Optical Disc Prices Could Rise by 50% in Second Half of 2013

[rooivalk]

The interview sounds like desperation from Mr. Wong. Optical media is dying rather quickly with PC users. Everything is going the way of digital/the "cloud"/etc. Online distribution of media has exploded. I can't think of one thing in the market that tells me Optical Disc usage will rise. The rise in price just reflects the dwindling demand and the need to keep profits/bottom line where they want it.

In the emerging countries like Indonesia, the optical disc usage is still pretty high. The internet speed is the main culprit here.

I took me days and nights to download a 10GB game from Steam for example, whereas I can go to the mall/shop, buy physical disc of the game, and go home. All in an hour. Btw it's even easier to buy pirated one here. The pirated games sellers are literally everywhere, both in physical and online shop at mere $0.4 per DVD!!

Also, not everyone has unlimited internet bandwith quote, so downloading big files from internet can deeply wound your pocket.

It's hard to justify throwing the optical disc altogether when it's still provide content faster and cheaper than digital (streaming/downloading) over here.

 

[newtekie1]

There are still large areas in the US that have absolute shit download speeds as well, so it isn't just other countries either.

My cousin only lives about 20 miles from me, I can get 100Mb/s Cable service to my house, the max he can get is 1.5Mb/s DSL, and if he lived a block further down the road he'd have to use Satellite, which would still give 1.5Mb/s but he would have a monthly usage cap of 17GB of download a month!

 

[claylomax]

In the emerging countries like Indonesia, the optical disc usage is still pretty high. The internet speed is the main culprit here.

I took me days and nights to download a 10GB game from Steam for example, whereas I can go to the mall/shop, buy physical disc of the game, and go home. All in an hour. Btw it's even easier to buy pirated one here. The pirated games sellers are literally everywhere, both in physical and online shop at mere $0.4 per DVD!!

Also, not everyone has unlimited internet bandwith quote, so downloading big files from internet can deeply wound your pocket.

It's hard to justify throwing the optical disc altogether when it's still provide content faster and cheaper than digital (streaming/downloading) over here.

Take Rage for example, it's three DVD's; I bought it retail for £12 (it was more on steam), had I downloaded I would have gone over my monthly limit. But I was still shocked it needed Steamshit for activation. :shadedshu

 

[Hayder_Master]

i don't know why company's and people still use optical dicks, what about put any game or movie on a USB 3.0 stick it will be faster and cheaper than blueray disk.
i think it's some kind of fashion just like some people still use phonographe.

 

[bmaverick]

When VHS tapes fell away as DVD took over, the market was nearly giving VHS tapes away for dirt. Basically, the dollar store offered 3 VHS for a buck! After the last surge, VHS tapes are rare. Radio Shack and other places now sell a 3 pack for over $10. For years, many company security systems were built on recording onto VHS, so rather than upgrade, the VHS tapes hung around for some time. Likewise, the DVD will linger around for a while too.

 

[Ikaruga]

I used to back up everything the optical discs (still have a few thousand somewhere in the basement, most of them probably not even readable anymore).
Now, when it's usually faster to upload/download anything to/from the internet, I just delete and redownload things or store them on the NAS if it's something very important.

 

[jboydgolfer]

The raise in Prices is likely due to NO ONE buying CD/BD anymore. This is like if suddenly strawberry's, or tower records started selling vinyl's again for like 10X the price. But then again, at least I STILL have My vinyl's, and they still play.

 

[EarthDog]

Oh noes! So CD-Rs might go from $0.17 a piece to $0.25 a piece and DVDs might go from $0.20 to $0.30 a piece?! How ever will we survive?! Oh wait, I'm still have more than half the box of 200 CDs that I bought from Circuit City back in 2003 and half the spindle of 100 DVDs I bought back in 2006...I think I'll be fine.

LOLlolLOL, spot on!

 

[Prima.Vera]

I wish that the BR Disks were not that expensive. Now I will never buy a BL Ray drive

 

[Frick]

This is like if suddenly strawberry's, or tower records started selling vinyl's again for like 10X the price. But then again, at least I STILL have My vinyl's, and they still play.

Vinyls are different, they're not digital. Also they are kinda doing that already (not 10x maybe).

 

[Ikaruga]

Take Rage for example, it's three DVD's; I bought it retail for £12 (it was more on steam), had I downloaded I would have gone over my monthly limit. But I was still shocked it needed Steamshit for activation. :shadedshu

A little OFFtopic, but Rage would be "perfect" for some online setup. With today's Internet speed (at least the Internet we have here in the EU which is a lot faster than the speed of optical discs) would be more than enough to get data from massive servers hosting hundreds and thousands of GB data pre-calculated with the highest possible detail the current offline rendering techniques a capable of (thinking about not 20GB but lots of TerraBytes). That would make it possible to host open worlds with an unprecedented complexity, never seen before, and for almost everybody since it runs fluid on just about anything.

 

[newtekie1]

i don't know why company's and people still use optical dicks, what about put any game or movie on a USB 3.0 stick it will be faster and cheaper than blueray disk.
i think it's some kind of fashion just like some people still use phonographe.

Faster? Yes. Cheaper? No.

For a 10,000 piece order, a 25GB Blu-Ray disc costs about $1.80 per disc, a 32GB USB2.0 flash drive costs about $2.50 a USB3.0 costs about $3.50. A 50GB Blu-Ray disc costs about $2.75 per disc, a 64GB USB2.0 flash drive costs $3.50 and a USB3.0 costs about $4.50. Yes, you get slightly more space on a Flash Drive but flash memory space and Blu-Ray space amounts don't match up perfectly.

And these are prices for absolute bottom of the barrel crap made in china flash drives, you know the ones, they give them away as promo items a lot. The ones that you know are just going to break after you use them once or twice, either the flash is going to go bad or the USB connector is just going to snap off...

 

[OneMoar]

there is no Optical drive in my gaming machine I see no point for one