Games and Gadgets: How I see them.

The 1080P High Definition Video format war is over. When HD-DVD exclusive Warner Bros studios switched to support the Blu-Ray format exclusively, the winner was effectively decided. Shortly thereafter, Toshiba (the main player in the HD-DVD format) too announced that they will cease to produce new HD-DVD players and withdrawing from the format war.

Now, its reported that Sony is talking to Microsoft about adopting the Blu-Ray format to its systems. While Sony have approached Apple for the same talks too (Microsoft and Apple are supporters of HD-DVD format), there are now strong rumors that Xbox360 may feature Blu-Ray as standard drive format.

While these are rumors at this point of time, it is not impossible for Xbox360 to adopt the Blu-Ray as the format due to the larger storage capabilities and as games becomes bigger (Lost Oddessey will fit in one dual layer Blu-Ray disc instead of four dual layer DVD dics). Alternatively, Microsoft could come up with a Blu-Ray add-on drive, as they have done with the HD-DVD add-on drive.

This will be interesting to keep watch, to see how Microsoft will react.

Firmware 2.10 is out in US. It adds DivX (and xviD) and WMV support to the PS3. Also added are Blu-Ray Profile 1.1 which adds features like Pic-in-Pic capabilities (something HD-DVD have long time ago).

Firmware 2.10 is not yet available for Asian region yet (www.asia.playstation.com) but I am sure it will be there few hours later, so check it again later.

Spiderman 3 (2 discs Special Edition), of the blu-ray flavor, can be found in local video stores now (although you may need to do a bit of walking to find them on shelves). One store indicates the price of the blu-ray set at RM179.00.

Happy hunting.

The internet as well as traditional media have been abuzz with the rumored 40GB PS3. Many industry watchers are suggesting that Sony could be announcing the 40GB PS3 sometime next week, in a bid to steal some of Halo 3’s street release date.

There are more rumbles in the hardware industry players, with some unamed “electronic manufactuing news source” have revealed that Sony have enlisted FoxConn (Taiwan based company that currently produces the Playstation 2) to produce 40GB PS3. Rumors have even planted the 40GB PS3 with a USD$399.90 price level, but fully expecting other lesser specs (no bluetooth, no card readers, no WiFi?) at that price level.

Personally, although I am taking this rumor with a pinch of salt, there are several advantages for Sony to do so.

1) USD$399 price point is seen by industry player as the ceiling price consumers will buy for electronics goods.
2) At USD$399, it makes the (40GB) PS3 a very cheap blu-ray movie player with HD gaming capabilities, as the cheapest HD-DVD standalone players from rival camp Toshiba will be retailing at USD299.
3) With more total PS3 sold, this will also increase the total numbers of consumers of blu-ray movie discs.
4) With Sony deep entrenched in the blu-ray camp, increasing PS3 and blu-ray consumers makes perfect business sense as they will stand to earn from license of blu-ray players, movie deals (they do own several studios) and they dont want a repeat lost of technology format (remember Sony’s betamax videotape lost the format war against JVC’s VHS format).

As Sony is eager to win the next gen DVD format, by push more PS3 into homes with a cheaper USD$399 entry level 40GB PS3 makes perfect business sense to me. We will see if this turns out to the truth in the next few weeks.

Spiderman 3 will be released to Malaysian stores today, available on standard def DVD and VCD version. It is unclear which DVD version (or contents) will the stores gets, as the shipments is due to arrive in stores later this evening. No mention of cost either.

There are three standard def DVD versions for the US market (Region One DVD), so I am speculating that the Asian version (Region Three DVD) will contain similar content: -

The single disc version - with bloopers, picture galleries and two commentary tracks.

2-Disc Special Edition - same as the single disc, with additional 11 featurettes in the second DVD. Available in high def blu-ray double disc version too.

The 3 DVD disc pack (highly unlikely) containing all three Spiderman movies in 3 DVD in one pack. Available in high def blu-ray versions too.

Incidentally, the US release of the DVD and Blu-ray of Spiderman 3 sets is scheduled for Oct 30, 2007, so this is a nice early surprise for the Asian region. Please take note that the blu-ray versions of Spiderman 3 is not coming out today, and no news of when it will be here.

The DVD (Standard Def, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) releases for this week is lenghty list, with some very anticipated titles like Troy (Director’s Cut) on DVD, Alexander (The Unrated Final Cut) on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, as well as series such as Boston Legal Season 3 and Smallville Season 6.
On the Blu-Ray releases this week, there are 3 very interesting titles that caught my eyes, namely: The Best of Blu-Ray: Volumes 1, 2 and 3. There are even The Best Of Blu-Ray: Action and Family pack too. These blu-ray collections are by Warner Home Video and they are a collection of four movies, all in Full HD, assembled into one box-set with 4 blu-ray disc. What’s even more exciting are the prices, Amazon.com and Ebay are selling them at less than US$60 per set as of today (the Vol. 1, 2, 3 are released in the US on Sept 18th).
Here are the movies titles for each volume:-

The Best of Blu-Ray, Volume One :

(Lethal Weapon / Mad max 2: The Road Warrior / Swordfish / Training Day)

The Best of Blu-Ray, Volume Two:

(The Phantom of the Opera / The Fugitive / Unforgiven / The Last Samurai)

The Best of Blu-Ray, Volume Three:

(Blazing Saddles / GoodFellas / The Departed / Superman: The Movie:

The Best of Blu-Ray, Family:

(Happy Feet / Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride / The Ant Bully / Scooby-Doo)

The Best of Blu-Ray, Action:

(Troy: Director’s Cut / Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut / Blood Diamond / Wyatt Earp)

The last two collections (Family and Action) are not given any release dates, will keep you posted on their availability. Let’s hope if Warner Home Video will release a The Best of Blu-Ray: The Matrix real soon.

I doubt the Action collection will be out so soon, as the blu-ray version of Troy (Director’s Cut) and Alexander (The Unrated Final Cut) is released in this week. I am not sure when our region will get these awesome collection but I believe they will be available in stores (especially in SG) real soon. Look forward to having such good collection at a fraction of the cost.

There are new blu-ray movies titles to be found in some video stores around KL (Wega Enterprise in Sungei Wang is one of them).

New titles available are:-

300
Ghost Rider
Casino Royale
Shooter
Black Hawk Down
Underground Evolution
Pearl Harbor
The Fifth Element
Kung Fu Hustle (US version with Cantonese)

Elsewhere in 1U, more titles showed up:-

Superman Returns
Pirates of the Caribbeans (1 and 2)
The Departed
(and many more)…

Check out the stores if you have a blu-ray movie playback unit (stand-alone players or PS3), prices ranges from RM149.90 to RM199.90.