HD-DVD End Game?
It looks like Blu-Ray will be the winner of the high definition format war. Warner earlier decided to move exclusively to the Blu-Ray format taking 70% of Hollywood with it. Gizmodo reports that Paramount is likely to follow suit. they actually included a clause in their own HD-DVD contract that is Warner jumped ship the contract could be legally voided.
If they do follow, this would leave only two major studios in the HD-DVD line-up. Not a very good figure if you are hoping to support a full format. These major shifts may even kill the market for dual use machines. If over 80% of the total movie market is on one format, only 20% of the audience will ever really need a machine that plays both formats. The fact is, we are also already talking about early adopters who bought their players when they were very expensive, the same people who won’t think too much about simply paying for that second player. The majority mainstream buyers have not yet broken into the HD format market, and they will side with whichever format has the preponderance of product.
In my own opinion this is actually a huge triumph of Sony vs. Microsoft planning in terms of high def media. By not packaging the Xbox 360 with an HD-DVD player (and no games requiring it) they left the market totally open for Sony to sell the PS3 not only as a next-gen gaming console but as the cheapest available Blu-Ray player at the beginning of the format war. Complain all you want about Playstation games, the fact of the matter is that Sony did make a much more useful device out of the box. My Dad and I actually pretty much predicted the eventual fall of the HD-DVD format based solely on that very early development.
Had the Xbox come packaged with an HD-DVD player the story would have been much different. But much in the way of the Beta and 8-Track; one format must die off so that dedicated improvements may be made for the other. I’m sure HD-DVD will be around for awhile, but I see very little chance of it advancing very far into the mainstream market when the mainstream movies are nowhere to be found on their format.
[via Gizmodo - via Financial Times]
