Comments on: Format Wars: Fox Bullish On DVD and Blu-ray

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:17:10 +0000

Thanks for replying. Yes, I believe the whole Blu-ray camp is betting on the PS3. From what I have heard and read, HD-DVD has a better picture and the players are less expensive. That sounds to me like a slam dunk. However, when the players get more comparable in price, perceptions can change.

Will the general public buy a PS3 for a little bit more than an HD-DVD player that has inferior PQ, but they have the added bonus of playing games? Will HD-DVD players prices be discounted even more this holiday season to counter the PS3? This will be interesting.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:17:00 +0000

By: B.Greenway

B.Greenway — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:52:37 +0000

Josh that’s a fascinating concept, because less than 4 months ago I was inundated with “Blu-ray will bury HD DVD” and “Blu-ray has more capacity and studio support” comments, over and over we had comments to the effect that Blu-ray was somehow “better” than HD DVD.

Now it comes down to the PS3? I’m not knocking your idea; not at all I’m just interested in how quickly perceptions change, and I say perceptions because you’re not the only one saying this.

So the whole battle will be based on how well the PS3 does? If that’s truly the case then I’m even more optimistic, no that doesn’t mean that I’m discounting PS3 sales, I just find it interesting that many have already written off stand alone Blu-ray hardware sales.

By: B.Greenway

B.Greenway — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:52:00 +0000

Now it comes down to the PS3? I’m not knocking your idea; not at all I’m just interested in how quickly perceptions change, and I say perceptions because you’re not the only one saying this.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:30:06 +0000

Consumers will not be buying into Blu-ray, they will be buying into the PS3. I’m interested to see if the PS3 will have as much of a negative backlash as the Xbox 360 did when it came out. If so, that could spell certain doom for the format.

Either case, this whole battle will be based on how well the PS3 does and how well Sony markets to not so savvy buyers that it is able to play next gen movies. We’ll just have to see if Sony’s “all in” bet pays off.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:30:00 +0000

By: B.Greenway

B.Greenway — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:05:00 +0000

You buying me a Blu-ray player won’t make me feel like much of a winner, at least not until October (at the earliest). How about a Best Buy gift certificate?

How about a tipping point of who will have a Universal title in their Blu-ray player before the other side has a Disney or MGM title in their HD DVD player?

By: B.Greenway

B.Greenway — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:05:00 +0000

You buying me a Blu-ray player won’t make me feel like much of a winner, at least not until October (at the earliest). How about a Best Buy gift certificate?

How about a tipping point of who will have a Universal title in their Blu-ray player before the other side has a Disney or MGM title in their HD DVD player?

By: shakaZOLO

shakaZOLO — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:16:15 +0000

We should start laying odds and placing bets. How about this…..we set a tipping point. Determine reasonable stats to measure. Then people sign up. Those who lose will have to buy the competing format player for the winners!

By: shakaZOLO

shakaZOLO — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:16:00 +0000

By: westcott

westcott — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:54:41 +0000

I am with you, Mr. Hoyt. I would love to see a couple of dedicated processors for HD players but I do not think we will see those until one format wins over the other or some other form of truce is formulated. I speculate that few mfgs will risk the investment until then.

By: westcott

westcott — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:54:00 +0000

By: Brian Hoyt

Brian Hoyt — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 17:15:10 +0000

As others have mentioned I am sure the millions of households number that is mentioned is due to the PS3. I am willing bet that true CE device sales of Blu-Ray will pale in comparision to HD-DVD sales. However it would help if there were someone else making some HD-DVD players and not just repackaging the same hardware. Give me one with VC-1 and MPEG-4 in hardware and not just a P4 running linux.

By: Brian Hoyt

Brian Hoyt — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 17:15:00 +0000

By: cgw

cgw — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 17:02:39 +0000

PSP3 won’t be the tipping point. Cheap customers will be the tipping point. If gas price still hovers around $3.00 by the shopping season ($2.88 in my area) or in January or February, how many people will just buy PSP3 and forget about saving money for their essential expenses? Even Wal-mart will tremble under high gas prices, how about expensive CE equipment manufacturers? The whole economic trend and consumer confidence about their future will play their roles in this format battle. It is no longer the prosperous days of 80s and 90s (gas price <~$1.00) any more.

Many people talk about game users, but none I have seen so far give me a social status description and consumer behavior analysis on this group. Without these statistics, any forecasting is nonsense.