HD DVD uses the Super Bowl to aid in the HD DVD vs Blu-ray war
It seems that the HD DVD camp is looking to Super Bowl XLII to help save the sinking ship that their format has become.
At some point during the Super Bowl, an advertisement will be run by Toshiba touting the new lower prices on their players that were announced earlier in January. Considering the cost of a 30-second ad on the big game, $2.7 million this year, this can be interpreted in a number of ways, but the most likely is that this is a last ditch effort to try to save the format.
With the ever growing mass of bad news for the format (backing out studios, retailers cutting ties), it’s hard to fathom why exactly they are still continuing to try. Mind you, this is coming from someone who chose HD DVD in the format war, and while I hate to see my chosen format go away, even I can see the writing on the wall. The war is over, Blu-ray won, it’s time to throw in the towel and move on.
I think I would rather see Toshiba spend the $2.7 million on a series of ads about what HD DVD users can do to get ready to switch formats. What do they recommend we do, what to do with our, now fairly useless, players and movies, and so on.
Nevertheless, expect to see the ad some time during the game. According to Home Media Magazine (media rich link), Blu-ray will not be running a follow-up ad due to the short notice.
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January 29th, 2008
i would like to commend you on your totally slanted views of the format war. yes it does look bad for hd-dvd. but stories like this one do not help. first you refer to hd-dvd as a sinking ship. for the most part sales figures rebounded nicely last week for hd-dvd. i can only get access to npd figures but last weeks figures were encouraging as blu sales dropped 5274 from the previous week and hd-dvd sales rose 6881. but these figures do not count online sales and i have watched amazon sales ever since toshiba lowered prices and the model a-3 and a-35 hd-dvd players have been consistently in the top 100 of all electronics and i know that the a-3 is top dog in all dvd players. i don’t know why you can’t report the hd news fairly instead of putting a spin on everything you write.
January 29th, 2008
Sinking ship my a$$.
HD DVD sales have recovered from the Warner shock & Blu-ray is not selling anything much, they are merely dumping stocks of profile 1 player as freebies with HD TVs.
Report that.
January 29th, 2008
last december things were running 50/50 in hardware sales now hd-dvd has a setback and right away it’s ” the war is over” what has changed so much in 3 weeks time my hd-dvd player still works fine. all the movies in my collection are still in good shape and play fine. so why should toshiba spend 2.7 million for as you say useless players? did yours quit working? mine didn’t.
January 29th, 2008
To Dale, DaveBG and Jim,
I feel your pain. You know and I know that there is no way HD-DVD will win so wishful thinking will only extend the pain. It is time to ditch your HD-DVD players and movies and come over to Blu-ray. You know that you will at some point. I guess that point is right about now. Can you honestly tell me that you will never come over to blu-ray? Once you make the move, you will wonder how in the world did I choose HD-DVD? Am I stupid or what?
January 29th, 2008
My brother works for Circuit City and he says that Circuit City is clearing out all HD-DVD players as clearance items to make room for Blu-ray. Also, he said that tons of people purchased HD-DVD (within 30 days) have returned their soon to be useless machines. Some were out of the 30 days mark asked the managers for store credits (half of what it worths) so they can buy blu-ray players. He also said within last Saturday, over 300 returns HD-DVD players came back to his store.
January 29th, 2008
In last 3 weeks everything has changed. Most important change is you won’t be able to buy any new Warner, New Line Cinema, HBO tiltles since may’08. This is The End for HD-DVD, you like it or not. “8″
January 29th, 2008
Same here. My husband is a manager at Best Buy. People are returning their HD-DVD players in large numbers and they don’t know what to do with them. Last week, over 1500 machines came back to just one store. I guess people are dumping HD-DVD sooner. I guess you have to jump shift now or else, you’ll be stuck with a door stops. I guess that sounds kinda mean. Oh well. Either format is ok with me. I don’t care either way. What do you expect a girl to say? :)
January 30th, 2008
My brothers, sons, dogs walker’s cousin says that everyone on the planet returned their HD player and then bought eleventyone bluray machines.
Really guys, look about and see what is really happening. (check ebay for HD discs that sell for more than the pittance asked for bluray discs, someone is manipulating what you believe, i’d look at the firms working for the company with the deeper pockets).
January 30th, 2008
As I stated in the article, I adopted Hd DVD, I wish I could sing songs of joy, but I’m realistic: HD DVD lost.