Topic For Discussion: HD Format War

[calviin]

So if you haven't heard, at 3 am EST today, Toshiba has finally announced the end of the HD format war. HD-DVD is packing up shop, Blu-Ray is the winner. Frankly, I don't care because I don't own an HD TV and I don't have any problems with DVDs, but one question did come to mind. Did Sony's decision to put the Playstation brand behind Blu-Ray have

Comments

[hercshman]

I think that the ability for the PS3 to play blu-rays did help the market because it added that many users on top of the number of blu-ray early adopters. My extremely non-scientific and rushed Google search indicates that the stand alone players were selling evenly, so the PS3 would have been a bonus. If HD had been included in at least one model of X-Box instead of packaged as a peripheral (leaving lots of people to not buy it) things may have gone differently because 360 sales had been running higher for a while there.

I can't really estimate why MS took the approach they did. I like the idea that they were just attempting to stall while they set up a digital download system, but they were throwing around a lot of money. Toshiba stands to loose a lot that they had invested in HD-DVD to the point where it doesn't look like it was intentional. Maybe they just got caught being stubborn and made a bad choice in underestimating gamers as a viable market (which seems to have worked out for Sony).

As for the medium taking hold,

[hercshman]

I realize that it has taken that much time for DVDs to take hold, but I don't think it will take so long for the new medium to become big. New college grads have disposable income, and we're in a paradigm shift where HD TVs are replacing SD TVs. In most cases to take advantage of an HD set you either need a digital signal or digital cable, and an HD player (upconverting DVD or blu-ray). Otherwise the movie looks like blurry on the HD set. Retailers will likely push BR because most players can upconvert DVDs which saves people from having to replace their whole collection right off the bat. The only down side here is the price, which has only just started to approach most people's threshold of purchase

Re: As for the medium taking hold,

[hercshman]

I like a tangible medium. I like having a CD that I can say is my own, rip whenever I want to, and still have the music when my computer crashes. Call me a Luddite but that's the way I feel

Re: As for the medium taking hold,

[hercshman]

Eh, I had a couple of other points that I wanted to make earlier, but at this point I've sort of lost my train of thought...

um... I'll just ago ahead and say I think the PS3 put more BR players in houses than they would have gotten otherwise.

That, and a fat sack of cash dropped off on Warner Bros. doorstep.