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Blu-Ray/HD-DVD Talks End
Last minute talks to unify the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats have failed. Matsushita, owner of the Panasonic brand, has stated 'the market will decide the winner.' From the article: "The two sides held talks last year in the hopes of avoiding a prolonged format battle similar to the one between Betamax and VHS videotapes in the 1980s, knowing that it could discourage consumers from shifting to the advanced discs and stifle the industry's growth. But the talks soon fizzled out, with each side reluctant to establish a format based on the other's disc structure. At stake is the $24 billion home video market and a slice of the personal computer market as PCs will be equipped with Blu-ray or HD DVD optical drives."
"the market will decide the winner"
Just another way of saying, "We're okay if 49.9% of the consumers
get screwed. We'll screw the surviving 50.1% later."
In the broadcast TV/advertising business, the advertisers who pay $$ to place commercials on television are the customers, because they are the ones who are providing a source of income for the networks and they are the ones to whom the programming is catered; that is, a show makes it to television because it was successfully sold to enough advertisers who were convinced that it was a viable money-maker. The viewers at home who watch the shows and (as the marketers hope) the advertisements that go with them are the consumers. They provide eyeballs so that the networks can sell advertisements, but they themselves do not make payments towards the broadcast and thus are not customers but merely tools to be used as a selling point by the networks. As such, as long as they tune in, no one in control of the network gives a damn what they do or what they think of the product. This is why controversy sells and often, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
However, if I want to have a Blu-ray drive or a HD-DVD drive (or whatever new format may emerge), I am making a purchasing decision and am giving $$ to the company in exchange for a product. If I do not like the product, the company, their business practices, their marketing tactics, their use of DRM, or the pricing, I may choose not to make this purchase and as a result, the company does not receive my money. I am voting with my feet, I have some control over the transaction, and I do not simply accept whatever is handed to me which is what a consumer does. Customers must be satisfied; consumers must simply be enticed.
I cannot help but think that when, overnight, everyone started calling those who vote with their feet "consumers" that this is nothing more than marketing Newspeak designed to de-emphasize the fact that our wants and desires matter.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
NO!
The same consumer base had no problem eating up Dolby Pro Logic in the early 90s. DPL required 5 speakers and a sub! Now, one could argue that people purchased DPL systems exclusively for the home theater, but I don't think this is the case. I'd say that the majority of people that adoptered DPL at the peak of its success were mostly enticed by it's ability to matrix stereo music into a surround format, thus gaining a 3d soundfield without need for a format change.
I think the lesson to learn with quadraphonic 8-tracks/cassettes/vinyl, SACD, DVD-Audio, DCC, etc, is the following; People don't readily adopt expensive format quality upgrades that physically look the same and provide the same functionality as their predecessor.