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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.'"

3 of 487 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Market Isn't Even Ready by edwardpickman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why is everything about download? The primary reason people download is for file sharing sites so some how I don't think Sony is bemoaning loosing that business. I'm old enough to have spent my whole childhood preVHS. The early Betamaxs hit in my late teens but only recorded an hour and there were no prerecorded tapes. We didn't have cable in my area so unless you saw a movie the first week or so of it's release you had to hope for a cut down TV version of the film. I find it amazing how spoiled people have become in a little over a generation. Technology just isn't moving fast enough to suit their own personal needs. A hundred years ago most people still rode horses or walked, there was no radio and TV was decades away. Even movies were a rare treat and they were all shorts. These days if they can't get HD video beamed directly to their iPods they think we're still in the stone age. BluRay was never meant as a download format. Apples and oranges. When transfer rates get up to the point of supporting HiDef downloads I'm sure there will be yet another format. You might as well complain about not being able to download Hi8 movies. It was never intended as a download format.

  2. Re:Or... by powerlord · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From a movie-watcher's perspective, BluRay has absolutely 0 technical advantages.


    Not entirely true. It had at least ONE major advantage, less market confusion with DVD.

    I've seen at least two instances personally (not counting the numerous anecdotes mention here on slashdot :) ) where consumers were confused that they needed a new player to watch HD DVD discs, since they owned a DVD player and an HD TV.

    With Blu-Ray, there was much more of an instinctual "This is a new format that needs a new player".

    I'd also wonder if Blu-Ray's choice of using Blue for their media vs HD DVD's Red made a difference from a psychological point of view. Most people associate Red with Danger, while Blue is usually associated with Calmness.
    --
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  3. Re:free market? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We got to see at least three major (and differing) implementations of Marx' setup.

    I hate to break it to you, but no, we didn't. Last I checked, Marx wasn't a big advocate for totalitarianism.