Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Next they'll be saying Sony would put rootkits on CDs or something...
First to sell my HD-DVD, listed as Blu-Ray, on ebay.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Why even send the HD-DVD? Just send a bobcat.
So we should starting calling them $ony?
sony = john mccain
the globe and mail = the new york times
paying warner $400 million = giving a female lobbyist romantic influence
complete speculation = front page news
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And here's me thinking the porn industry was going to decide this battle. What's *cough* porn? Some sort of wierd fetish I don't know about?
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
My pot dealer says othwerwise.
This explains why set-top Blu-ray players were less expensive.
Wait, no it doesn't. Because they were consistently twice the price.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Now imagine a state-run bureaucracy had to develop an optical storage medium. Just. Imagine.
Ideas for the state-sponsored requirements:
- archival grade 100 years at room temperature
- compatible with all existing hardware sitting *somewhere* in the offices in some backwater county office
- mil-spec version available and compatible with all other equipment
- export restriction to everywhere outside North America.
- support for people with all kinds of disabilities including but not limited to complete acephalia and worse.
- complete control over privately created media or at least the ability to track yet-unspecified *offenders* (think of the children!)
- fair bidding procedure, following a strict rule involving not more than 5 different three-letter agencies
- the procedure must be rigged so that the company of a member of the currently ruling party wins
- development cycle must take less than thirty years to complete
- a 50-percent price increase by the government-licensed contractor is only allowed three times during that period
- developing contractor can employ the Army and Some Other Agency to guard their offices. Operating somewhere in the desert on a base that does not appear on any map and is blocked from Google Earth is acceptable.
The perks:
- if the product fails, you can still bill the Government
- if the product succeeds, the taxpayer will pay you, if they like or even ever heard of your product or not
- if the product succeeds, the Government will buy equipment from you for a hundred years and *then* upgrade their remaining legacy stuff anyway.
The dangers:
- if the incumbent loses the next election, you're history as well.
- your work is too good. Somehow your leading researchers are changing to Some Federal Research Agency or disappearing otherwise.
Only 4 Euros.
I'm sick of same-sex corporations mating with each other. It's wrong, it's paganism, it's not what we believe in!
Hmmm. From now on, no more corporations telling each other to "bend over"?
Dunno.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."