The current HD format war is at a stalemate and a decision by Time Warner could announce a winner.
According to Pali Research, Time Warner will declare its support for Blu-Ray in early 2008, deciding the end of the HD wars. This prediction comes on top of Michael Bay’s statement that Microsoft is funding HD DVD’s side to ensure that both formats lose. While any prediction is just that (a hopeful guess and nothing more), until a decision is actually made (and Michael Bay probably doesn’t really know what he thinks he does), let’s take a look at the thought process Time Warner is going through that is likely behind all of this.
As the Market Stands
Right now, Blu-Ray has the advantage coming into the 4th quarter, and related Blu-Ray disc sales also reflect this strong advantage. Granted, this isn’t always an accurate measure of success, because sales also have a lot to do with the strength of titles featured on any given format. But Warner Bros.’ 300, a banner title that released on both formats, sold significantly more on Blu-Ray than on HD DVD, lending credence to the former medium’s leading status.
However, player sales on the HD DVD side also went vertical on the opening days of the Christmas buying season, and this, coupled with the defection of several studios to the HD DVD camp, put the momentum back in that direction. In short, neither side is willing to give up the fight – although, amusingly, together they represent just a fraction of the market potential for HD content.
Also important to keep in mind: Dual-mode players remain too expensive, and recent changes to the security scheme on the Blu-Ray side broke most of them, eliminating these devices as an attractive end-run product that consumers could effectively use to avoid having to pick sides.
Ultimately, the studios are hurting for money and care less about which format wins than about increasing overall sales, since you have to buy a new movie disc (cha-ching!) to get high-definition audiovisuals. What’s more, because folks are buying HDTVs in massive volumes, the untapped demand for a solution, any solution, is very evident to the studios… particularly Time Warner.
Time Warner’s Problem
By currently playing both sides of the battle, Time Warner is getting iterative sales that studios devoted exclusively to one side or the other are not getting. Nonetheless, given that the time’s about right for the market to explode, Time Warner is likely feeling pressure to become a kingmaker.
In terms of hardware pricing and sheer momentum, HD DVD is the clear choice. The problem is that we’re currently in a 4th quarter market and Time Warner’s decision will come way too late to have any impact this year, and since players retailing at aggressive price points are sold out anyway, the market is manufacturing-constrained. So even if Time Warner were to announce their decision today, the only impact would be lower Blu-Ray sales and that would impact Time Warner’s short-term revenues negatively (fewer players equals fewer folks buying movies already in stores).
If the company decides to go HD DVD it would be, on top of other strategies, a decisive move, and the market would begin to focus on HD DVD for the 4th quarter, but by then HD downloads, which are the eventual future, will be trying to gain greater sell-through as well and the two will be competing for mindshare. More importantly, for every HD DVD player that someone buys, there is one less household looking to try HD downloads in the near-term (folks generally won’t invest in a new technology if an existing technology they have already purchased is good enough).
Factoring in Michael Bay and Microsoft
While I think Mr. Bay’s comments with regard to Microsoft’s funding are stretching the truth a bit, there is no doubt that Microsoft is itself focused on downloads as the future, as are Google, Apple, and most other high-profile technology companies. (Even HP, who is in cahoots with both camps, is doing more work on downloads than on either HD optical disc format.)
Since such a conflict would hold down sales volume and cause HD DVD to compete for market share at the same time downloadable content was trying to break through, it would simply create another issue for the company to tackle. It would therefore seem to be in the studio’s best interest to let both formats kill each other off so that downloadable solutions can enter the market unhindered by competition with the optical formats and rabidly balloon to its massive revenue potential.
Bearing this in mind, a decision in favor Blu-Ray would then make sense, because it would once again balance the field, holding down demand for both formats and allowing downloads to ramp more strongly. Since Time Warner makes money off of the sale of movies regardless of formats, this would likely result in the more profitable – and faster to cash in on – of the two choices.
Why Downloadable Movies are Better
What makes downloadable movie services better for the studios is they don’t have to stock the movies any place but digitally. Keep in mind that much of their vast libraries of films haven’t made it to DVD yet, and only a very small fraction to HD. Motion pictures sitting in archives and not on DVD are simply gathering dust, not revenue, but many have such small potential audiences the cost of producing, stamping and stocking a DVD would make reissuing them on a new format an unprofitable endeavor. However, studios have been digitizing these movies for some time now already, just to preserve them, and the incremental cost to make these reasonably high-quality transfers available isn’t that great.
Collectively, the move to downloadable flicks could make a multi-million dollar difference to the bottom line for many studios, and given the size of Warner Brother’s back catalogue, we are talking the high end of a rather impressive revenue range for them.
This also reduces the time needed to fulfill a movie order. For instance, say you saw a movie clip for a small independent film on YouTube and want to order the film. With downloadable content, you get it instantly; for DVDs you have to locate a retailer or the movie has to be pressed and sent, and by the time you go through the process of finding a source, you might decide to buy something else entirely. Downloads cut time, cost and the risk of a lost customer down substantially if they are done right – and that’s a very attractive proposition to any studio.
Wrapping Up
Regardless of which side you are on in this fight, it’s apparent that optical storage is going the way of the floppy drive, record player and laserdisc, only to eventually be replaced by some sort of download or subscription service. (Eventually a mix of both like we currently have with cable, only much friendlier…) In essence, Time Warner and most others in this space have no real tie to ether optical format and simply want to make money.
Be aware that all the aforementioned thoughts are purely speculative, and I truly doubt that Time Warner, which is a complex company, has fully made up its mind yet. Also keep in mind that downloadable films are far from ready for mass adoption and that will likely play a part in this battle. Regardless, downloads are the future – when they’ll fully take over simply depends on which way Time Warner goes and how fast folks like Cisco, Amazon and BitTorrent get their respective hardware and services together. Of course, getting this same sort of content to work on TVs, portable players, cars and cell phones for a reasonable price won’t be easy, but once it’s done, I doubt we’ll imagine it being any other way.
Showing 44 comments
RSSglad i got my ps3 :)
i've used it more for blu-ray and media than games at the mo!
TIME 2 GET YOUR PS3!!!
I REALLY HOPE THAT SONY MAKES SURE THAT'LL NEVER HAPPEN AND MICROSOFT IS DOWN A FEW BILLION MAYBE THEN THEY START TO THINK ,,WHAT ARE WE DOING TO THE CONSUMERS WHO BUY THIS IF WE CONTINUE TO WORK LIKE THIS WE'LL LOSE MILLIONS OF COSTUMERS" then they will buy the new apple OS and the ps3 microsoft is the victim of its own strategy
This was a rediculous article.
"In terms of hardware pricing and sheer momentum, HD DVD is the clear choice."
...need I say more?
Sorry for the multiple postings (gremlins got into my system).
I would like to add my two cents thou...
how is anyone supposed to store like 20GB for each movie you download at home? you would need a tower of hard disks in no time!
and if you do copy them to optical what's the point for the consumer? companies would only be geting rid of another process that doesnt give revenue (like support that is getting in the hands of customers, I see it continously in Pc games where comunities of users patch the game) that is production, eliminate retailers that are earning a lot of money right now (I dont think those guys would allow that, in my country at least they have unrivaled power toped only by petroleum companies)
and also have in mind that I dont know in the US but in my country a blank BD costs more than an original movie and there is no sign the prices will drop.. for example dual layer blank DVD's are still terribly expensive despite the fact they've been around for some time know.
Forgive me but I dont really see optical disapearing anytime soon. Unless they design a low cost HD that has docens of terabytes or something which I dont see anytime soon either...
Dont wanna sound like those crazy guys that continue blabing about how lp's are way better than cd's but I just dont trust a magnetic erasable component anyway close as I trust an optical disk that is write protected and substancial. I dont think I would like the idea of having my whole DVD colection that has cost me a load of money(a real truckload of money!) to a media that is so susceptible to errors and accidents...
Will I then need to backup thaT?
This is starting to sound to me like so much metting ideas that sound great to bosses there and then end up being a total screw up when implemented(I had quite some at work).
Movies on Hard disk definetly not my future if there is anyway I can avoid that, but it wouldnt be the first time the worse standar gets implemented thou, like it happened to beta and 2000...
Anyway just my two cents
"Blu-ray still represented more than 70% of high-definition video sales in the U.S. during the week Transformers was released on HD DVD.?
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6515100.htm...
HD DVD is gonna die.
Please pass me whatever you are smoking.
"Reason #1-Installed Base: BD is a format whose installed base consists of over 75% PS3 game machines. Game machines are by definition a niche market and are not sufficient to launch a new consumer video format. WB was one of the first to point out this limitation and discuss it publicly. Since then, Disney and Fox have been watching HD-DVD's rapid growth and questioning their exclusive BD status."
This is a MAJOR crock of B.S. Blu-ray is outselling HD DVD 2 to 1, some reports saying 3 to 1. Who cares where the user installed base is as long as movies are selling.
Good luck with your $200 Ventura player, I heard its a killer player. Would look just awesome next to your $200 plasma TV too
/sarcasm
Numbers don't lie folks, BD movies are selling a lot more than HD DVD. Simple as that.
Some articles worth reading: http://www.videobusiness.com/community/High-def/47...
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6515100.htm...
?Blu-ray benefits from stronger Hollywood studio support and represents a greater proportion of high-definition disc production volumes and disc sales. To date, Paramount?s move to sole support of HD DVD has failed to turn the market, despite the HD DVD exclusivity of key titles Transformers and Shrek the Third. Blu-ray still represented more than 70% of high-definition video sales in the U.S. during the week Transformers was released on HD DVD.?
Ouch guys...BD seems to be winning the war.
Reason #1-Installed Base: BD is a format whose installed base consists of over 75% PS3 game machines. Game machines are by definition a niche market and are not sufficient to launch a new consumer video format. WB was one of the first to point out this limitation and discuss it publicly. Since then, Disney and Fox have been watching HD-DVD's rapid growth and questioning their exclusive BD status.
Reason #2-Profitability: It is well documented that BD discs are more expensive to produce and require brand new equipment to press and are therefore less profitable for the Studios than HD-DVD discs. In addition, the awkward and complex BD-Java language for Profile 1.1 titles will add even more cost to BD releases and widen this profitability gap.
Reason #3-Features: I know how much it hurts to hear but BD still does not have any of the nice special features that ALL HD-DVD owners have enjoyed since day one and there are no BD titles yet that include those features. Now that a few high priced Profile 1.1 standalone BD players are starting to be released, BD supporters are faced with a hard decision... Now that you realize that Sony has deceived you regarding Blu-Ray's features, support and upgradeability, do you write another big check to get a new Profile 1.1 BD player with the same special features as HD-DVD or switch to HD-DVD for less than half the price and get a boatload of FREE movies in the process? And if you decide to stick with BD, what happens in late 2008 when profile 2.0 is released? Write yet another big check?
Still think that Warner Bros is going to go BD exclusive? It's not going to happen.
Mr. Enderle, with much respect, isn't this statement very innacurate? With the current studio lineups, Blu Ray has still led very close to 2:1 for the 4th quarter not to mention the year.
And that would leave hd dvd with only Paramount and universal to prop the format up.
Warner going Blu wouldnt even the field it would break the scale!
Now if Warner were to go hd only, I could see things getting tied up. And the rest of your statement would be accurate if you had used that verbage.
And "momentum" being behind hd dvd? Apparently Blu Ray's momentum is moving forward at a stronger pace. It is continuing to sustain its lead and absolutely crushed hd dvd sales on black friday despite the enormous price drops by hd dvd.
It seems you are filtering what is going on in the real world with a good amount of bias.
And it is interesting to see who someone who had been very vocal about hd dvd in the past speaking so strongly about hd downloads and embracing them. It is very telling about the state of hd dvd.
The speeds required to stream that content smoothly may be years down the road to be accessible to the common public. And the file sharing events of recent have proven that joe shmo believes a file is worth stealing but not paying for. Good luck selling files instead of physical media.
Last time I checked the next-gen HD formats accounted for less than 1% of all DVD sales. That number would need to increase a lot for it to take off as well. It's no better than movie downloads. I am willing to bet that internet downloads take off just as fast as the new HD formats out there.
As i mentioned before, the last time I checked households with broadband in the U.S. was in the 30% range. That figure needs to rise before downloads can truly take off. Yes, the people in the coast/big cities may do it but the rest of the country won't be on board for sometime. It's the same thing with TIVO/DVR's. Those of us who have one would never go back, but there are many homes in this country who have no idea what they are missing. I don't disagree with the Internet as being the future, I just think it's going to happen a little slower then most people envision.
Not as long as you might think. I believe DirecTV is using MPEG4 encoding already. Verizon FiOS has HD downloads available too I believe. It will creep up faster than youmight think!
Netflix, Amazon already have movie downloads.
Sure, I can't buy the Bourne Ultimatum HD format for my hardware but I am patient. Patient and hopeful that consumers will do the research and choose the format that is best suited for HD.
As for Sony's past mistakes... Betamax wasn't a mistake, it was a proprietary format which they wanted too much for the royalties for. It too was the better format. Why do you think most TV shows were taped on it?
Toshiba didn't form a consortium of harware manufacturers for HD-DVD. They took their existing format , modified it, and labelled it HD-DVD in hopes to grab those who followed logically from DVD. If anyone is making a mistake this round it is Toshiba. They tried to push out HD-DVD to grab a large early market share and to stand alone.
Blu-Ray is not just Sony's pony, its a group of manufacturers. It has larger throughput for audio and video. It has larger capacity. Two things that benefit the frames of 1080p HD.
Inclusion of blu-ray in the ps3 may have totally been to place HD movie payers out there en force, but it also served to alleviate the growing size of games in this day and age. While its doubtful that many current games really need more then the ~9 GBs of DVD space. I am confident that in the life of this console some most definitely will. Many large scale MMO games out there easily consume more then 10GB and I am sure that Sony did not want to limit its new console so early in its life.
We consumers CAN make the difference. Do the research, inform yourself, and then vote with your wallet. I for one will not be doing digital download any time soon. I want 1080p for my 1080p TV. Not 560 or 720 for a computer monitor. I want to take my player to a friends house, or maybe just the movie, and watch it on his HD setup, all the while not having to worry about having a internet connection to a HDTV. I get about 500-600KB/s on my cable connection. To download a movie of let us say 15GBs would take approx. 4.5 hours. Sure I can stream video over the internet. However, it will not be 1080p with lossless audio. It will most likely not even be full raster non-square 720p as that requires a little over 51Mb/s just for video. Digital content is great for movies on demand viewed on your laptop and thats about it right now.
http://www.addonics.com/products/external_cd/mobil...
To Jeff on storage, in a steaming world the storage doesn't have to be on local hardware, you only need to distribute it to manage network loading, but you should only have to retain a record of your rights to view the video not the video itself and that would also help solve the multiple device problem (transcoding could become a thing of the past as you would only stream/download the appropriate format).
On the Samsung for $279 that appears to be a similar inventory clear out price to the Toshiba $99 deal but it didn't get the same volume (the $99 players were gone in a couple of hours). It doesn't appear to be a sustainable price or we'd see other products in this range. But it is a good deal, thinking of picking one up myself if it gets any lower.
To Chris I have no financial interest on any side of this and just find the war interesting to talk about, both because it is an historic Sony mistake to start these things and screw up technology segments stupidly and because, here in the US was seem to be seeing a number of similar decisions from our own Government. I'd like this lesson to stick because I'd rather not have any more stupid decisions of this type this decade. If Sony hadn't gone down this path the PS3 would have been vastly more competitive, the HD Optical market would be ramping rapidly this year and we'd have a heck of a lot more movies in HD on optical media. Everyone involved, including Sony, would be more profitable.
I took that as even if you shift the content to Blu-ray, there isn't enough of it to make a difference.
"But if we shift content solidly to the Blu-Ray side even $200 isn't cheap enough because you won't have the content. This puts the content at odds with the attractive price and you have balance with no one buying either."
My question Mr. Enderle is: Do you share a brain with Miss Teen South Carolina from the Miss Teen USA 2007 contest? (see youtube video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
Your math is fuzzy at best bud.
Rob: So you're telling me that Sony PS3 people were let go because of their demands that Bluray be a requirement on the PS3 and the subsequent problems that demand created? So in other words, Sony Corporate could care less about Bluray, all they care about is the lower than expected PS3 sales?
Sounds like you're getting 1+1=3. I don't know how anyone including the PS3 people who were fired or forced out could come to any conclusion other than the PS3 is saving Bluray's behind. Considering 2.3M US PS3s out of 2.7M Bluray players. Makes you wonder how HD-DVD would be doing if Microsoft's 4M(?) XBoxes sold in the last year all had HD-DVD players in them. Talk about potential momentum...
But if the rumors are true, then this is all really a moot point as the war has been won. And while BlockBuster, Walmart, and Bestbuy probably won't rent or sell as many copies of hard media tomorrow as they did yesterday, I'm sure they'd be very interested in your predictions of downloads bypassing HD media. And if the opposite should come to pass, then I suspect we'll be in for another year's worth of arguments and Michael Bay theories while this thing gets hashed out.
Of course, that ignores the possibility that you don't really care who win's the war so much as that you need the war or others like it to exist so that your wolf in sheep's clothing advertising/publicity company can continue to make money.
HD DVD 1080i player, lowest price - $218.60
Blu-ray 1080p24 player, lowest price - $269.98
Wow, that's certainly one or two years behind isn't it!?!?!
Care to explain yourself?
Web Side:
Joost, Hulu.com, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Unbox
On the hardware sice:
Vudu, Akimbo, and forget your cable provider: Comcast, Timewarner, Dish, DirecTV Verizon all have Video on Demand, those are movie downloads.
HD video is great for the mass consumer, but with broadband speeds getting faster and faster, video downloads ARE the real future here. Just not tomorrow :)
One or two years away? With the release of a $279 player just 1 DAY after you wrote this article, you just lost ALOT of credibility.
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-BD-P1400-1080p-Blu-R...
The reality is, the only thing that matters in regards to the HDDVD/BD war is content. If you can only get Pixar films on BD or Pirates of the Caribbean on BD, .. how in the world will having a FREE HD DVD player matter to you as a consumer? The bottom line in my opinion is studio support.
Alot of really cheap HD DVD players were sold at Walmart, no doubt. However, those same consumers are the ones that buy DVD's in the bargin bin and you will be hard pressed to find them buying the same volume of HD content as adopters of Blu Ray. This is evident of software sales in the US and Europe.
"But none of us have a say in this fight, not really, the fight itself is causing the most damage and the studios have to realize that as long as it goes on they are taking it in the shorts in terms of lost revenue."
You should have a read of the interview with Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group...
http://www.contentagenda.com/info/CA6442866.html
"Having both formats in the market has created a competitive environment that is leading to innovation and competitive pricing. In order for us to see mass adoption of high definition and the concomitant growth in home video revenues we should all be working to lower the price of the hardware. We saw a significant jump in the sales of Toshiba HD-DVD players when they dropped the price of their lowest price player to $399 on April 1st. If we only had one format we would never have seen this kind of competitive pricing this early in the format?s lifecycle."
So actually, this war is somewhat of a mixed blessing for consumers.
Cheers
Yes its true, but if the encryption has not been broken why go through the process to change it? Another reason why Disney, Fox, and others chose Blu-Ray is because of the region code.
These companies like the region coding because movies are released at different parts of the world at different times. An example might be that a movie is being released on Blu-Ray might still be in Theathers in another country. So to prevent people from just importing the the movie from another country and not go to theathers, they use the region coding.
Also remember that the region code is only for the movies stamped within the first year of release. After the first year, they are stamped all regions(Region Free). An example would be the first Pirates of the Caribbean. It has been in stores for over a year and when it was released on Blu-Ray for the first time, it was already region free.
With HD DVD being region free, some of its releases have been delayed to prevent what Blu-Ray already does with the region code.
Blu-Ray offers alot more to these Studio than just more space and high bandwidth.
But what is the one thing every single one of these articles predict...?
http://www.nytimes.com/paidcontent/PCORG_317734.ht...
And for the record, every "credible" source of information seems to have a different story, BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, Digital Trends are all showing different numbers....will we ever know who is right?
Blu-ray does have a vast majority of the content. They have half of it exclusive and another 20 percent through Warner. Where do you get your information?
HD DVD players have not "dropped" below $200 either, they are simply clearancing their 1080i-only capable player. Low pricepoint is now about the same.
If you read the recent rumors and news (besides the stuff you make up) you'd realize that Warner going HD DVD exclusive would make them the laughingstock of the packaged media industry. It's already assumed they will go with BD and that it's just a matter of time now.
The reality is that downloads, once the networks are up to it, will be vastly better. You?ll buy access to a movie, stream it when you want to watch it, and, eventually (though sometimes I wonder if I?ll live long enough) be able to watch it on everything from your connected MP3 player, to your connected car, to your cell phone, and home TV all in what appears to be, for the device High Definition.
Watch an HD film on Xbox Live and you?ll see it isn?t bad today and will get much better over the next few months. I was playing with a new wireless TV, not rabbit ears but WiFi, and within a few minutes of selecting ?300? a Time Warner blockbuster picture I was watching it. Its cost was less than either a BD or HD-DVD disk. Inventory still sucks but I could live with it and I put up the HD-DVD version of the same movie right above it (the wireless TV is 47? and the Sharp panel showing the HD was 52?) and the newer 47? looked better with the downloaded movie.
I loved the comment that Sony was brilliant for including Blu-Ray in the PS3, that brilliance was clearly rewarded when they put the head of that unit out to pasture along with a lot of other people. Now that is spin, the reward for brilliance is sudden early retirement. You have to believe the folks who were fired regret the Blu-Ray PS3 decision. And the only $200 Blu-Ray player I know of goes into a PC and you can?t buy it yet.
As far as Microsoft telling you what to do with the movie you bought, that?s just silly. Microsoft makes some of the technology being used for downloads, it is the content owner who controls what you can do with it.
But none of us have a say in this fight, not really, the fight itself is causing the most damage and the studios have to realize that as long as it goes on they are taking it in the shorts in terms of lost revenue. For Blu-Ray to win players have to drop below $200 in volume, and they need the vast majority of the content, and they have to stop breaking the players that are already in market. For HD-DVD to win, they just need the content as players are networked and can be updated, and the players have already dropped below the $200 target. Time Warner can make a difference with HD-DVD, 2 of the 3 issues surrounding Blu-Ray are outside of their control.
They have three choices, do nothing (short term economic benefits), go HD-DVD and be a kingmaker, go Blu-Ray and ensure players don?t ramp to volume and focus on downloads where they can have vastly greater control (watermarking is proving an effective tool for piracy).
I?m not aware of a 4th path.
1. All the weeks they've won in 2007... wait, no...
2. Oh! The way they creamed BD during the biggest shopping week of the year!... no, that's not it either...
3. It must be how the $99 closeout players signaled a massive turnaround in disc sales... don't think it was that either
4. All the rumors that Warner is going HD DVD exclusive? ...nope
I don't get what momentum you're speaking of.
As far as pricing, that's not a factor anymore. The fact remains that the price difference between a 1080p HD DVD player and a 1080p BD player is now about $5. Disc prices are the same. Sometimes less for BD due to the wash-and-play combo discs. The fact remains that people will buy much more software over the course of a format's life than hardware. BD has the titles and the price is at parity. This will cease to matter by the end of next year when, if studio support remains as it is (unlikely), BD will have at least 70% of sales every week due to the ps3 and sub-$250 1.1 players (I don't know this for certain, but it seems more than likely). I sense some grasping at straws here.
On a side note, add me to the list of people who will never, ever, ever be on board with downloads. I don't want MS telling me what I can do with the movie I bought.
Oh, and the first Blu-Ray player to hit the $200 price range hit this week............oops.
I still don't understand why so many people think movie downloads are the way to go all of the sudden. If they're thinking of something along the lines of pay per view, then I guess I could see that. My cable companies HD pay perviews are completely acceptable. But if they're thinking internet downloads, then not even close. The internet infrastructure isn't in place to handle it. Cable companies are struggling to find a way to deliver all of the new HD channels while still providing 7Mbit internet. And 7Mbit internet won't cut it for HD movie downloads. Besides, SD downloads have been around for a long time. Four years ago I did Star's (or was it Encore?) SD download program, and no way would I use it to replace DVDs. If cable companies could get rid of the analog channels, would they have enough bandwidth for 200 HD channels and 100Mbit internet? Doubt it. Fios and Uverse saturation are a long way off.
Could digital downloads be an HD-DVD "lost the argument, so change the topic" tactic?
Finally, sub $200 players will be a major factor for mass adoption, but that won't be until there's a solid base of sub $500 HD TVs. So considering the sub $300 Bluray players out now, HD-DVD's price black Friday $99 players and sub $200 players isn't that great of an advantage. If it was, Microsoft would have sold a whole lot more XBox add-ons by now. That was Microsoft's biggest mistake, not forcing people to buy them. And likewise that could be Sony's greatest move.
BD continues to build its sales lead and will @ some point early next year woo Warner into its corner.
It's this price point that it giving HD-DVD the edge becuase folks are buying the players as gifts (and most won't spend much over $200 for a gift which is why that price point is so attractive).
But if we shift content solidly to the Blu-Ray side even $200 isn't cheap enough because you won't have the content. This puts the content at odds with the attractive price and you have balance with no one buying either.
This is the stall Michael Bay is talking about, I just get there on a different path.
This would imply that the field is not balanced in the HD format war.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_51...
A Businessweek article says that if Warner chose Blu-ray, the Sony Blu-ray system would go from its current 49 percent share to roughly 70 percent. That hardly sounds like a balance. And from the sound of things, other studios would likely follow suit since Warner Bros. is such a powerhouse. HD DVD needs them BADLY. If Warner does pledge allegiance, the war would die...and Blu-ray will likely be proclaimed the winner.