Sony to gamers: expect hybrid movie/game Blu-rays this year

PS3 News | Sony seeking to broaden consumer appeal.

A report on the Video Business website has indicated that Sony will be pushing for a hybrid movie/game disc in a marketing push to drive consumer's towards the PlayStation 3.

Hoping to further emphasise the PlayStation 3's capabilities as a game and movie-playing machine, Sony has confirmed that they are pushing publishers to combine movies with tie-in videogames onto the same Blu-ray disc this year. It has been confirmed that Sony's DVD division is currently working on a hybrid disc.

PlayStation 3 Director of Hardware Marketing, John Koller did not name any specific hybrid Blu-ray projects in the Video Business report, but he has gone on to predict that two or three of these hybrid projects will be released this year.

He addressed the move by explaining: "We are actively pushing, and the way that we see the future is that the movie and the game are placed on the same disc. There are a lot of developers who say, we have this game based on a movie, wouldn't it be great to marry these concepts? We will definitely see this stuff this year."

Koller added, "This is a value message with the PS3. Consumers can capitalise on the larger amount of space with Blu-ray. There are grander experiences for movies or games."

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19 Comments

Mush Man

3 years ago

This might actually make it worth spending $100 on a video game of a movie, judging by the quality of games of movies nowadays. On the other hand, it could send a bad message to the consumer. You get a high quailty movie with a half arse quality game.

Mr Waffle

3 years ago

So much for DVD being useless for next-gen video games if they can fit a full movie onto a blu ray game...

I wonder how they'll deal with the region coding. Will they code the movie portion but not the game, or will the whole game just refuse to play on the wrong region? I've got a Japanese PS3 so I wonder if I'll have to import R1 versions of these game/movie hybrids...

Gutsman Heavy

3 years ago

^

yeah could be interesting to see how my US PS3 likes the Aus hybrid games...

shiraj

3 years ago

This Idea is a long shot -
1. Movies will be packaged on the game discs based on the same movie - Now how many movie games are actually good ??? and what percentage of game released every year are actually based on movies.
2. the cost factor - the hybrid discs will obviously cost more than game discs - so expect a higher RRP than normal games - I would rather (if I loved the movie) buy the blu ray and game separately from different retailers on sale and save some money.
3. we get 2 disc versions of major blockbuster blu rays nowadays - so does this mean that we will be getting stripped down version of blu ray movies on the hybrid discs??

djrussell

3 years ago

I personally think its a great idea. It would certainly be the more attractive option for me anyway, especially for quality releases of games that got good reviews. Its like if The Dark Knight released a combo - I'd be so all over it.

rufati

3 years ago

Not exactly a new idea, I mean Street Fighter Anniversary Collection came with the SF2 Anime Movie on the game disc (off the top of my head I can't think of anymore examples though). The only problem that comes up is the questionable quality of a lot of movie tie-ins (or even video game movies).

I can only see this working if tie-in games/movies are of good quality or, alternatively, if hybrid games are priced no differently to standard games.

shiraj wrote

This Idea is a long shot

Itachi

3 years ago

If they decide to region lock the game because of the movie i will tell them to **** off. Mind you for games like dead space it would so work!!.

flooky36

3 years ago

Generally the release of a Movie Video game is around the same time as the movie itself in cinemas. I don't think this idea will work as most movie companies would want people to see it at the cinemas first, I am pretty sure cinemas would be losing customers if this idea went ahead.

Thoughts?

renegadesx

3 years ago

Games that are movie tie-ins usually suck. Pay $120 for a movie with a crappy game tacked onto it? No thanks, however it will help devs that write crappy movie games sell more units to the poor saps silly enough to buy them.

This is another desperate attempt to frantaclly bucket water out of a sinking ship when the smart decision is to patch the hole.

How do you patch the hole of the PS3? Two words: PRICE DROP!!!! They need to get it down to $500 and they need to do it fast if they want a shot of beating the 360.

If the prices stay too expensive for too long it will be too late and the PS3 will be to Sony what Vista is to Microsoft, an expensive and embarrassing failure. I dont know about you but I dont want to see Sony become another Sega, not with M$ and their monopolist ambitions around!

jonnysuavo

3 years ago

flooky36, I was just thinking the exact same thing mate. I'm guessing a pretty big percentage of movie licenced games are released around the same time as the cinema release itself - the publishers get free publicity for their games this way whenever the movie is advertised. Don't expect a free movie with your game unless it's a direct to DVD release movie, or the game happens to be a re-release when the DVD of the movie is released.

That's my thoughts buddy.

Buttmouth

3 years ago

flooky36 wrote

True, however its not strictly limited to new release movies/games.

Examples: Iron Man 2 game packaged with Iron Man 1 HD movie on the disc.

or Ghostbusters videogame packaged with 25 year old film (Ghostbusters)

or even just vaguely related movies. Tony Hawk game packaged with 'Grind' or something like that.

It's really a confusing avenue once you start picking it apart.

Kaiden

3 years ago

I know that Tales of Vesperia is getting an anime soon. Tales of the Abyss already has an anime and is a good watch. I think i remember hearing Valkyria Chronicles getting an anime.

Those are good games so the potential is there.

But i agree hollywood movie tie ins are horrible like Iron man -.-

The new ghostbusters game, could have all the old ghostbuster movies included remastered.

Star Wars the Clone Wars would be a good hybrid.

IISpacebreakII

3 years ago

I think this is a terrific idea actually, it can raise the appeal of lots of games by heaps. The fact that game-movies are usually terrible doesn't even phase me as I'm highly interested in it anyway. Having said that I'd rather it if game movies were CG as normally when they go for the real approach that tends to ruin it for me.

Awesome stuff Sony =]

Macka

3 years ago

I wouldn't buy them. Firstly, games based on movies almost always suck arse. Secondly, the price would be even higher. And lastly, I like to have my games and movies separate - this would make things annoying to organise.

MAXp0wr

3 years ago

Yes.. This whole concept sounds annoying.

Gnomey

3 years ago

Macka wrote

I wouldn't buy them.

Exactly so many people won't buy them they won't be able to make enoughe revenue. These game/movies will be heaps expencive $150+ maybe (considering we already have just games that release at $120), and then the game buy it self will be considerable cheaper, like at $100, and the same movie will be $15 at Big W three weeks later. Even so people can just download the movie at a resonalbe quality a few weeks after dvd release.

flooky36 wrote

I don't think this idea will work as most movie companies would want people to see it at the cinemas first

and as he/she says they will probley come out at the same time as the dvd realease where as the stand alone game will come out with the cinema realese. Even so none of that really matters if the game is complete ****.

john_solids

3 years ago

Gnomey wrote

download the movie? you talking about something like itunes? or you talking about something like illegal activities?
also we are talking about high definition movies, people do buy blu-rays for the quality, and the movies on the disc with the game will be high definition movies, alot of games use under 10gb and the disc being 50gb so being plenty of room for a full HD movie to fit on there, maybe minus special features.
the most costly part of the blu-ray movies would be the blu-ray's they are put on so putting a movie and a game on the same disc would see the movies price more then likely decrease greatly.
so lets say a blu-ray movie is $40 (average) and a game $88 (big w average for a new release game) now the price of the movie could possibly drop to say $20 and the game stay the same so we could probably be picking these up for around $108.
it would be very silly to make it cost around the same price for them seperate because very little would show any interest, but if there is a significant difference in price im sure more would go for it.

JP2daMC

3 years ago

I think it's an interesting concept, especially considering that the sale of Blu-rays hasn't been that great, nor the sale of PS3s.

fireflybck

3 years ago

As mentioned earlier, region coding would have to addressed. Will the game be region encoded?

In order for it to work, you have to provide an experience that's different to simply owning a game and/or the movie on their own.
Maybe a greater level of interactivity in the movie or special features. Or even include more special features.

Of course the price has to be reasonable. The cost would have to be less than owning the movie and game separately otherwise it'll end up the way of UMD.

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