I don’t think the rest of the PS4 owners are really waiting for a $700+ console to make the jump. More likely, they’re waiting for the PS5 to get a price cut or for FIFA to stop being released for their console.
Regular PS5: $449 + 2TB SSD $150 = $599
PS5 Pro 2TB: $699
It would have soften the overreaction if they would have stuck with 1TB and priced it at $599.
But it could have went the other way too if they advertised it was a 2TB. After I heard that it softened the blow but the damage was done.
I would have taken a 1TB with a disk drive.
Yeah that's what I mean. Sony fucked up here with their messaging and pricing strategy.
Sure we would have gotten memes about $599 being the price tag of the PS3, but at least the entry price difference would have been "only" $150 instead of $250.
Especially bc I would have just taken my 4tb SSD that's in my current PS5 and moved it over to the Pro. But no way, this is priced out of my comfort zone. €799 here, which equates to $880 atm.
i didn't even think of that, if you're a loyal customer you basically get screwed over the most. you will have paid for 2 ps5's, and 3ssd's then and you wont even have a disc drive in your new one, They honestly need some kind of exchange program, that you can hand in your ps5 for a big discount.
Not to mention a 2TB SSD at retail can already be found for $110-120.
The price they are getting that additional 1TB on their end is a fraction of that, so not even the extra storage is much justification for the price increase
You're kind of comparing two different things here. The first scenario you mentioned would give you a 3TB PS5, but there’s more to it. A consumer-grade SSD has a lot of parts that Sony doesn't have to pay extra for in the PS5 Pro. The main one is the controller, which can account for 20% to 40% of the total SSD cost, depending on the source.
Sony is really only paying for the extra memory modules, which would probably cost them around $40 at most. So, even if they made a 1TB model and discounted the price of the extra memory, the PS5 Pro would still be around $659, which would probably be received even worse.
I'm not comparing to what Sony would have made in profit, but rather the consumer market pricing.
I already agree this was a bad strategy and up front price. Sony really messed this up by making it a default 2TB console. Nobody would have complained if it was 1TB. And yes they should have included a stand and the disc drive.
But again comparing to what's available, you have really only one other option. The $449 PS5, also no disc and no stand. Sony's mess up is making it a $250 gap instead of $100-$150 gap.
A PS5 Pro at $599 I think would have been more digestible with consumers.
Your comparison should be stock for stock.
PS5 digital 1tb: $449.99 (MSRP)
PS5 Pro digital 2tb: $699.99 (MSRP)
Disc drive: $59.99 (MSRP) optional / works on both
Stand: $29.99 (MSRP) optional / works on both.
As far as expandable storage, those come in various sizes and prices and will also work on both.
it should have been $599 at MAX and WITH the disc drive and 2TB.
Absolutely no one can defend this ridiculous price.
Nobody is defending the price. Just looking at the facts here.
$599 with the disc drive and 2TB?
That's $599 - $79.99 = $520 - $50-100 for 1TB = $470-$420 making it the same or cheaper than the regular PS5.
That's not how this works. You'd be fired immediately if you were the financial analyst suggesting this.
@Sarcasm
You’re comparing apples to oranges here, which is why it doesn’t make much sense. You suggested they should have made it only 1TB and priced it at $599. That way, consumers might find it more acceptable, which is a reasonable idea.
But the $699 price isn’t just about the extra storage. They’re charging that amount because that’s what they’ve decided. So, having less storage and a lower price aren’t as closely related as you might think. You can get that amount of storage on a NAND chip for around $40, and that's the consumer price. For a big company like Sony that buys these chips in bulk, the cost should be even lower.
So even if they cut the extra storage, it wouldn’t bring the price down by $100. The only way to see such a big price drop would be if Sony changed their overall pricing strategy.
Right but people are ignoring the actual performance uplift of the new machine. Everyone is acting like the SSD drive is the *only* difference. The bigger GPU has a cost.
I stand with the people, the price initially is too high. They messed up.
But when you take a subjective look at the device itself, it's not that surprising why it costs what it costs in today's economy. When $5 burgers are now $12-$15. Other than cavemen, nobody should be this level of surprised a new electronics device is overpriced.
Also at the end of the day, this is an OPTIONAL purchase. Nothing stops anyone from buying the base PS5.
IF Sony went full Concord, and the $700 PS5 Pro is the ONLY option on the market. Then let's all bust out the pitchforks and torches holding hands together.
You only need to add 1TB to the PS5 slim to get it to 2TB. And the PS5 slim has intermittently been on sale. So less than $550 for a 2TB PS5 slim. Something else to consider is that adjusting for inflation, the PS4 Pro would be $525 in today’s dollars. If PS5 Pro hit that number, then even I would be interested in it.
@Sarcasm
No one is ignoring the performance boost, and honestly, you're the first person I've seen even bringing up the SSD. The problem is that Sony hasn’t done a great job of showcasing that performance. If I remember correctly, four or five of the games they presented were actually PS4 titles, and their later press release focused heavily on those other 8K games that will automatically get better, but many of those are PS4 games and by the description it doesn't look that much diferent from what the PS5 already does with those games.
There’s also the matter of expectations. Consoles are supposed to be the affordable and easy option for gaming, especially now that exclusives seem to be less of a thing. So when Sony releases a $700 console that requires at least another $80 to play physical discs, plus $30 just to stand it up vertically, they really need to prove why it’s worth that price to avoid backlash.
The way they’ve handled it makes them look greedy, and that’s where the real issue lies. Sony has a track record of becoming difficult to deal with when they hold too much of an advantage over the competition. So when people say, “It’s just an option,” they’re giving Sony exactly what they want. Those who adopt that mindset and buy the console are essentially telling Sony it’s okay to set prices like this. When the PS6 comes around, we might face another situation like the PS3 launch, but this time, without any real competition, and that’s bad for everyone.
Oh, but then we get mad and voice our frustrations. By that point, though, unless Microsoft really gets their act together, it’ll already be too late. Sony will essentially be the only option for console gaming, and you, me, and the average gamer will have to pay whatever they demand. Otherwise, we’ll be pushed out of the hobby altogether. As a PC gamer, I’ve already seen this happen with Nvidia GPUs recently and with Intel CPUs about a decade ago, and trust me, it sucks.
I don't know, is it? Do we have an actual component cost breakdown of the PS5 Pro? Because until we do, anyone defending or criticizing the price is clueless.
Yeah. I think the big miss is they should have just included the disc drive and dropped to 1tb for $599. At $699 plus additional expenses for physical games, it quickly got out of hand for most people to see the value.
Now, when you consider that it's considerably more powerful than the Series X 2tb sku but only $100 more, that's a deal. Problem for them is you add $85 after tax for the disc drive.
Still a better value but they should have mentioned 2TB in the presentation itself to soften the blow.
After thinking it over, it's still more affordable for me to upgrade to the Pro than switching to PC because all the games that are Pro enhanced, I already own. I would need to repurchase on PC and some aren't even there yet. Plus, I can sell my OG PS5 to cover half. Reasonable from there.
Adding stuff like wifi 7 and doubling the internal storage are things that they could have not changed. Wifi 6 is very viable and they could have saved 7 for the PS6. Also 1tb is perfectly fine, especially since they still allow you to add your own. Pricing it at $599 would have been far easier to swallow than $699. Because then it would only be $100 more than a fully fledged PS5 (or $150 more than a digital). Instead it is $200-250 more than the base models.
I would have compromised on storage space to meet $599 - include the stand too. The original PS5 wasn't 1TB anyways so it would still seem like an upgrade.
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Dont know who to pity more toshiba who might go tits up over this hd dvd thing or Paramount who sold out. I mean how many paramount movie buyers have b/r vs hd/dvd... Even if it was 70-30 in hd dvd's favor I dont think they did the right thing by their customers...
edit: look fanbots personally idk
b/r hd/dvd its all the same to me sure i got a ps3 but even if b/r looses its not like sony's gonna stop making b/r games... Besides I got a 360 too not much for the hd dvd add on if we needed it. What i hate is when a company like paramount stabs its customers in the bakc by taking a bribe not to publish their movies in b/r...
Same goes for a lot of other big companies review sites in particular who are obviously willing to do anything for a quick buck. Clients be damned look at how many sites put out stellar reviews for ME without even so much has a mention of all the issues in the game... Nope if you want my respect and my dough youd better at least look like your treating us decent...
poor them, now they are 150m less which could've been use to buy something else.
That would have been so much better ;(
It will be good for consumers once HD DVD lite dies.
I'm shocked.