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Although I don’t usually pay attention to such things, the other day as I was opening a recent Blu-ray purchase, I took note of the “Compatible with PlayStation 3” sticker that either the studio or the retailer had attached to the shrink wrap. It was trivial, hardly worth glancing at, but it got me thinking about how closely the Blu-ray format is tied to Sony’s multipurpose game console. Of course, I seem to recall similar stickers about the PlayStation 2 appearing on early DVD releases, but the situation is very different now. DVD’s benefits over its VHS and Laserdisc predecessors were so obvious that the format achieved explosive growth, and its success was never dependent on just one playback machine. Certainly, the PS2 brought DVD into a lot of homes very quickly, but standalone players and computer drives were equally (and soon more) popular with the public. Everyone wanted DVD, whether they wanted a game console to go with it or not.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/doomsday.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>A deadly plague known as the Reaper Virus attacks Scotland, killing thousands and infecting millions more. To contain the disease, England constructs a wall along the border to keep out infected citizens from the north. Twenty-five years later, the virus reappears, forcing the government to dispatch a military team to search out a Scottish researcher (Malcolm McDowell) who was close to finding a cure during the first outbreak.