The PlayStation 3 is the slow seller in the United States but Sony still holds belief in their “10 year plan.” Many of us consider this to be the same style of plan Sony used with the PS2, sell your console through multiple generations and own the market share. The PS2‘s launch was much more graceful when compared to its 7th generation counterpart. Perhaps the PS3 has a different destiny… perhaps they want to remove all other media boxes from your living room.
Imagine a life without a cable box or Tivo and you’re probably envisioning Sony’s road map for a media distribution empire. First, remove Tivo from the situation with a DVR style box using their PlayTV technologies, wired up to the PlayStation 3 using a USB connection. The United States hasn’t seen a launch of PlayTV, more than likely because the PS3 isn’t a huge console here yet and Tivo is partnered with many cable and satellite providers already.
Senior director of the PlayStation Network, Susan Panico said Sony “looks aspirationally at HBO, the way they have Sex and the City and other shows” (gamespot) after admitting Sony wants to replace cable boxes in the home. Tivo has already done a great job removing the need for a cable box, allowing you to rent a “cable card” to insert into a Tivo and gain access to all their content for your DVR needs. DirectTV offers (or has in the past) a Tivo or Tivo-like DVR solution. Cable and DirectTV offer the ability to rent their DVR or offer a solution to purchase your own at a retail outlet What if Sony decides to partner with one or more of these providers to offer an all-in-one solution. PS3 owners wouldn’t have to purchase additional equipment and could be up and running immediately with hard disks big enough to handle HD content.
Sony could offer you a graphically appealing gaming experience, a high definition BluRay solution, media distribution for renting movies, an iTunes style online store for purchasing and playing music all wrapped up in a DVR solution. All this content for a $400 price tag is a value when all the offers are combined into one tiny black box.
Looking at today’s Tivo Series3 HD DVR you’ll notice the ability to play music directly from iTunes, browse and play Youtube shows, watch Disney offerings and even high definition NetFlix playback. The Tivo DVR’s can also talk with other DVR’s in the household making it easy to share TV records across systems. The only thing missing in the Tivo solution is a high definition gaming platform and the BluRay hardware.
We’re all sitting here poking fun at the small PS3 game library and telling people that BluRay is going to lose out to HD downloads yet we may be missing the bigger picture: an all-in-one media empire solution. The PS3 may not carry the largest game library compared to the Xbox 360 or the sales records of the Wii but if Sony finds a way to become a reliable and required media set top box they may realize their true “10 year plan.”
I liked the show, it was fun. I really hope Liam (I hope I remembered the name) will recover.
@New R18+ guidelines drawn up:
It is a step forward, true, but not without some question marks.
I personally don’t like their definition for what’s allowed in terms of violence for R18+. It’s very ambiguous, and it could lead to a handful of people selecting what’s R18+ and what’s RC depending on their personal taste and/or “gifts” received from publishers …
Lol “device that you could plug in” 😀
Jonah, enforcing such fines is a bit more difficult and costly than what a government is willing to invest.
@Kojima: This year has become meaningless
I feel the guy 🙁 … I also have no idea how the last 365 days passed.
Derrick, I definitely agree with the CISCO engineer vs. game devs. While I do put some heart on the stuff I work at my day job, it is far less that what I put into mods or other personal projects.
And while the money comes from the day job, the satisfactions and frustrations come from personal projects. It’s where the heart is.
@Chinese labor camp prisoners forced to play MMOs:
Playing MMOs as a punishment … there’s just something weird about it. I mean as long as you have the freedom of choice as to when to start playing and when to stop playing, MMOs don’t seem that scary.
But when you’re forced to stare in the monitor for hours and hours, day after day, I can see this having the negative effects that would make playing MMOs an effective punishment.
I guess any activity can be turned into a punishment, as long as you can turn the punished person into hating that said activity.
– you can play it while pooping!
Actually, that is a good selling point 🙂 Think of Chinese prisoners again: now they can stack all consoles in a room and have the prisoners “work” from anywhere on the compound 😛
Derrick, you’re not letting down anybody. I enjoyed the podcast a lot, mostly for the personalities of you guys. And by reading the comments in the show you allowed the listeners to somehow connect with you guys.
Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on the RSS feed. Who knows.
at first i was happy because when i updated the podcast on a smartphone i finally saw the new episode and i said yes!!!! Then i saw the title i was like oh man but its okay derrick and jennifer i will only consider this a pause and you could continue anytime you like @qotw i would like to be surprised to see the podcast up and running again
ill be playing minecraft while your gone and will always wait for your comeback
Thanks for all the memories. The TD gaming podcast got me through 2 years of night shifts and was always a weekly highlight. All the best to all of you in the future.
Hope things continue to improve with your son, Derrick and Jennifer. Thanks for your efforts Jonah over the last 20 episodes. And farewell to my fellow listeners and commentors. (Especially Herr_Alien, who always had something insightful to add. Maybe you should team up with Jonah for continuing the cast =D. )
Roger, Wilco, Over and Out.
@Tristan: the thought occurred to me too, but unfortunately (1) I am too PC-centric to be of an actual use to the podcast and (2) spare time is always an issue for me. To get an idea, I got a copy of Portal 2 for … almost a month now and I only managed to play 30 minutes of it.
Add to that time zone differences and things like synchronizing schedules can become hairy.
As for the question of the week, I would love to see the podcast continue.
Jonah, a piece of advice, if you do decide to continue: take a small break to think a bit on the format, find somebody to co-host it, help you out with editing (btw, since editing doesn’t require synchronizing schedules, I can help out with that).
I’ve really enjoyed the podcast since I started listening to it a couple of years ago and it’s sad to see Derrick and Jennifer leave, but I hope things work out well for you and your family. All the best for the future. Thanks to Don too, he was a pretty cool host 🙂
I do hope that you find a way to continue the podcast Jonah, as I think you’ve done a really good job as co-host for the last 20 or so episodes. But if it doesn’t work out, thanks for your efforts too.
And yes, Herr_Alien, you’ve been a legendary listener 😛 Every week without fail there’d be a comment from Herr Alien with many insightful nuggets of wisdom.
So anyway, if this is the end….. So long, Farewell… and I leave you with this:
“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need… roads.”
A new episode is coming out tonight. Didn’t have time for Reader Feedback, but hope you enjoy it!