The latest Sony firmware update looks to fix the 1080i bug, but leaves games that do not support the resolution in 480p. Also today, Time Warner and an online study indicate that Blue-ray will not gain full market share anytime soon.
The latest PS3 firmware update has reshuffled the resolution priority on the PS3 to make sure that 1080i games are not reduced to 480p. Users can now select all of the resolutions their TV supports on the PS3 dashboard. The console will prioritize as follows: 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p, Standard (NTSC). This should reduce some headaches for PS3 owners with 1080i TV’s that can scale to 720p. Unfortunately, games like Resistance: Fall of Man that do not have inherent 1080i support will continue to run at 480p on televisions that are unable to display 720p signals. It seems likely at this point that all future games for the system will be required to support all HD resolutions to avoid further issues.
Richard Parsons, the CEO of Time Warner, doubts that the PS3 will have any real impact on the ongoing high definition format war. “Do I think that the game console platform is really going to drive the conversion? I don’t think so,” he said. “People get those things to play games, not watch movies.” Time Warner continues to produce movies in both HD-DVD and Blue-ray.
An online study done by Cymfony, a market influence analytics company, claims that Sony faces a great deal of distrust and negativity toward Blue-ray. Basing their findings on 18,000 posts gathered from “social media sites”, chief strategy and marketing officer Jim Nail said that, “While the media and manufacturers duke it out over their format choice, our research shows that consumers are turning away from Blu-ray because of Sony’s reputation and heavy-handed launch strategy.”
