Samsung: Blu-ray will last five years
- Posted September 4th, 2008 at 11:33 EDT by
- 8,165 views
- 88 Comments
Speaking to Pocket-lint, electronics giant Samsung has claimed that the Sony-sponsored Blu-ray format will be dead in five years.
"I think it [Blu-ray] has five years left," commented Andy Griffiths, director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK. "I certainly wouldn't give it 10." The reason? In five years time Samsung thinks downloadable distribution will reign supreme.
It wasn't all doom and gloom though. Griffith said that 2008 would be Blu-ray's golden year, citing cheaper Blu-ray players and the victory over Toshiba's rival HD-DVD format as justification.
"It's going to be huge," he told Pocket-lint. "We are heavily back-ordered at the moment."
The entertainment industry's transition to downloadable distribution is widely considered inevitable, but just how will this affect Sony's projected ten year PlayStation 3 life cycle? Will slowing Blu-ray sales have a knock-on effect on PS3 unit sales, as the console's built-in Blu-ray player becomes less of a commercial asset? Or will PS3's built-in storage space offset the growing obsolescence of its Blu-ray component?
Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
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Sunshine_Killer |
SunshineKiller- 11:37am BST - September 4th, 2008
- 2
no i prefer owning it in a physical form then a electronic form that way i can take it to friends houses, or on trips, blue ray is not dead its here to stay. :)
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benstevens
- 11:38am BST - September 4th, 2008
- 3
rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when i can download a HD movie in 5 mins and had a copy posted to me to keep on my shelve i will then be interested. Until the i will be ordering on Play.com
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benstevens
- 11:38am BST - September 4th, 2008
- 4
rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when i can download a HD movie in 5 mins and had a copy posted to me to keep on my shelve i will then be interested. Until the i will be ordering on Play.com
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HurricaneGautam |
HurricaneGautam- 11:48am BST - September 4th, 2008
- 6
I highly doubt that downloadable distribution will beat Bluray, mainly because it takes forever to download 10 gigs let alone 60.
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rexdeath |
rexdeath- 11:53am BST - September 4th, 2008
- 7
This will never ever happen because people will always want a disc version, we're just so use to it. I can't see many old people liking the idea of being forced to download things from the internet when alot of them don't know how to use it and other people scared of credit card fraud it just won't work. It especially won't work because if that will be the only way to do it then more people will be pushed forward for illegal movie downloads especially young children and teenagers who won't have these credit cards and will just get fed up of asking their parents to download it.
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keller |
Kellster- 11:54am BST - September 4th, 2008
- 8
Even with increasing internet speeds, I'd rather have something tangible in my hands for the money I spend, like a cd,dvd or a blu-ray disc. What happens if my hard disk dies ? like they do. I don't want to download all of my films again. If this is true I can see film companies etc no longer letting people purchase their items but let the view them on a pay-per-view basis and that would suck big-time.
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smallvillefreak
- 12:05pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 12
This is so stupid, digital distribution actually makes little to no sense. To download and keep all of your new and old movies would require more and more space as time goes by. Every time you get enough movies to fill your hard drive you have to drop another $100-$200 for a decent sized hard drive. I don't know about you, but not having to get up and put the disc in myself is not worth $200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Denali2 |
NEJI64- 12:12pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 13
didnt somebodyin gaming said the samething i cant see that happing just yet. downloading content such as movies, games, music are still making a base for its self. besides getting droping software like cds' for stright downloading content would belike getting rid of cash for good for credit cards in five years its not going to happen.
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bmatt |
bmatt- 12:20pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 15
First, is Samsung going to sponsor my 15-20megabit connection so that I can stream HD movies?
Second, its hard to buy HD movies now because distributors are too worried about people copying their stuff... Good luck with that
Third, its entirely too expensive to buy movies right now. I can rent HD movies cheaper locally than I can on any of the online services now.
Get the price down, internet speed up and the space to store the 100s of movies video enthusiasts collect and you may have a deal. Thats still a good 10 years down the line at the very least.
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stovich |
TasteLikeBurning- 12:22pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 16
If given the choice, I will never opt to DL content if I can purchase the physical media. Never. And, honestly, I don't think others will either. That route is reserved for the geek-elite. Sounds like samsung is looking for a future partnership with m$.
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NoMercy666 |
Ask me...- 12:30pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 17
Andy Griffiths, YOU ARE AN IDIOT! The PS3 has the video store! and you can download games from the PSN. I'd like to see anything Samsung makes be as good as the PS3. Obviously, Andy Griffiths doesn't keep up with the news.
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terminator12259 |
tacitassassin25- 12:30pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 18
Is samsung retarded? dont get pissed of just because Sony came up with Blu-Ray and you stupid Koreans cant think of anything. download distribution, will never beat out any kind of hard copy. bluray itself might die in a few years but only to some other hard copy form, how long has the cd been out and it is still very popular. dvd is still bigger than bluray, even though bluray is slowly taking over. people dont have the time to wait 3 hours for a 2 hour movie to download. i personally would never buy a digital version of a movie just because of all the stuff that could happen to a hard drive especially with microsoft's awesome programming skills
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lildragon |
lildragn- 12:32pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 19
@ 13, well I wrote up an article on this very topic last month http://www.thecareergamer.com/?p=358 it was posted on N4G. And I'm in awe that a hardware vendor would spout such unintelligence. I can't believe he's speaking on behalf of Samsung.
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Solrac |
Solrac7688- 12:33pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 20
Honestly samsung needs to shut their mouth because it seems that they are favoring microsofts plan for downloadable distribution. The only problem i have with downloadable distribution is the fact that it takes a really long time to download, Bluray is the best thing out here and the only company that knows the legistics is SONY
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Strudel |
Strudel- 12:47pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 21
TBH the internet is growing at an exponential rate, however the number of people who have access to high speed internet is still very low. I myself only have 2MB Broadband, I can't get it any better where I live, and 2MB broadband can't even host a Warhawk game over 4 players, and can only download at 200kb/s, so if samsung think that High definition quality downloads are going to be the norm in 5 years, then think again, it'd take me all day to download a movie!
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mikeghtmare |
mikeghtmare- 12:57pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 23
the internet is still too expensive and not wide-spread throught out the world (for fast speeds I mean), so there is no way in h e l l... plus then there is the plus of owning a hard copy which I, like many, prefer.
Plus, you have a lot of companies that make money off of it so they won't just let it go. True that some people might start going the download route, but it won't be too many and certainly not enough to cause the death of blu-ray -
edward_moffet |
edd- 12:58pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 24
sigh no, it wont happen too many things can happen to digital content, even in 5 years space will be a factor for HD content and no one likes DRM, plus they are capping bandwith speeds and what if your power shuts off or you get disconnected or whatever system you have it on crashes plus i highly doubt mainstream consumers will want to pay for something that you can only use on one player (DRM) and you cant control physically, i think that blu ray and digital downloads will both have their place in the market in 10 years even digital downloads will surely become more popular but they will by no means replace a physical format
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IndianaJones1936 |
IndianaJones1936- 1:11pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 25
He is wrong, the new s**t box will be using blu-ray and that will be about in about 7 years, samsung are just jealous
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bungledude
- 1:14pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 26
This is crazy.Does this mean Samsung is going to pay for my internet service when they charge me for going over my bandwidth limit?
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jake_hammers
- 1:23pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 27
You guys are all redarted. available internet bandwidth will continue to expand until we all receive everything electronically. phone, cable TV, movies, mail, internet. Dont be short-sighted just because you dont have it now. Its not a question of whether it will happen, its when. Concerning the need to have it on disc so you can hold it or take it to your friends house or caress it or whatever- equally restupulous. Consider that by the time we can all easily download a HD movie, we will all also have an i-phone-type device (note I said "i-pod-like"- it will be much more capable) that you can save hundreds of movies to, surf the web from anywhere, watch tv, make calls, transfer bank accounts, download music and movies, etc. Stored with your precious movies, you will have access to color images of the cover art, detailed data on the actors, interactive information about the movie. In short, in your hand you will have WAY more informatin than is available in a special edition blu ray or DVD. And yes, you can take it to your friends house and watch it. All without having to carry around a stupid case so you dont scratch the disc.
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Scarl |
Scarl- 1:33pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 28
Digital distribution to the point of replacing physical media that soon is a joke. I'm sure the publishers want it (they lose money every time someone sells an old movie they don't watch anymore), but we are a fairly long way from the point where everyone has enough bandwidth to make this feasible.
We've had legal (and illegal) digital distribution of music for years now, and CD's aren't even close to disappearing. And mp3s are thousands of times smaller that HD movie files would be (even compressed without PCM sound and whatnot).
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rmcmich
- 2:00pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 31
Movie and game downloads will not overtake physical media. There are several reasons. Many people get tired of their games and movies and in turn sell/trade them. Selling your rights to a game or movie may be more difficult to do. Also, hard drive space. I don't know about all of you. But I don't have enough space on my hard drives on all of my computers for all of the games and movies that I have on disc. Until the average gamer and movie watcher has a storage server with multi TB capabilities I do not see this as a viable option. I see downloaded movies and games to be there for purchase but not as the main means. I feel that as rentals downloads has a great future. Not too mention the ability to take it with you and the fact that many US internet companies are starting to limit bandwidth and downloads. Just think about how fast a 250GB limit would be used up if you downloaded, say, 2 50GB games that are played online only, and say 4 HD movies.
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shamurai7
- 2:19pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 32
i thought cd's would never die, but i havent bought one in years...i keep my whole music collection on an external 160 gig hard drive. i sold all 300+ cd's i owned.
now my 10,000+ album collection is all stored and organized on a simple hard drive...no scratched discs, no friends borrowing it. car stereos now have usb connections. I see this happenning to movies within 10 years.
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killahki |
killahki- 2:19pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 33
The only way downloadable content will ever work is by the following:
1. It's cheaper than it's packaged form and by more than a few dollars (Sony with there downloadables on PSN and disc looking your way.) $10 diffrence isn't worth it.
2. Internet speeds that are capable of downloading within the time it takes to download an album 5mins, but no more than 10.
3. Cheaper internet, everyone with internet access, everyone with some way to pay online, because without it you miss out on people with no means to by your product. And that could be a lot of people if you kill of hard copies.
4. The ability to transfer your digital copy to a hard copy because without that how would you make way for new media keep buying internal/external hdd's, as opposed to the cheaper disc.
Without these things in place I fail to see how anyone can think digital distro will overtake physical copies.
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GunTeng
- 2:22pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 34
Im with bmatt on this.
Im wondering if Samsung are going to pay for the telecommunications infrastructure to save the cunsumers the massive rise in cost for their BB connections.
The disc format is the only factor that is shared on a global scale.
In 5 years if everything retails on download, its going to cause such a strain that the Konami MGS4 beta issue will look like a gamers dream. And this is also forcing all gamers to pay for an internet connection...get real. This is nothing but a great way to take gaming back to the priveleged elite, which will cost cost console manufaturers & developers dearly.
These people are seriously deluded. Its one thing to improve the hardware to allow faster speeds, its quite another to update the infrastructure.
5 Years my backside.
We are looking closer to 20 years before the internet, ISP's & BB speeds are capable of withstanding the strain of global game sales..and that is optimistic.
So BR has much longer than 5 years...idiots. lol.
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melmacj
- 2:30pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 35
This sure is a sore market. I don't think Sony was saying Bluray format will last 10 years or that is was future proof. They where betting on PS3 as a gaming system as well. They also didn't say that PS4 wouldn't come out during that time either. Like PS2 support will go strong for PS4 through 10 years. I just don't understand when you in the business to make a profit off a product and they shoot negative comments like this one. I mean don't Samsung sell Bluray players and one of the first ones to do so besides Sony. Jeez
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cerote |
cer0ez- 3:09pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 38
Well this would be rough now that almost every ISP in the US is putting caps on the connections. Some only being 8 gigs and Comcast with the highest 250 gigs a month. So distributers will need to talk to ISPs if they want people to be able to download thier movies. I am with everyone else on I want my physical media. As for PS3's 10 year plan this has nothing to do with it. It is physical median that holds games, cartridges went out long time ago but Nintendo still uses them on their sucessful DS.
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RagingStorm |
RagingStormX- 3:46pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 40
Well even though I don't agree with the guy....his opinion doesn't change my view on Samsung as being "one" of the best HTDV manufacturers. Really....my 550A series hdtv is the best. Samsung HDTVs FTW lol
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markwesker
- 3:59pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 41
Had this convo be4 and untill you can download games n films in hd in a few minutes then the physical format will be the most popular.Dont see super fast broadband speeds happening world wide 2do this and it has to be world wide to have the same sales u would as the physical format. maybe in 10 or more years from now probly more untill the whole world has net speeds that can handle that.
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Blazincloud16
- 4:03pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 42
Thats not true this will last so much longer thank that
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Free_Agent
- 4:07pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 43
@RagingStorm
Yes, I agree with that completely. I believe they also make one of the best stand alone blu-ray players as well. I don't see why everyone cares about this blu-ray debacle? It's not going to hinder the PS3 even if downloadable content takes over. It's definately going to happen, and probably within the next 5-10 years. Regardless, yes I do prefer physical media now, but by the time digi distribution takes over, there will probably be a feasible manner in which to backup or restore your content if something were to fail, as this is the big argument that everyone has. I don't see why so many people start going for the throat when someone makes a comment about blu-ray and these people start assuming it as a personal attack on the PS3, and start lashing out. It's embarassing to be associated with owning a ps3 these days because of jackholes like you guys.
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ryesher |
ryesher1- 4:50pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 46
@jack hammers
How do you know all this oh you made it up and we dont care for your comment
We are talking about the next five years, internet speeds have hit a wall in the last fewf years nothing has really improved and I doubt we will be seeing 25gb films in the next five years that download that quick.
If you ask me digital distribution has a long way to go, if we are talking about High Quality films. Currently music photos, even episodes like Lost don't take too long to download but for the the dominant distribution market to go digital will take a long long time. Loads of problems, potentially more piracy will occur, that annoying DRM issue, if your computer dies and even if there was a back up vault, it would take ages to download eveything. We would be forced to buy bigger and bigger hdds (lord knows its happening with ps3) ona regular basis, eeither that or we pay to rent movies like Sky but then we wouldn't own anything. This all a bit hypothetical and hyperbole I know but I cant see this working as main means of distribution.
@free agent
I know people start commenting on xbox vs ps3 again for some reason. But the blu ray success was in part down to the PS3. Blu ray is integral to the PS3 sure the games will always be but it would be worrying if blu ray dropped off that quickly. Yet I don't think it will, the real question is will blu ray replace dvds?
In a way ps3 already has digital distribution and xbox with the SD films. So like Gingo says this is an alternative way of obtaining games, music etc. For example Warhawk how many of you bought it and how many downloaded it?We have the choice I can't see one overtaking the other.
you have a point even though this comment is not in favour of digi distribution I to have all my music and photos all saved on data. However there is something about games and films that just wont take off I feel.
Sorry for rant
Looks back for more LBP info..starts drooling again
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ohshutyourmouth |
ohshutyourmouth- 4:59pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 48
theres to many reasons why i think digital downloads sucks----
1. there non resellable
2. all it takes is a hard drive crash and there goes everything
3. I like to have a shelf showing my collection.
4. cant take it to a friends house
5. bandwidth issues
6.Having the physical thing you paid for.
and lastly but not least microgay 360 supports it. HOWeVEr there is one thing that I think that may cause blu-ray to cease. THEIR freakin prices. Sorry but 30$ is a friggin RIP off. The most Ill pay for ANY movie is 20$.
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michael4dictator |
michael4dictator- 5:22pm BST - September 4th, 2008
- 50
lets put it this way: socom will be coming out as a dl and disc for same price. what will win in amount sold??? pretty stupid question. it'll go the same way as gt5p which killed it's online dl part. disc's are better. a bird in the hand is woth 2 in the bush.
also dl sucks as u can't share a game with your mate. also more complicated and the average person doesn't have a clue about dl. they also don't know about bd. it's complication that makes people afraid of technology. bl is more complicated than dvd hence it's slow adaptation
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