HD DVD vs Blu-ray war fallout continues with canceled press conference
By Sean P. Aune
With the news that Warner Brothers has opted to go to Blu-ray exclusively, the fallout and rumors around the HD DVD camp is circulating with the force of an F5 tornado.
It’s not hard to imagine that things in the HD DVD camp are rather unhappy at the moment, but canceling their Consumer Electronics Show (CES) press conference is not going to help instill any faith that the format is anything other than dead.
The rumor, and we can not possibly stress that word enough, is that Warner Brothers may been bought off with as much as a $500 million dollar incentive. The sources on this are shaky at best, but such an idea isn’t without precedent as HD DVD paid $150 million to get Universal and Dreamworks to go exclusive.
At this time, Warner Brothers is denying the idea they received any payment to make this decision. Kevin Tsujihara, president of the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, stated that the move was prompted strictly by the 4th quarter of 2007 sales figures.
There are sure to be much speculation and rumor in the coming weeks,but with Blu-ray now effectively controlling 70% of the content produced, it seems fairly certain that HD DVD is beginning its swan song.
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Stumble It!
January 5th, 2008
HD DVD is dominating the IT space, which is expected to be >> than the CE space in 2008. Warner has clearly jumped the gun based on short term SW sales.
January 5th, 2008
Well i am sure now with no proof at all people will say Sony bought them out song when the whole time Warner have said it is about the sales that will decide when the switch happens.They made the right choice no matter how angry some posters will get so my advise is to get over it and move on to blu-ray as the pouting won’t help one bit.
January 5th, 2008
another paid hd dvd shill, are you?
funny how some live in total denial of reality.
bluray leads in total discs sold in 2007 and total number of players.
look at the it manufacturers who signed up for bluray. majority rules.
January 5th, 2008
i hope you all enjoy being coded in by sony
you brought it on yourselves
January 5th, 2008
i hope you all enjoy being coded in by sony
you brought it on yourselves
January 5th, 2008
i hope you all enjoy being coded in by sony
you brought it on yourselves
January 5th, 2008
Too many whiners!! but yet the hd dvd group didn`t whine when paramount was paid off?? hows this for all u hd dvd supporters?, where is microsoft?? they could have put an end to this long ago!! hmmm…
January 5th, 2008
it’s no wonder— i went to bb the other day and they only wanted to push blu-ray until you started to ask some questions. if they think you don’t know anything they just lead you to the high priced spread. how —convenient??!!!! how nice of warner bros. to make a choice for us.
January 5th, 2008
Goodbye hd-dvd. Nice meeting you.
January 5th, 2008
I would have to say that I am a big fan of HD-DVD. However, I have not been able to try the Blu-Ray at this time. Players cost to much and I do not play video games. My question is concerning the war with the players. Toshiba is trying there best to get the lowest price possible on a player and Sony is trying to get all the movies. What do you think will happen when Sony gets all the movies. I will bet you money they will not spend there time trying to make the player less expensive.
January 5th, 2008
I would have to say that I am a big fan of HD-DVD. However, I have not been able to try the Blu-Ray at this time. Players cost to much and I do not play video games. My question is concerning the war with the players. Toshiba is trying there best to get the lowest price possible on a player and Sony is trying to get all the movies. What do you think will happen when Sony gets all the movies. I will bet you money they will not spend there time trying to make the player less expensive.
January 5th, 2008
i just removed my hd dvd off ebay too show my support will continue for as long as the discs keep coming.
take notice studios 1million players will not just go in the trash we will still buy and hopefully you will do the right thing and support both fully
January 6th, 2008
I don’t know if Universal and Paramount are that crazy to stick with hd-dvd when people stop buying hd-dvd players because people believe hd-dvd format is dead. Those studios will look for way out of the contacts with toshiba. If they stick with hd-dvd, their market shares will be shrinking. They basically hand over the video markets to Walt Disney, Fox, Sony and Warner Bros. etc…