Will the Playstation 4 Omit Blu-ray?

Rumors have been going crazy lately with regards to both the “Xbox 720” and “Playstation 4”, and everyone has an opinion. One rampant rumor in particular is that the Playstation 4 will lack the Blu-ray player that came with the PS3, and for the most part, it’s a good argument. The fact of the matter is, Sony’s adding of Blu-ray to the PS3 is one of the reasons why the console didn’t sell far better than it did, although the lack of quality games that kicked off the consoles first year probably didn’t help, either.

One of the strangest opinion pieces I’ve seen has to be the one posted at C|Net, by Don Reisinger. He kicks off as saying, “To me, Blu-ray is the LaserDisc of its time. It’s not nearly as useful as the DVD that it’s trying to supplant“. Wait… what? To give the impression that Blu-ray isn’t a substantial upgrade from DVD… is just ridiculous.

Let’s take a look at the now picture. Blu-ray offers a far higher resolution than DVD, and if Don ever took the opportunity to watch one, he’d know this. The difference would be noticeable by anyone, no matter how inept their technical ability. Then we have the storage issue. Blu-ray can store upwards of 50GB, and with many current games already requiring 10GB+ of data, I’d say the extra storage is worthy.

It’s constantly argued that HD downloads is the next big thing, but I really don’t see that method taking over anytime soon. The reason, to me, is both the bandwidth caps enforced by ISPs, and also the general download speed. It’s fine if you want to download a movie in advance, but it would be impossible to download a 20GB movie some evening and still have the desire to watch it by the time it actually finishes downloading. Even on a 20Mbit connection, that movie would take over two hours to download. Whether or not even those net speeds will be common in three years, who knows.

Lastly, the major hit against the PS3 has been the added price due to the player, but now, the prices are getting so low, people are throwing drives in their HTPCs without second thought. NewEgg has an LG BD-ROM for $140 now… so imagine what the prices will be like three years down the road. It will virtually add so little cost to the console, it’s going to be a non-issue. Regardless of your opinions on things, it’s going to be a while before we actually have hard answers, sadly.

But the fact that the Playstation 4 won’t feature Blu-ray goes far beyond the fact that it’s not as coveted in the Playstation 3 as some want to believe. In reality, it’s more likely that the Playstation 4 won’t have Blu-ray than you may think. The Playstation 4 should be made available in the next three to five years. During that time, Sony will need to work on getting Blu-ray into more homes and try to supplant DVD as the leader in the media space.