Sony is well known for avoiding cannibalization of other divisions to the point of shooting itself in the foot. E.g. the PS4 doesn't have a Blu-Ray drive because Sony also sells Blu-Ray players at roughly the same cost at the PS4 (keep in mind the business model for the PS4 is to sell at a loss and claw back profits on the games)
The XBox pays royalties for it's blu-ray drive - and a significant sum goes to Sony who it part of the Blu-Ray consortium, go figure!
PS4 has a blu ray drive, and will play standard blu ray movies. What they didn't do is support 4k blu ray in the newer PS4 Pro. Unclear why they made the choice, could be cannibalization, could be cost cutting.
I stand corrected. That said, I do remember that while the OG PS4 shipped with the Blu-Ray hardware, the PS4 would not play the Blu-Ray format. I guess at some point they started shipping a software update to support the format.
Maybe it couldn’t for a week or two. It launched early November right? This article is from mid November saying it’s possible with the firmware update. https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=12614
BluRay playback was enabled in the Day One patch, which also basically contained the rest of the OS. The hardware was shipped as a brick, essentially, and the Day One patch was mandatory.
There was really no period of time where it couldn’t play movies. OP is misremembering facts to fit a conclusion they they’re reasoning backwards from.
This is still completely incorrect. It obviously shipped with BluRay from the beginning, as all PS4 games are distributed on BluRay disc. Further, launch reviews mention not only the slot-loading BluRay drive but the day one patch enabling movie playback:
The XBox pays royalties for it's blu-ray drive - and a significant sum goes to Sony who it part of the Blu-Ray consortium, go figure!