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In other news, pay TV subscriptions drop 665,000 in the second quarter, 2016

http://www.leichtmanresearch.c...

Maybe many those slow DSL and satellite video subscribers moved to cable companies to get the speed they need for streaming video entertainment.

I never said getting rid of them completely was a good idea. Just that I would like to get one on a CD.

I don't particularly like looking up phone numbers online, especially white page numbers. If I had a CD it would save me time and trouble. They also shouldn't be to expensive. I'm sure the phone company already has all this information in a digital format, and CDs are dirt cheap.

A quick google shows that 81% of people in the US own a computer. (As of June of 07) Putting it on a CD, or making the ISO available for download could save the phone companies large amounts of money, while still providing numbers from an authoritative source. The other 20% can opt in for a paper book.

http://www.leichtmanresearch.com/press/060707release.html

please recall that few world-wide households have HDTV - less than 1%

Care to cite your source? Anyway, "worldwide" numbers aren't important. What is important is the growth rate in target markets -- US, Japan, and Europe (Australia's in there somewhere, too). For the US, HDTV adoption doubled to 7% in 2004, and I see no reason to expect that not to continue (source). More importantly, 14% of households with income over $75,000 have HDTVs (same source), which is also the same market segment that includes bleeding-edge early adopters (the people who'll be lining up to buy a 360 at launch).

Then again, if you want to make up statistics, based on my surveys I've decided that HDTV adoption in the US is > 90% (survey sample consists of my friends, most of whom own an HDTV, dd5.1 or 7.1 surround system, broadband, etc).

And about zero percent have HD-DVD discs.

How many HD-DVD movies have been released? I don't know but I'd assume it's very few, if any. In other words, this argument is a red herring. Besides, owning media doesn't drive hardware adoption (availability of media is a different matter). Nobody went out and bought a bunch of DVDs and then thought to themselves, "Wow. Now I need a DVD player. Should've thought of that before." No, what happened with DVDs was that devices like the PS2 and many PCs shipped with DVD players built-in, giving people a reason to then go out and buy movies. The same thing could happen here to drive HD-DVD adoption (or alternatively, Blu-Ray DVD adoption).

Microsoft is playing second fiddle now, and it's XBox division WILL die if it doesn't improve its very disappointing numbers.

Maybe, but on what timeline? Microsoft takes a very long-term view on projects (they can afford to). Look how long it took MSN to be profitable (~10 years? MSN launched in 95,and didn't start making a profit until 2004, IIRC). More importantly, Microsoft has other unprofitable projects in less important markets that they would kill off first if they really needed to start cutting off unprofitable projects. Besides, not going with HD-DVD is a way to keep costs down (Sony will take a huge hit per unit on cost if they really do ship with Blu-Ray, which I doubt they'll actually end up doing). Anyway, I wouldn't expect the hammer to come down on Xbox for unprofitability any time soon.

Microsoft requires the advantage of delivering significantly before Sony. If it means that HD-DVD comes in as an upgrade, so be it.

Reading the quotes others have posted (paraphrasing, "We're looking at incorporating HD-DVD into an Xbox release in the future"), I read those to mean, "The next-next generation will have HD-DVD if we can't do it by launch." Microsoft understands the importance of a standardized hardware platform for a console (even though the 360 was rumored to ship without a hard drive, Microsoft was smart enough to decide against doing so). Peripherals don't sell anywhere near as much as consoles (which is why light gun games have all but died out since the NES, when consoles stopped shipping with a gun in the box), and can't be relied upon (how many games on the PS2 can even use the optional hard drive? Two?). If Microsoft were to later ship an upgraded 360 with HD-DVD support, don't expect any games to actually use that format (game developers aren't stupid, and they won't artificially limit their potential market; well, with the exception of Capcom's team that did Steel Battallion). And that's assuming Microsoft even let's game developers ship games on HD-DVDs (I could see an upgrade being available to play HD-DVD movies, similar to the DVD movie dongle and remote you can buy for Xbox 1, or the multi-function machines in Japan based off of the Gamecube and PS2).

Will s