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Sony Paid Warner Bros. $400 Million to Go Blu-Ray?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the beats-having-to-say-hd-dvd-all-the-time dept.

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.'"

8 of 487 comments (clear)

  1. Betamax wasn't better. by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 5, Informative

    VHS had longer recording times, and that is what the customers wanted. This is proved by the fact that VHS "won", and ergo VHS was "better". Betamax did have better video quality, but it was not "better" in every dimension.

  2. Even for /., bad summary and headline by DragonWriter · · Score: 5, Informative
    The article does not say that Sony paid Warner $400 million. It merely states that there was a bidding war between Sony and Toshiba and that unnamed "analysts" have suggested that payout may have been "as much as $400 million", though no one who knows anything is saying anything. Actually, the summary could have been good with a small change:

    Is $400 million too much? Sony didn't think so and this article speculates that's how they won the Hi-Def format war.


    Should read:

    Is $400 million too much? This article speculates that Sony may not have thought so and goes on to speculate that's how they won the Hi-Def format war.


    Really, other than the really obvious things we all know (Sony won the format war), there aren't any facts in the article, just speculation and some rather weird ideas from a variety of sources. Like Professor Xavier Dreze and his suggestion that "PlayStation buyers ... unwittingly embraced Blu-ray and undermined HD DVD." As if PS3 buyers were shelling out the high price of the console without realizing that it was a Blu-ray player, and just started purchasing Blu-ray discs without any consciousness of their actions. To the extent that PS3 owners embraced Blu-ray at all, they didn't do it "unwittingly".
  3. Re:Or... by PrvtBurrito · · Score: 4, Informative

    Uh, HD-DVD's are: 1) region free 2) not a rushed to market technology (no customer screwing profile x.x limitations) 3) half the price 4) has more interactive features in contrast blu-ray store more space. Are you guys that obtuse?

    --
    Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
  4. Plus and Minus by TheSync · · Score: 4, Informative

    VHS won the consumer war over Betamax, but Betacam (that used the same tape cassette) went on to become the dominant professional video format.

    Now BluRay won the consumer war, but it is unclear if the professional disk version called XDCAM will win the professional format, as pro video folks moving beyond tapes are also looking at flash-based systems like DVCPRO P2 , and even Sony now offers professional XDCAM EX on SxS flash memory.

  5. Just Sony? by hansamurai · · Score: 4, Informative

    A lot of people don't realize that Blu-Ray is more than just Sony, there are three levels of membership in the Blu-Ray Association. Currently there are 18 board members (top level), 65 contributers, and over 200 members. Sony is the obvious front company for the association because of their reliance on the technology for the PlayStation 3, but there are a lot of groups that have a big stake in the project too.

    Maybe Sony did pay Warner the big bucks for the commitment, but I'd be surprised if they're the only ones making deals like this.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

    --
    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  6. Re:Market Isn't Even Ready by morari · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wish we could stop hearing about streaming video. I like having my content conveniently on actual media that I can access instantly whenever I want without having to go through or ask anyone else. Most of the world doesn't even have broadband at all, which I think is a far more important problem than people not being able to download and redownload gigantic movie files because they've never heard of a disc binder.

    --
    "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
  7. Re:Stores more ... per layer by RoboRay · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, 200GB EIGHT layer BluRay discs have been produced in the testing lab (which is the only place where those 3-layer HD-DVDs ever existed. The 8-layer BDs wasn't in response to competition, either. BR was designed from the beginning to support that many layers, which is why the first data layer is close to the surface instead of being sandwiched in the middle like HD-DVD.

    Of course, neither the 3-layer HD-DVDs or the 8-layer BDs are relevant to the format war, because there were never any plans to use either for movies and set-top players can't read them, anyway.

  8. Re:Or... by mzs · · Score: 4, Informative

    No BD-ROM and HD-DVD both use 'blue' (really closer to violet) lasers. BD uses a different data encoding to achieve more data density and uses a more scratch resistant coating on the disk itself to counteract it's lesser ability at handling read errors.