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Sony's Obsession with Proprietary Formats
geoffrobinson writes "Jonathan Last, writing for a lay audience in the Philadelphia Inquirer, comments on Sony's push for the Blu-ray format:
'Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. One of life's more satisfying ironies, however, is that the same fate often befalls those who fixate on history...
...Obsessed with owning proprietary formats, Sony keeps picking fights. It keeps losing. And yet it keeps coming back for more, convinced that all it needs to do is push a bigger stack of chips to the center of the table.'"
HOw is it any more proprietary then Toshiba's HD-DVD (or whomever the designing company is)? This isn't a rhetorical question, I just don't know how.
Both techs seem to be upgrades with associated licensing fees for the tech. Do DVD's lack any licensing fee's to whomever originally designed it?
Hmmm... Pie...
...if it loses. If Blu-ray wins, it's Sony making an absolute killing by developing the standard for hi-def DVD content. The author ignores that, and that the situation he described with Betamax is apples and oranges with Blu-ray (i.e. Sony making deals with dozens of companies to get Blu-ray drives and discs out).
It doesn't matter to me who wins in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray battle. Why? Because regular DVD's look great! High definition looks better than non-HD, but not THAT much better (especially considering the costs). Sony says the ps3 will cost less than a blu-ray player... that's at $600! You can get an amazing DVD player for $150 with all the bells and whistles. When HD-DVD/Blu-Ray come to market and start to popularize, you can bet plain old DVD prices will drop. From a financial sense, DVD's trump HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD. ...not to mention that yargh, I'm a pirate matey, and I like to rip/burn DVD's -- something that'll be nerfed with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Their proprietary formats recently have probably met the first goal of proprietary formats: feeds revenue into the company. Unfortuantely, they just keep failing to be adopted as defacto standards (for good reasons).
Look at their memory stick. While they didn't succeed it making it the de facto standard for portable media, I'm sure it's worked great for them. Their cameras, PSP, etc all use it and between their manufacturing and licensing I'm sure it helps them out some.
The PSP's UMD bombed for movies, that's a given, but it was a worthwhile "attempt." Personally, I think it was the price that killed it, had they made it cheaper than it would have been worth it for travelling purposes (and only travelling).
Sure, technologically UMB is not the best for gaming because of the power/loading time associated with discs but I'm sure the licensing helps them, but it was a good effort. Storing a lot of data for personal gaming probably doesn't have too many options. Besides, if company X wants to print a game for the PSP they get a piece of the production fee one way or another.
I have a feeling Blu Ray is where it all hits the fan. Unlike it's other more recent proprietary formats which can supplement their own products, Blu Ray can only survive on its own in the wild. It must be adopted as the main video format or else there's just little point in it. Sure if it fails you can still sell Blu Ray burners for Desktops and such, and if PS3 goes Blu Ray then publishers will need to kick a few pennies to Sony.
But in the end, it needs to beat out HDDVD to win and the only way that could happen is if they beat it to market or offered it as a cheaper alternative. I guess we'll see what happens here.
UMD can only be played on the PSP, and only on the PSP's display.
Blu-ray Discs can be played on any BD player (when they're shortly available), and on any display. (With varying resolutions.)
Any attempt to compare the two is either misinformed or biased.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
You know the pattern in your examples? They're all old Sony products. It's the newer ones people seem to be complaining about.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
UMD could have been successful, if Sony "opened" it up more. I think that's the heart of the matter. It's not that they have propretary formats. It''s just that they cling to them too tightly.
I would have been very interested in a UMD drive form my computer. Small, well protected. Burn my own PSP media. Very cool. It woud And a blu-ray based UMD disc later on (for PSP2) would have been the bomb. And if I could plug my PSP into my TV and watch the UMD like that would be very cool too. I actually wish Sony would retry with UMD, but this time do it right.
T.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Likewise, I still use my Sony D8 DAT Walkman and Sony R300 DAT Rack 11 years after purchase. With some modification, they are easily able to circumvert SCMS restrictions - which never really mattered since I bought them to tape/process Grateful Dead shows. Having said that, Sony should stick to making great versions of existing consumer products and quit trying to create/force everyone into their proprietary formats. They, quite simply, never have and never will win these battles.
Sure, sure, higher resolution video entertainment is a pleasant luxury item, but it boggles the mind to see it described as "something we really need".
I mean, solutions to problems of social injustice, environmental degradation, resource exhaustion, those are things we really need. Prettier ways to watch movies in our livingrooms are nice, and something I'll certainly be spending money on when their available and affordable, but hardly a necessity.