HD-DVD Delayed Into 2006
- Thread starter Arty
- Start date
Toshiba was targeting to have a million HD-DVD drives available for notebook computers, let alone all stand alone units and PC's. I don't see how a company can start to ramp up production for a 2005 launch then call it off this late. I suspect all of their capacity is going into making Xbox 360 HD optical drives.
Toshiba would take a large financial hit at first under this scenario, but considering the long term revenue at stake, it would make sense to seed the market with the HD-DVD standard in a device that will be the nerve center of a persons living room before Sony PS3 Blu-Ray hits. Microsoft I'm sure would get what it wants out of the HD-DVD standards in spades from Toshiba: Microsoft media codecs and software being the dominate standard.
We'll see soon enough if the X-Box 360 is going to recieve a optical drive upgrade. If it doesn't Toshiba is definatley is between a rock and a hard place regarding their optical drive technology.
Toshiba would take a large financial hit at first under this scenario, but considering the long term revenue at stake, it would make sense to seed the market with the HD-DVD standard in a device that will be the nerve center of a persons living room before Sony PS3 Blu-Ray hits. Microsoft I'm sure would get what it wants out of the HD-DVD standards in spades from Toshiba: Microsoft media codecs and software being the dominate standard.
We'll see soon enough if the X-Box 360 is going to recieve a optical drive upgrade. If it doesn't Toshiba is definatley is between a rock and a hard place regarding their optical drive technology.
They're not making any HD optical drives for x360. This is all lies that has been debunked time and time again. x360 hardware is FINISHED. They're not going to introduce a third version so soon, and if they make one after launch they just fragment their market; games could never be released on HD discs because millions of customers would have bought the DVD-only version, thus reducing the HD drive to a movie playback only feature, which many people won't be interested in.Brimstone said:
Yeah...alot of people out there are still holding hope that a HD-DVD version willl be released. But as Guden said...if Microsoft releases this as a 3rd SKU..then what about the "Core" buyers and the "Premium" ones. One would also think that the "Premium" buyers would get a HD-DVD drive because its the "Premium" package.
Another point that Guden brings up is fragmentation. The ONLY point of a HD-DVD drive in a 360 (if release in a seperate SKU) is for movie playback (seems very logical). If they did release it for games also...there just going to confuse the market or create some weird system where the games come with DVDs and HD-DVDs imprinted on eachother or something (someone brought that up before where you could have the DVD version on one side and the HD-DVD version on the other side of the DVD...i'm not sure if that would work). Point is...it seems like more hassle to go with HD-DVD as a separet SKU. Its all or nothing.
Finally, about the thread itself. Being pushed back like that makes the outlook for HD-DVD look very grim. Would this mean that they would miss the Holiday season? If so...the one chance that they could undercut Blu-Ray is lost (by building an install base, through the holiday, before the release of Blu-Ray).
Another point that Guden brings up is fragmentation. The ONLY point of a HD-DVD drive in a 360 (if release in a seperate SKU) is for movie playback (seems very logical). If they did release it for games also...there just going to confuse the market or create some weird system where the games come with DVDs and HD-DVDs imprinted on eachother or something (someone brought that up before where you could have the DVD version on one side and the HD-DVD version on the other side of the DVD...i'm not sure if that would work). Point is...it seems like more hassle to go with HD-DVD as a separet SKU. Its all or nothing.
Finally, about the thread itself. Being pushed back like that makes the outlook for HD-DVD look very grim. Would this mean that they would miss the Holiday season? If so...the one chance that they could undercut Blu-Ray is lost (by building an install base, through the holiday, before the release of Blu-Ray).
My reasoning stems from the setting up of production lines. Toshiba has cleary stated many times about planning on releasing HD-DVD drives by the the end of 2005. This isn't something you set up in a short period of time. Toshiba has to have the capacity to churn drives out at this point.
When the last minute unification attempts failed, the situation forToshiba changed. They know how powerful the Sony Playstation brand is. If your Toshiba what do you do? I'm guessing that Toshiba brokered a last minute deal to make HD-DVD standard on all Xbox 360 sku's. Microsoft needs more than a couple of million drives, so Toshiba couldn't possibly launch in PC's, notebooks, and stand alone consumer players along with meeting Microsoft's needs.
The achilles heel is HDMI. I think it's safe to assume Microsoft explored the HD-DVD possibly for a long time now with Toshiba. A HDMI contigency plan I would think is in Microsoft's playbook.
When the last minute unification attempts failed, the situation forToshiba changed. They know how powerful the Sony Playstation brand is. If your Toshiba what do you do? I'm guessing that Toshiba brokered a last minute deal to make HD-DVD standard on all Xbox 360 sku's. Microsoft needs more than a couple of million drives, so Toshiba couldn't possibly launch in PC's, notebooks, and stand alone consumer players along with meeting Microsoft's needs.
The achilles heel is HDMI. I think it's safe to assume Microsoft explored the HD-DVD possibly for a long time now with Toshiba. A HDMI contigency plan I would think is in Microsoft's playbook.
You bet. HDDVD is fighting uphill battle now, from what we read on Ars and other places. I would think that has more to do with the delayed introduction than anything else; Toshiba doesn't want to spend big bucks at christmastime introducing Betamax 3.0...Brimstone said:
These are pure fantasies from la-la land. There's nothing to suggest such a thing, and what would MS do with all the countless DVDROMs they've already bought and paid for? Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of x360 units must undoubtedly already have been produced, assembled and packaged, ready for shipping worldwide mid-november. It's simply not feasible to suddenly rip them apart again and replace the optical drive.
You must really be desperate to believe something like this.
There's more than one achilles heel in your scenario man...
I think you overestimate the importance of the x360 in the big scheme of things. MS's console will sell in a couple dozen million copies for sure, but computer drives, stand-alone players etc sell in hundreds of millions of copies.Brimstone said:
Paying outrageous sums to MS to get their HDDVD drive in the 360 on extremely short notice and to a limited market after all, with possible quality issues looming (first generation tech and all that), probably isn't all that either tosh or MS are looking for...
Like I said, you really sound desperate.