Blue-Ray or HD-DVD? (and by extension, Xbox360 or PS3?)

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Which format is better? Which technology will eventually come out as the dominant one (in your estimation)? And why, please. From what little I know about them, they essentially offer the same level of quality, just two different formats. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

I haven't really delved too deeply into this question up to now because I haven't been able to afford a new player, let alone the discs. But in the next year, I will purchase either an XBOX360 or a PS3. Part of why I justify the purchase is because they double as media players; HD-DVD in the case of the XBOX, and Blue-Ray in the case of the PS3.

As of now, I'm currently leaning toward the XBOX, as so far there are far more games that have been released for it that I'm actually interested in playing than has the PS3. However - if HD-DVD is going to be surpassed by Blue-Ray, this will likely be a bad investment in the long run. I'd like to avoid sinking money into both a next-gen console AND a next-gen video player if I can help it...I'm cheap like that.

Thanks in advance. Oh, and if you happen to have read any tech articles recently that weigh the two, links are appreciated.

 

Yeah pretty much everything I have seen and heard have inidcated that there really isn't much difference in image quality. From what I understand the main difference is that Blue-Ray disks have a larger storage capacity but to achieve this they have a thinner surface coating so they are less durable than DVDs and HD-DVDs. I am sure a google search would turn up a bunch of articles.

 

I'm kind of happier with the games of xbox atm (mass effect, bioshock & halo3), but next year there will be a fair few ps3 exclusives to even it out (metal gear solid, killzone2, little big planet etc).

While they both output to the same resolution HD-DVD holds 15gb/platter while Blu-ray holds 25gb/platter, this means that blu-ray can hold more content (which could mean fewer disks required for a box-set of some tv show). I think this will also have some impact on swinging the pc user base towards blu-ray;whilst not too many people watch high def movies on pc, they're still used for storing data, and the more blank disks sold, the lower the manufacturing cost->becomes more desirable for publishers. In my experience Blu-ray is generally considered more 1337 in pc circles.

At the moment Blu-ray appears to be winning - there are around 750,000 HD-DVD players and 2.7 Blu-ray ones in the US. Although the Blu-Ray figure includes ps3's (and may therefor not give an accurate depiction of blu-ray users) Blu-ray movies outsell HD-DVD movies 2:1. I'm not too sure about other countries, but in Australia and France Blu-ray's lead is much more pronounced. [source]

In terms of playing ability the ps3 is by all accounts a very capable player - it's silent, handles scratched and damaged disks better than much of the competition and even boots up faster than a few other high def players (specifically a few models by Toshiba.
I haven't heard too many negative things about the 360 attachment, though reviews generally aren't as glowing. Just note that the attachment is fairly large (between 1/2 and a 1/3 of the size of the unit itself) and you'll need to buy a high def cable to make the most of it (or buy the elite edition). After you factor in these extra costs there isn't too much price-wise separating the two consoles.

Of course its early days at the moment and hardware prices will likely drop when one of the formats begins to catch up to dvd (which is of course miles ahead). You could buy a 360 now and tehn, in a year or two, when or if dvd's start getting phased out, you could pick up a cheap Blu-ray player (if they come out on top).

As stated above I think that the 360 has better games at the moment, however I have some concerns as to how future-proof it is; with bioshock they had to lower the textures down to fit on a single dvd (since not all 360's have hardrives, hd-dvd players, and microsoft seems to be for some reason against games being sent out on 2 dvd's (I've heard they've got some type of contract preventing rockstar from releasing gta4 on anything other than a single dvd)). Given the ever-increasing size of games these days I see this as somewhat of a limitation. Also the ps2 kicked on for quite a bit longer than the original 'box and they didn't stop producing decent games for ps2 after the successor came out (god of war II anyone?)

Finally xbox live costs money, whilst the playstation network is free (as it should be)

 

I wouldn't be surprised if HD-DVD and Blu-ray end up being like DVD-R and DVD+R. Every drive can read both, and every writer can write to both. As for Hollywood's adoption...I think Blu-ray will win considering that Sony is a major player in the movie/music industry.

 

@ Stu,

See, this is the kind of stuff I need to know. THANK YOU. I had no idea you needed to purchase separate hardware to watch HD-DVDs on the XBOX. I assumed it came built in, like Blue-Rays do for the PS3 (and DVDs for the PS2). If memory serves, you also need an attachment to watch regular DVDs on the original XBOX as well (I wouldn't know, I never wanted one myself). Seems like yet another dumb move on Microsoft's part. I don't want to buy a bunch of extra crap, I just wanna make one purchase and be done.

Bearing this all in mind, the PS3 just moved to the lead. And by the time I get around to buying one (a year or more away), there'll likely be another price drop and I can pick one up for around $300. The difference in cost was a factor as well, but now that you point out the "attachment" factor, this advantage is nullified.

EDIT - All this is really making me pleased. I've always been a bit of a SONY whore, and I love my PS2. We'll see how next year's crop of games ends up looking. Little Big Planet does look great, by the way.

Thanks!

 

It's worth bearing in mind that, in addition to a smaller hard drive, the less expensive PS3 release (the one selling for $399 right now) also won't play PS2 games. This isn't necessarily a big deal if you don't mind keeping two consoles around, but I'd rather fork over the extra 100 bucks for PS2 emulation and a bigger hard drive, myself.

 

On the topic of emulation- as Drew said, the 60 and 20gb ps3's play ps2 games, but the newer 40gb one doesn't (they left out the emulation chip to reduce the cost of it). Xbox emulation on the 360 is a bit touch and miss - Microsoft originally said that they'd work on allowing all xbox games to be played on the 360 and kind of started, but then decided not to on the basis that they thought that most people wouldn't care (there was quite a bit of backlash from a whole lot of people who sold their original xbox's with the expectation of one day being able to play all their old games on the 360, but then not being able to).

Sony's inclusion and Microsoft's dis-inclusion of a high def drive did open up a pretty big difference in release dates and in the end I really think this killed Sony for the moment - the 360 ended up with an earlier release and more people (in the US) bought it as a result.

Even with the attachment, the xbox still ends up a tad cheaper than the ps3, but it doesn't really look too sexy (its kinda large). pics 1, 2, 3.

Just found out that you can be banned from xbox live for adding a fan link. Which is a bit odd imho considering they tend to overheat a bit.