For every format war there is a winner. And once a winner is declared, they can start cutting prices because they know that everyone and their brother is going to buy. That seems to be what Sony is doing in wake of its first format win ever.
APC is reporting that Blu-ray drive prices are falling fast. You can pick up a BD-ROM drive now for as low as $199, a far cry from the thousand dollar players and drives from only 20 months ago.
So how does this affect games? Well, on the PC side of things you could see games coming on multiple DVD’s or one BRD, similar to way the industry transitioned to DVD from the CD. As more people are putting BRD’s in their machines more publishes will seriously consider releasing their games on the format. I think that’s great, being able to use so much space on a single disc is better for everyone. Just make sure you pick up the right box at your retailer of choice.
On the console side of things, it gets more interesting; mainly because Sony has a huge stake in the Blu-ray format and makes one of only 3 consoles. If Microsoft and Nintendo include Blu-ray in their next consoles they would have to pay out to Sony. And since the next consoles will be coming out in approximately 3 years, that will be plenty of time to solidify Blu-ray as a viable format.
Unless they go to only direct download (which I don’t see happening next generation), I can’t see an excuse for Microsoft to not go the BRD route. Their argument for not including HD DVD games was cost, and read speeds (and choice to an extent), all valid points. But with the falling price of Blu-ray, and read speeds climbing it looks like Microsoft might have to take the route that Sony paved.
Nintendo on the other hand is not in the trenches of a graphics war. They can probably stick with DVD as long as their games are still fun. Heck, they could switch back to SNES carts and no one would even notice.
