Liberty's Blog

DVD Wars are Over

The choice has been Blu-Ray or HD DVD. The winner is not to be determined by what the consumer wants, but rather what providers wish to offer. Decisions by the studios are more to do with ego and pride more than economics and technology. The consumer has not been persuaded to buy into one or the the other until there is a a clear market leader. Conventional wisdom says there can be only one surviver.

Time Warner announced this week that they instead of producing in both formats as they have been doing, in the future they will only produce in Blu-Ray format. This is huge, and should be enough to convince other studios and consumers that the choice is clear.

This Christmas, consumers were lobbied hard by both sides as dirt-cheap Toshiba HD-DVD players were advertised heavily by Wal-Mart for $98.87 (and $15 HD movies...) while the higher priced Blu-ray players were also discounted by electronics retailers though not nearly as much. "The addition of WB brings exclusively Blu-ray marketshare to 70%. For Universal and Paramount/DreamWorks, any continued (non-contractual) support for HD-DVD exclusively is about corporate and executive ego and NOT the consumer or the marketplace." For a long time, Hollywood was lopsided in favor of Blu-ray: 7 of the 8 major movie studios (Disney, Fox, Warner, Paramount, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) supported Blu-ray, and 5 of them (Disney, Fox, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) release their movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. Only Universal was exclusively HD-DVD. Now that is rapidly changing what with HD DVD exclusive converts Paramout and DreamWorks Animation, and Warner Bros now for Blu-ray.

I'm not sure, but I think the consumer is the ultimate winner of all of this. I hate seeing Sony coming out on top, but maybe I hold a grudge a little bit to long.

posted by Liberty @ 10:47 AM