Analyst: Sony Working on Blu-ray Free PlayStation 3

Analysts are cuddly. We had one once. But we ate him.

Posted by Staff
What the PS3-Br could look like.
What the PS3-Br could look like.
Video game "analysts" are a wondrous breed. Wondrous like the unicorn or Medusa. The doyenne is of course, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan. But Michael might have to face some competition. The new kid on the block is an Edge-online find. Welcome Mike Hickey of Janco Partners*.

We know Mike's been around for a while - and has said some less than idiotic things - but his latest outburst had us scratching our heads:

He begins sensibly enough - agreeing with, among other people, us - before heading off into what looks very much like a cloudy land run as a dictatorship by cuckoos:

"We are also hearing continued speculation that Sony is working on a non-Blu-ray PS3 console, which could enable them to make the aforementioned hardware price reduction."

A Blu-ray-free PS3. Wouldn't that be an entirely new machine? Would it not be like saying, "Smeg is working on a gas-free gas oven?"

Maybe Mikey is confusing this with the PSP2 (or PSP-4000) which everybody is sure will happen this year.

Or maybe SCE is thinking of undermining the parent company - and all of the currently available PS3 disc-based games; and all of the developers currently developing for PS3 games - in order to produce a games machine aimed at broadband only and capable of playing Echochrome!

It's a crazy world after all.

* Not Junco Partners... for the old Clash fans out there.

Comments

SuperSaiyan4 25 Feb 2009 16:52
1/18
This is extremely old news from last year when a so-called analyst said there may be a blu-ray free PS3 in the works...Obviously total BS especially since blu-ray is the winner of the HD format and is selling very well.
Anon 25 Feb 2009 17:52
2/18
Remove Blu Ray, and then your console can't read PS3 Games (All of which are Blu Ray apart from smaller, downloadable ones) and can't watch Blu Ray movies. Um...hm?
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deleted 25 Feb 2009 17:52
3/18
Bluray free? so verey game made until the release of this machine wont play being on bluray disc?

crazy.
Waldo 25 Feb 2009 18:30
4/18
Actually, blu-ray isn't even that expensive to make anymore. The Blue diode's are fairly cheap. So I can't see a blu-ray free ps3.
Wally 25 Feb 2009 20:44
5/18
The PSOne pic made me lol. Those crazy analysts.
Mikey Mike and his funky bunch 25 Feb 2009 22:40
6/18
The guy is a genius and got it spot on...... he just got it spot on waaaaay to early.

There have been strong suggestions in the technology chatter going around SCEE that there is indeed going to be a download only Playstation that rids itself of Blu-Ray drive, unfortunately that speculation and chatter is based on the Playstation 4 that is targetting a 2013 release date, and this only comes about if universal broadband speeds and hard drive storage increases at the speed they believe it will over the next 4 years.

Why wont it have Blu-Ray? Because by then Blu-Ray players will be down to the $80 mark as a standalone machine and dominating the movie arena, and Sony see much more profit in offering a simplified gaming experience without the blu-ray frills and having downloadable games only that wipes out manufacturers, packaging and most of all retailers with every game they allow to be downloaded over their PSN service. Why put in a 7 year old disc technology into a machine and then allow gamers to split their profits with 4 or 5 other parties, when they can force them to go download only, keep pricing artificially high, reduce piracy, destroy the pre-owned/rental games market and take a 50% slice of the profits all at the same time. And if people strangely want blu-ray on their PS4 rather than buy a $80 standalone Sony machine..... well they can sell them an overpriced add-on and make big $$$ in the same way Microsoft do with their add-on sales for the 360.

So the guy is right, the future of Playstation is a blu-ray free gaming machine..... he just got the timing wrong and needs to be patient for another 4 years before shouting this story out again!
deleted 25 Feb 2009 23:22
7/18
i cant accept the next playstation will be media free, even if BB speeds increase over the next 4 years at the rate it does now, it still will exclude a massive audience, 100% of future PS owners will need BB and need Very high Speed BB

Lets take the UK, current speeds avalible to residential customers MAX speed is 50Mb and thats avaliable to only about 4-5 million homes with Virgin Media, BT current offering is upto 8Mb or through LLU upto 24Mb but thats dependant on distance from the exchange, and the current average is 2.5Mb which is for 99.9% of UK homes, now BT has a plan to roll out fiber to the door, but no way by 2013 will there be 99.9% of homes with a possible 100Mb connection, not to mention throttling, data restrictions and application based slowdowns.

The US is worse position than us for that too, not to mention rest of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Russia etc etc will all need a Ultra speed BB connection, the Option on the PS4 makes sense but to remove media full stop? simply stupid, maybe a SKU with no drive for those to pay less who have high speed BB might happen?

this doesnt take into account storage, average games today can be sqeezed into around 8GB, lets say it stays the same, the PS4 would need 1-2 TB storage at least and for how long will the average consumer buy a new HDD what happens when your HDD fails. and even in 2013 that s going to cost sony, the PS4 cant be the loss making system it was this time round, and to exclude anyone wil not be in there plans.

once the world is conennected at high speed, when its NET 3.0!, when cloud computing is completely viable to the mass then maybe just maybe media will vanish.

superdynamite 25 Feb 2009 23:48
8/18
So you're saying that Sony is going to make a PS3 that doesn't play Blu-ray PS3 games or movies on Blu-ray?

Who wrote this article???
PreciousRoi 26 Feb 2009 05:23
9/18
No, the article states quite clearly that this analyst, Mike Hickey of Janco Partners, (not the SPOnGer who wrote the article, not SPOnG as an entity) is saying that Sony is developing a PlayStation 3 sans Blu-Ray.

big difference.

One might ask...Who read this article? (not you.)
uh 26 Feb 2009 05:30
10/18
PreciousRoi wrote:
No, the article states quite clearly that this analyst, Mike Hickey of Janco Partners, (not the SPOnGer who wrote the article, not SPOnG as an entity) is saying that Sony is developing a PlayStation 3 sans Blu-Ray.

big difference.

One might ask...Who read this article? (not you.)


It clearly states that Sony intends to release a NON- Bluray PS3.

Read it again.
PreciousRoi 26 Feb 2009 05:38
11/18
no it does not.

I don't need to read it again as I understood it perfectly the first time.

The article, to simplify for someone who is obviously having trouble understanding, says:

"Hey, this guy is saying that Sony is working on a PS3 without a Blue-Ray drive."

There's the water...I can't make you drink it.
d 26 Feb 2009 08:44
12/18
but the games are blu ray you see.
bertybassett 26 Feb 2009 11:31
13/18
I can see where this guys is going, they are going to remove Blu-Ray and replace it with a HD-DVD drives and add Xbox Live to the machine. and to think people enturst 1000s of $ to people like them.
TimSpong 26 Feb 2009 12:00
14/18
uh wrote:
It clearly states that Sony intends to release a NON- Bluray PS3.Read it again.


First up - thanks Roi!

Second up: it clearly quotes (and then derides) an analyst for saying that Sony is developing a Blu-rayless PS3. I (yes, me) also state that this is a totally inane piece of so-called analysis.

A PS3 without Blu-ray would be a different machine. Oh, I already wrote that: "A Blu-ray-free PS3. Wouldn't that be an entirely new machine? Would it not be like saying, "Smeg is working on a gas-free gas oven?"

You would have read it in the article.

Third up: thanks again Roi.

Regards

Tim
OptimusP 26 Feb 2009 12:23
15/18
Tim Smith, a rock of reason, wit, patience and intelligence

we can only geuss what goes on in his private quarters. If Japanese Anime taught me anything it's planning world domination trough demons/deathgods/robots/aliens. And he would deserve it! Kinda...
mrAnthony 26 Feb 2009 17:06
16/18
"One might ask...Who read this article? (not you.)"

HA!
PreciousRoi 27 Feb 2009 11:33
17/18
np, Tim.

When the barely literate anonymous horde assaults the Underwater Castle or any of the denizens thereof, you know I'm right there in spirit, manning the boiling vitriol cauldrons and saying "You know, I told Tim this would happen." to anyone who cares to listen...

Unless, you know...I'm leading the mob...in which case, well, you'll prolly be first up against the wall.

Just good tactics, that...nothing personal...behead the snake and whatnot...

But I mean, sheesh, the bare bones of the article in question, and the facts in contention were all discernible or able to be inferred from the damn title. Its like they scan part of the article, come up with a (erroneous) conclusion from a few words taken completely out of context, then defend their conclusion automatically, even though you'd think they'd have to know they really didn't read the article very carefully.
way 9 Mar 2009 17:44
18/18
Think Wii like PS3 that downloads content over the Internet, that would nail it for them. A PS3 with BR in the living room and others around the house loading from the main PS3 or through broadband. Seems possible.
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