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In Sony's Stumble, the Ghost of Betamax
QuatermassX writes "In a lengthy piece in today's New York Times, Ken Belson equates Sony's troubles in bringing Blu-Ray to market with their classic fumble of Betamax technology in the early 1980's. He also discusses the influence of Microsoft in the recent advances in the adoption of the perceived underdog in this fight, HD-DVD. The article also summarises the various twists and turns in the development of the format along with some scary numbers (that we're familiar with) on the estimated cost of Playstation 3
From TFA: "There are other industry analysts who contend that Microsoft is simply propping up Toshiba to further its own aims, like countering the PlayStation and combating the spread of Sun's Java software. Nonetheless, Toshiba is happy for the backing, given that the format was written off for dead just a few months ago.
'"There's no doubt that everyone has various agendas," said Mark Knox, an adviser to the Toshiba promotion group. "But whatever their agenda, Microsoft's support has been a huge boon to HD-DVD.'""
Some companies want to provide products or services that people want, need, and use. Other companies want to ram proprietary crap down peoples throat so they get a lock on the market. Would you like to gess what kind of attitude SONY has after their rootkit scandal, and Microsoft has after their backing of SCO? INHO, we need a non proprietary standard, not a "better" one.
Didn't the MPAA wanted HD-dvd because it uses more advanced compression codecs which in return would make it harder to pirate over the superior blue-ray?
I wonder if MS is backing hd-dvd to please the MPAA so they maybe more willing to use MS Media Player store rather than Itunes when Vista comes out?
http://saveie6.com/
Where are the 3.5" optical disks? The last time sony was successful was way back when they introduced 3.5" floppies. Since then they've had one flop after another. You'd think people would actually learn from experience. 3.5" disks would put some physical incentive behind a format. As it is I suspect most people, like myself, are yawning over these new formats. Am I supposed to be excited about having to buy a $2000 tv and a $500 hd/bd player for a few extra pixels of movies I already have? Please. Adoption rates are going to be dismal.
:T:R:A:N:S:
I think this is why Nintendo is doing so well, they're focusing on new ways to involve the player (in the TV case, the viewer) and new methods of interaction as opposed to the rest of the market, which is saying "BETTER GRAPHICS!" at the top of their lungs, hoping consumers will buy it. I don't care if in Gran Turismo 9 I can see the leather pattern of my car seat or I have reflective glass in my dashboard. Or if I can see droplets of blood when I shoot someone in an FPS. FPS games have lately been linear and monotonous. Run into a room, shoot someone, run into another room, shoot some more people...repeat for 8 hours, finish.
My point is, the entertainment industry is just peddling more crap hoping they can manufacture a need for it when in reality things have pretty much capped as far as necessary graphical quality (IMHO).
Oh, and when it doesn't sell because it's hopelessly crippled by DRM and provides no new content or value, they will just blame "those damned pirates." If it does sell, they'll just say "see, DRM makes those pirates helpless! We need more DRM!"
Bastards.
While PS3 will natively support BlueRay (Meaning the games can store upto 50GB of high resolution textures and map data, etc.), the Xbox 360 will not support HDDVD games. This ended the war in my mind. Who the hell is going to spend several hundred dollars for a cumbersome ADDON HD-DVD player for their xbox 360, JUST to watch movies?
Thinking they could overtake a large chunk of Japanese market by rushing their product out, even a year ahead of the Sony device, was the greatest folly Microsoft could have committed. Had they REALLY supported HDDVD, they would have waited to bring their product to market, and included a HD-DVD player standard.
BlueRay has won the format wars before they even begun. Look at how profitable Sony made the completely proprietary UMD movie simply because they can profit from their own film distribution division. Neither Microsoft, nor the Toshiba consortium, have this advantange. Thus laying the final nail in the coffin.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
(1) Who cares.
(2-4) Possibly true, but the hype circa 2002-2003 didn't reflect this. (eg http://tokyopia.com/tk/archives/000094.php)
(5) True. But what the IT industry really needs is another Syquest or Iomega to come along and define a storage-centric format -- without all the bullshit politics surrounding Hollywood and video game consoles, and the enormous license royalties involved.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
because I find it hard to put money in something with the word "blu" in it.
I mean, how hard is it to add the e at the end, geniuses. A 2 year old could come up with a better marketing plan.
Just..never mind.
What's Christ got to do with it? If you believe in the guy why are you mentioning his name so inappropriately, and if you don't then why is it for his sake? In anycase perhaps you might consider leaving him out of such irrelevant issues in future, and thereby not so unnecessarily offend the ears of those who worship him.
This is a great summary of the standard Microsoft line. The reality is:
1. The cost to make the disc is completely irrelevant to the format war. Everyone's going to do both formats, and everyone's going to price them the same to make the consumers happy. In fact, it's likely that any extra profits from HD DVD being cheaper to manufacture will be used to subsidize Blu-Ray ramp-up.
2. The video codecs are irrelevant to the format war. There's nothing that's fundamentally easier or harder about decoding VC-1 or MPEG4 (which both formats require support for) whether it's coming from either hardware source. Neither has an advantage here.
3. Java vs. iHD is a point-- it means Blu-Ray is more flexible and HD DVD is easier for beginners to develop for. It will probably remain relevant for 6-12 months until the production studio apps abstract the differences away. In the meantime, you may get some special features in one format but not the other.
4. PS3 means Blu-Ray wins. Mass production brings down costs faster than anything, and despite HD DVD being released a few months earlier, Blu-Ray will probably hit mass production a year earlier, while HD DVD is still in the early-adopter phase, because of the Playstation 3. Thus, Blu-Ray is likelier to be much cheaper, much faster.
5. The thinner substrate... I'm not sure how much this matters. The whole "in the lab" argument is pretty facetious, since both formats are still 100% "in the lab" until you can actually buy them. It will be interesting to see what happens with the first-generation writable discs and how they hold up under real-world conditions.
E pluribus unum