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Sony Paid Warner Bros. $400 Million to Go Blu-Ray?
eldavojohn writes "How much would you pay to be the leading video media technology right now? Is $400 million too much? Sony didn't think so and this article speculates that's how they won the Hi-Def format war. 'With billions of dollars in global sales at stake, experts had predicted the Toshiba-Sony battle would go on for years - not unlike the 1980s battle of videotape formats between VHS (Matsushita) and Betamax (Sony). That war lasted a decade, leaving Sony battered and humiliated. So how did this epic battle come to such an abrupt end? The answer lies in part with the bruising Sony experienced with Betamax, which, like Blu-ray, was also the better product on paper.'"
What kind of crap is that? Of course we don't live in a perfect world, that's not the point.
,not mine, you lazy bastard.
The point is, when you've got retards and war profiteers running the ship, the problem isn't with the ship.
And just because you can't attract somebody for the job over the level of "drunken wretch" doesn't mean you should give up and quit like a fucking pussy.
Any form of government by its very nature degenerates,
So what you're telling me is you can't be arsed with basic maintenance? That's your problem
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
HD-DVD discs were not significantly cheaper, and "storing more data" requires comparing fewer layers of Blu-Ray against HD-DVD (asshat!). If manufacturers were so excited about HD-DVD, why was Toshiba the only one making them?
The reality was that industry collectively got behind Blu-Ray back in 2005 long before consumers even had a choice in the matter. Microsoft and Intel hoped to keep HD-DVD going, influenced Toshiba to stay in the race despite its interests in backing Blu-Ray itself, and later pushed Paramount/DreamWorks to sign up as exclusive HD-DVD studios. That was entirely because Microsoft hoped to monopolize the HD video market with Windows Media/VC-1, WinCE-based HDi interactivity, and the Windows-only Managed Copy DRM.
The rest of the industry fought Microsoft on HD-DVD, and the PS3's Blu-Ray pushed the critical mass to bury HD-DVD. Any amount of money paid to Warner Bros. to pull out of the HD-DVD fiasco and kill the format war prior to Microsoft's marketing push at CES was in the interests of consumers, manufacturers, and studios. It also helps rid the world of Microsoft's domination of video codecs and development, and further helps tank Microsoft's plan to tie HD-DVD into Vista and the 360.
Since no significant number of Blu-Ray players have really sold outside of the PS3, your boo-hooing about consumers needing to buy new BR players in order to play the newest spec discs is as retarded as the rest of your HD-DVD talking points.
Lessons from the Death of HD-DVD
Your view is that the will of the majority should prevail without any concern for individual liberties. I disagree. But at least, you are consistent. What I find objectionable is the arbitrary (and in my view, entirely self-serving) manner in which people support one right (for e.g., gays marrying) while opposing another right (e.g., corporations buying each other) when the two rights are fundamentally the same.
That is... unless you've got a Philosopher King in mind for us?
All I'm saying is, "live and let live". You are the one supporting mob-rule.
P.S. Corporations are not people anyway. Here's the difference: people are assumed to have all rights naturally, and laws are made to restrict those rights. Corporations are assumed to have no rights naturally, and laws are made to grant those rights.
So, you'd have no objection if this had been a deal between two S-corps? How about Sub S Corp? LLCs? Proprietorships?
An intelligent person would look past all these artificial monikers and see that these are all people coming together in various ways to exchange goods and services. These are meaningless terms that are artificially made up.
In essence, you are saying that something is illegal because it is illegal.
Big damn difference.
Only for people with limited intellectual capacity.