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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.
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.