Blu-ray wins the round, but not the fight
Posted
Feb 19 2008, 03:21 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
The battle to become the high-definition replacement for the DVD is over today, with Toshiba's decision to pull out of the HD-DVD business. Toshiba will stop making HD-DVD players and aims to stop shipping them to retailers by the end of next month.
No one else makes standalone HD-DVD players. Expect to see huge sales on HD-DVD players and movies over the next two months, but don't let anyone you know take the bait: this format is dead, dead, dead.
Still, Sony's Blu-ray camp shouldn't be celebrating just yet. Sure, Blu-ray won this battle for high-definition video, but it faces
much bigger challenges in the race for consumer adoption. Its biggest competitor is and has always been the plain old DVD.
First, a little history. Toshiba debuted two HD-DVD players in the U.S. in April of 2006 for $500 and $800. Sales were disappointing: by December the company had only sold about 120,000 players in the U.S. No one was ready to concede defeat, but then came a series of nails in the HD-DVD coffin. Warner Bros. dropped support. Then Netflix. Best Buy said it would be recommending Blu-ray instead. Wal-Mart got out as well.
Given those events, today's announcement isn't that surprising. About 1 million HD-DVD players and recorders have been sold, including 600,000 players in the U.S. and 300,000 drives that worked with Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console, according to Engadget.
Licking their wounds today are the companies that aligned with the HD-DVD camp. Those include Universal Studios, a big supporter of HD-DVD that announced today it will switch to Blu-ray. Paramount also supports HD-DVD. Microsoft and Intel endorsed HD-DVD in 2005.
If you're one of the poor souls that bought an HD-DVD player, at least you have 386 videos already out in the format. Those could keep you busy for a while. Or you could vent your anger in an "Office Space"-style beatdown of your player.
Blu-ray was a bet-the-company move for Sony. The company built a Blu-ray player into every PlayStation 3, a money-losing move intended to further adoption of the format. I think that worked, despite lackluster PS3 sales.
But Sony faces two challenges, ones that are bigger than any threat posed by HD-DVD. First, it has to compete with the DVD, and convince people that Blu-ray is so superior that they should spend money on the new format. Second, it has to compete with digital downloads. It's getting easier to buy and download high-definition movies, thus avoiding the disc altogether.
Let's hear your thoughts. Is Blu-ray the clear-cut winner here? If you bought an HD-DVD player, will it become your next paperweight? Are DVDs still good enough? Sound off in the comments.
