Comments on: New Year HD DVD Preview: Warner Bros. in 2008

By: Pravin

Pravin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:39:02 +0000

I have to agree with this aspect of what Patrickster said that if WB was only interested in movies sold, then they’d have stayed neutral for a lot longer. They have much more money to make by selling to two sides than selling to just one, especially considering the large number of HD DVD players that were sold in the last few weeks. And I’m sure they’d also have been wooed all the way by incentives like price breaks or who knows what, and a neutral position would have worked out ok for them.

It’s rare for any American company to plan so far ahead and make a pre-emptive move as WB claims to have made by deciding that they’d rather wait some months so that the profits from one format can eventually make up for whatever is lost in the shorter term by not supporting the other one.

It’s rare, but it can happen, and perhaps this is one of those cases.

I’m going to close comments on this posting because I can see that this is going to become a format war discussion, and that kind of thing can go on endlessly. An internet forum is the better place for that instead of the comments section on one blog posting.

By: Patrickster

Patrickster — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:42:34 +0000

Actually emdubs, you are completely wrong about what Warner Brothers cared about. If WB had only cared about movies sold, then they would have gladly gone HD DVD since that format was outselling their BR titles. I know for a fact that WB did not focus on the sale numbers, it all just came down to who had the deeper pockets and who was willing to pay them the most money (some $500 million so it would seem). Given the fact that the HD DVD Promotion Group had nothing new to announce at CES and that they canceled their CES press conference, obviously proves that HD DVD was all set to announce WB going HD DVD exclusive and was completely blind sided and stabbed in the back by unscrupulous Sony and the shear greed of Warner Brothers. And you speak of Toshiba’s greed? That is a joke since Sony is the greediest company of all charging outrageous prices for their sub-par 1.0 machines that are nothing more then $1000.00 paperweights, and it was Sony’s own greed that created this format war to begin with. If the Hi Def disc industry dies it will be because of Blu-Ray’s deceptions, Sony’s need to monopolize the industry and Warner Brothers spineless. cowardly actions. It seems now that the Emperor has no clothes, but nobody wants to tell him. At least if WB had gone HD DVD we all might have still had a Hi Def format on discs, but now both formats will become a thing of the past as digital Hi-Def downloads slowly take over. But no matter, whether you have Blu-Ray or HD DVD, now we all have obsolete machines.

By: Pravin

Pravin — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:00:36 +0000

Why are we customers to be resented for trying to destroy the industry?

By: emdubs

emdubs — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:33:46 +0000

I was around for the Beta wars as well.
Beta was very much in the same position as HD-DVD. Limitied hardware manufacturer support.
Its sad, but the fact that players were being sold for 98$ and the fact no other hardware companies jumped on should of been a clue to the formats soon to be death. HDDVD and Beta have much more in common than Bluray and Beta.

A far as Sony never giving up quote by stinger. Well why should they give up? They were winning 2:1 US, 3:1 Europe and 9:1 Japan. Also, all Warner cares about is movies sold, not attach rates (who came up with this retarded stat?). So its easy to see why studios would make this decision.

It must be obvious to all here that Toshiba cannot win, at best its a stalemate. And a stalemate will kill the industry. The only logical thing would be for Toshiba to give up but they are to greedy to do so. They will take advantage of those to stubborn to admit defeat and take as much of HDDVD supporter’s money they can. Then, when its truely dead they will end of life the format and leave you out to dry. I feel bad for you guys is some ways, but I also resent you for trying destroying the HD industry.

By: Stinger

Stinger — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:26:55 +0000

I keep reading every conceivable site looking for Toshiba to pull a “rabbit” out. This whole thing really annoys me because I was around for the original VHS Beta wars and Sony just will never give up. I waited and actually tested both systems before getting an HD player. I genuinely prefer HD and thought with the sales of stand alone players going up for HD would turn things around. I know with the recent sales of the HD-A2 players at 98.00 sent them through the roof. I truelly hope that something happens in favor of the HD camp.

By: Chase

Chase — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 18:27:47 +0000

Patrickster, it’s really hard to put blame on Sony if they did in fact pay off Warner. I mean, it was proven that our side paid a profound amount (150 million dollars) to secure Paramount. (and that was only for a little over a year). Bottom line…the war should have been over before Paramount. You can’t say that people are going to have to go and buy a 500 dollar blu-ray player now. Also your comment about prices going up after the announcment is completely false. If you can show me one website, citing before and after prices, I’ll believe you. I checked bestbuy, circuit city prices quickly as a glance, and the BR players cost the same they have cost for the past few weeks.

Blu-Ray has been more than doubling the sales of HD-DVD for over a year now. Whatever statistics you hear about “HD-DVD outselling Blu-Ray”, are manipulated statistics. HA, I think at one point they used some netflix statistic to say that HD-DVD was outselling Blu-Ray. If you take a look at the monthly sales figures…it’s really been a slaughter. I just want this war to end. Blu-Ray would have won by a large amount early on if Microsoft in a desperate move didn’t pay off Paramount. I really think that move just upsetted people more. Regardless…I also fail to see your indication that Warner was going to HD-DVD. It has been speculated for months that Warner might go to the Blu-Side. They had also spoken with people, and stated that they would pay close attention to the holiday season in evalutating a decsion to go exclusive. We all knew that Blu-ray would destroy HD-DVD, so this decision by Warner Bros. doesn’t come as a shocker.

In a way it’s kind of unfair. If Microsoft would have bundled the 360 with HD-DVD players from the get go…HD-DVD would have defintely won. But the PS3 provided people with Blu-ray players..and while the system didn’t sell well…it defintely sold better than any HD-DVD or current blu-ray product. That gave Blu-Ray a tremendous Hardware advanatage, and with that advantage came numerous softwar sales for the Blu camp. With 100 dollar system sales for HD-DVD…they are clearly losing huge amounts of money to hopefully create a market. After this news…it’s goign to be pretty hard for a bestbuy salesperson to reccomend to a customer an “HD-DVD” player when they come up to the employee and ask. PS3 will continue to sell, and the Blu-ray camp will grow. After HD-DVD dies…the “Early adaptors”, who have been sitting and waiting patiently, will jump to blu-ray…and similar to HD-Televisions…the “real” sales will start within the next couple of years. HD-DVD is dead.

By: Pravin

Pravin — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 16:19:50 +0000

Timing the announcement for the shock value certainly casts some doubts about the motives behind what happened in the last few days or weeks.

I’ve always thought the PS3 was an awesome console, but the game selection just never worked out for my household. We bought a 360 a few months ago only because my kids were already playing Halo 3 at their friends’ houses, and there are also a couple of kid-friendly games, and Xbox Live Arcade has some fun titles for them too.

I still have a large queue of HD DVD discs to get through on Netflix, and I’m probably good for most of this year with that alone. I’m sure a PS3 is an inevitable addition to our household, but it’ll be more because it suddenly got games that I couldn’t already get for the 360, and only partially because of Blu-ray.

If something came up and I really needed to get a Blu-ray player, I’d opt for a PS3 simply because it’s so upgradeable and I wouldn’t have to waste time and money on profile crapola.

By: Randy

Randy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:08:16 +0000

It is obvious WB didn’t even wait to see the sales numbers from the 2007 holiday season. Most likely Sony paid them a huge sum of money for this move. WB was the most profitable media company and now they have stopped serving at least 1 million HD DVD customers. WB could have stayed neutral and made a lot of money. I don’t appreciate studio execs making decisions the consumer should be making. At the end of this year we might have seen HD DVD win if not for WB. I think the HD DVD group was planning on a great CES, but they did not plan on WB taking the money and running to BD just before the show.

For me nothing will change. I still have my HD-A2. I will still buy some HD DVD movies. I will continue to rent HD DVD from Netflix.

I won’t buy a PS3 which is losing the game console generation by a large margin. Media companies are betting on PS3 and it is firmly in last place. Gamers don’t buy many movies, and they didn’t buy PS3 for movies. I guess for studios even a market failing PS3 game console is better than trying to establish the replacement for DVD. A few HD early adopters have read enough to know PS3 is the best choice for BD right now which isn’t saying a lot for BD players so they buy PS3.

Years from now, if and when BD becomes the standard I will buy it for the same $99 I paid for my HD-A2 because as far as I am concerned that is all BD is worth.

I don’t buy DVD anymore because I have HDTV. I don’t buy BD because it is over-priced, and over-hyped. WB won’t get anymore of my money.

By: Pravin

Pravin — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 20:37:58 +0000

I would have thought that Warner might wait until around March to see if all the new HD DVD owners since November managed to make any significant strides in disc purchases. They definitely did not give these people a chance to make their presence heard.

By: Patrickster

Patrickster — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Warner’s decision is very disturbing indeed. As someone who works in the industry and who had an “inside” track as to what was going on at WB prior to their announcement, their move to go Blu comes as a tremendous shock. It really did seem that up until Friday WB was all set to go HD DVD exclusive and announce it at the HD DVD Promotions Group press conference. From the facts I know and the things I learned from persons who work at WB in the Home Video Department, the choice to go Blu was done at the absolute last minute and it is highly probable that it involved an undisclosed amount of money. I could go into greater detail and depth in disclosing some of the insider information that led me to believe WB would go HD DVD, but I do not want to get anyone in trouble at WB and what’s done is done…it would just sicken everyone anyway. I am not saying I know for sure, or that I will ever know for sure, and Warner Brothers can go to the grave denying that any money changed hands between them and Sony, but given the knowledge I have there is no way I will ever be convinced that there was not some sort of pay off involved. Sadly, I must be forced to admit that this looks like the end for HD DVD, but with that said, I also strongly feel that because of cost and outrageous prices it will spell the end for Blu Ray as well. Prices on some of the discounted BR players have already shot back up to $500.00 after yesterday’s announcement from Warner Brothers, and given Sony’s pension for greed, I am sure by the introduction of their next gen BR players the prices will only continue to skyrocket. What Sony does not seem to realize of care about is that none of the “blue collar” middle class families who happily bought their HD DVD players for $100.00-$150.00 over the 2007 holiday season are in any position to now go out and spend an additional $500.00 on a BR player and this will lead to Blu Ray’s demise. Greed has always been Sony’s undoing and right now it may seem that their deep pockets are steering the course of the Hi Def format war, but I think because of their own deceptive practices and higher price tags, maybe the consumer will in fact ultimately decide their fate.