Doubtful. DVD related revenue (read: licensing) is/has been way too good for them (selling players wasn't it). They're not going to let Blu-ray establish itself in DVDs place if they can help it.
Warner Bros goes Blu-Ray Exclusive
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quest55720
Regular
They don't have to worry about that. Only wishfull HDM lovers believe blu or hd-dvd would ever replace DVD. It was not the PQ/SQ that let DVD win it was no rewind/formfactor/no degration every viewing/no tapes to be eaten. People are nuts if they think the average person will replace the 3 DVD players in the house the one in the car and the other portable units they might have. DVD has changed everything with cheap prices. Most people had to replace 1 or 2 VCRs no portable units to replace no unit in the car to replace. Before DVD people would watch movies in the living room mostly. Now they watch them in the living room/bedroom/kids room/play room/car/ ect/ The best chance was combo discs so people could play a movie on any player they might own. The combo discs were to expensive and had to many issues. Unless BDA studios want to include the DVD version with the blu version DVD will be king. I don't see any of my friends ever getting a blu player because of the cost to upgrade all players to blu players. People are not going to spend 30 dollars a disc that will only work in 1 player in the house.
I don't buy this argument. The numerous DVD players you refer to were accumulated over time as prices decreased, not all purchased at once. DVD replaced the VCR in the living room, and then migrated to other areas. Blu-ray will do the same.
quest55720
Regular
People mostly watched movies in the living room then like I said. What person is going to a 30 dollar movie that works in 1 room? You can keep dreaming even though DVD had 100x more advantages than HDM it took till players were 50-99 dollars before the exploded. Why would the average joe spend 30 bucks when the kids can't watch it in the car or he can't watch it in the living room. How about not being able to take the movie on family vacations. DVD changed everything basicaly.
I am going to make a topic about this.
You're being rather myopic here. "What person is going to buy a 30 dollar movie that works in one room?" applies to 10 years ago with DVD as well, you know.
quest55720
Regular
People only watched movies in the living room back then. It was no big deal to add a DVD player it was not till later when players got 10-30 dollars did the rules changed. Movies were no longer just for the living room. I remember a many a family night watching a movie we just rented in the living room. Now when I get a netflix the family will watch it at different times in different areas. Just like the rules have changed for music for ever also. There will never be another physical music format because the rules have changed.
If people just watched movies in the living room I would change my stance but that is no longer the case.
Anecdotes and conjecture don't make a rock solid argument. One can easily come back and say "we had 5 VCRs in our house 20 years ago" and that's the end of that.
Been forwarded here.
Pretty good write up there. So is having HD consumers who will never buy HD-DVD an issue? That's 8 million people...
http://www.ripten.com/2008/01/05/pie-charts-show-true-impact-of-warners-move/
"When Blu-ray discs are already outselling HD-DVDs 4:1 in the US, 7:1 in Europe, and 9:1 in Japan, Toshiba only ever had cheaper HD-DVD players to support them. Even though greater sales of HD-DVD stand alone players was touted, they failed to take into account the Playstation 3.
With 8 million of these Blu-ray consoles around the world, it’s no wonder that sales look like they do. That’s a lot of consumers not buying HD-DVDs, even if they aren’t actively going out and buying Blu-ray’s
Whether Warner have put Toshiba out of their misery can be debated, but what’s clear is that Toshiba will be eating a nice chunk of blue humble pie."
Pretty good write up there. So is having HD consumers who will never buy HD-DVD an issue? That's 8 million people...
A better question would be "What person is going to buy a 30 dollar movie that only delivers low resolution if the person already has an HDTV?"
Wow, that's a really good point I hadn't thought of - the negative consumer. If you already own a PS3 but don't buy BR movies for whatever reasons, you're not likely to buy any HD DVD movies simply because you already have a decent BR player.
Well, this is a bit weird. If consumers who don't buy BR movies even with a PS3, of course they don't buy HD DVD. They don't buy any HD disc in general.
The real comparison should be, for those people who already have PS3 and bought some BR movies, will they buy HD DVD if a movie they want to watch is released in HD DVD format? Or they would prefer buying DVD and skipping HD DVD at all?
Basically, it's clear that movie studios don't like supporting two formats unless it's absolute necessary. It's just that for some reason Warner decided to choose Blu-ray. I'd say that the BD+ is probably even more important for movie studios than any other reasons.
A couple more details - HD-DVD apparently also cancelled all private analyst and retailer meetings at CES.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9086260c-bc8a-11dc-bcf9-0000779fd2ac.html
At a time like this, I wonder about the wisdom of keeping partners in the dark. Seems like a breeding ground for uncertainty and doubt.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9086260c-bc8a-11dc-bcf9-0000779fd2ac.html
At a time like this, I wonder about the wisdom of keeping partners in the dark. Seems like a breeding ground for uncertainty and doubt.
Oh don't get me wrong, it is a patently obvious point. My failing was that I only looked at all the PS3 owners out there NOT buying BR movies and ignored them. I just didn't extend it to the idea that they would likely not ever move over to the HD DVD camp even if the stalemate continued - a sort of large potential pool of future BR movie buyers.
Maybe it's worth extending that line of thought even further and maybe concluding that PS3 didn't play as significant factor in this "victory" as it's been cracked up to be in other threads here and doubtless other places. Ie. maybe most PS3 owners bought their PS3 to play games, not because it was a cheapo BR player. Moreover most people who might want HD playback but don't want to play games haven't (and won't) buy a PS3 regardless of its price, because by definition it has to cost more than a stand-alone could cost if it weren't engineered to play games too.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
I think a lot of the thinking is that if a PS3 owner was going to go hi-def, they would go BR because they've already got it in their PS3s. PS3 owners are potential BR owners. They are much less likely to be potential HDDVD owners.
Sony can point at those numbers to the media companies and say "look at all those potential BR customers - we've already got the players in their living rooms connected to their TVs".
Well that's fair enough, though it does presume that those who Sony were trying to persuade were concerned about a potential customer base of <~10M on a timescale or a year or two. I wonder if this kind of flies in the face of the arguments that you yourself have been making in various threads about this really being about HD v. DVD and about that being a long game, not a short game. The studios want to re-sell us stuff we already own, they need this battle over ASAP. Your own argument I think, and one I'd tend to agree with.
If the real battle is for the [strike]hearts[/strike] wallets of 100+ million DVD customers over 1-2 decades, does a few million PS3s and their owners' whims over the next year or two (before standalone players of whatever flavour become throw-away price) really matter?
It does if you think, like Warners, that the format war is causing a whole lot of that 100M to say they won't play at all.
The one thing that has always been sure in this war is that Sony wouldn't quit. And forget the hardware, they control a sizeable chunk of the content, both new and library. The only possible way for a quickish win was for B-r to be the winner. Clearly, by their own words, this was the conclusion Warners came to. It wasn't about whether HD DVD could be viable. . . they decided viable was exactly what they didn't want it to be.
It's a shame for a lot of folks that they came to that conclusion this late.
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