this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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Boost this one to the top, it's the official reason given by sony. You can disparage it if you want, but it has technical merit. The audio codecs supported by mainstream bluetooth devices are meant for music, where you want the highest possible quality and can tolerate a slight delay between when you press play and when the music actually starts.
In video games this means you get a noticable delay on the audio. With classic video file playback like a movie, this can be compensated for by delaying the visuals so thay match up with the audio, but delaying the visuals in a video game is an even worse experience for the player.
Sony's use of a proprietary audio codec via their wireless controllers is pretty justified. They're able to optimize for latency and it shows (or rather, it doesn't, since you probably would never notice it).
That's a very high fucking horse to be standing on top off when their device is specifically made to be plugged into a television. Y'know, the thing that almost never can display an image with less than 100 ms of latency even in "game mode". Any decent bluetooth codec has less latency than a standard TV so that's a bullshit excuse.
Also there are low latency bouetooth codecs like AptX-LL with less than 40ms of E2E delay. Sony could enable bluetooth for those devices if it can negociate a low latency codec. They could show a warning about how they can't guarantee the user experience. But they won't.
The real reason is that they want to lock their users into a walled garden where they have an effective oligopoly. It's a very old and scummy business tactict. It's that simple and there's no need to regurgitate their pathetic excuses.
Thank you, I was almost feeling a tinge of sympathy for Sony then I remembered, these businesses have centuries of practice in deceit and any actual benefit that comes to users is incidental to their only actual goal of maximizing profit.
Nowadays many TVs have very low latency.
It has hypercapitalistic anti consumer merit
It's not okay to make excuses for it
It is purely to make profit of a customer seen as incompetent
Just because it's a valid business case for making money
Even if to prevent bad experiences on their premium product
Nothing other than a failure of the capitalist system
No need to excuse it