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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.'"
Next they'll be saying Sony would put rootkits on CDs or something...
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
... and it involves a $400M cash payment. No need for question marks for these gnomes.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Has anyone considered the remote possibility that Blu-Ray won out because it was the better of the two formats? It stores more data. From an end user perspective, isn't this pretty much the #1 thing that matters?
Granted, geeks know that the DRM on blu-ray is harsher than that on HD-DVD, but if your just joe Movie Watcher does it really matter?
Just a thought.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
What remains a mystery is just how big a push Warner needed to pick sides. Analysts say Sony only prevailed following a heated bidding war against Toshiba, with the reward reaching as much as $400-million (U.S.). Neither side has confirmed the size of any bids or payments.
Other than analysts' speculation of payoffs, there's nothing that could be considered fact in this article. Pass.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
No they won't. For that crowd, bribery, collusion and cartelism are all part of the free-market experience, and they like it just fine! Just so long as the gummint doesn't butt in on all the fun.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
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.
Beat me to it. This is why I can't support unregulated capitalism (cue downmods from the /. libertarian brigade).
Here's a thought exercise for you guys: Wipe the slate clean, everybody starts from zero, Adam Smith's extreme younger brother is in the hizzy.
Now, exactly how many seconds pass before two or more similarly skilled people start pooling their resources to reduce cost/corner the market? You'd go from 0 to Microsoft in no time flat with this method.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I don't think the availability of high quality downloads should effect whether or not the market is ready for HD media. Instead, the limiting factor is the ubiquity of high def TVs in the household; there is no sense in getting a blue ray player if you have a 480 TV.
Conversely, I think the lack of high quality downloads would actually spur increased demand for the delivery of high quality content though other means (in this case, HD discs.) If people have high def TVs, they are going to want high def content. If they can't get high def content from the internet, they will try to get it from high def media.
Should read:
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
So we should starting calling them $ony?
Not to worry — there is no such thing.
(2) The amount of money Sony just sent is proof that Blue-Ray sucks.
/.
BS.
The HD-DVD camp did the very same thing, yet where is the moral outrage? Hypocrisy is alive and well on
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
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.
the 'state'
It's spelled 'we, the people', dumbass. The 'problem', such as it is, isn't the system, but your particularly shitty implementation of it.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Without some regulation, what happens is the gap between the haves and the have-nots increases even further. This isn't good for the economy of a country as a whole, by the way.
There's nothing insightful about your post; it's typical anarchist rhetoric, bound to no historical precedent or foresight.
I like basketball!!1!
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.
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.
Why? Sony made a smart business move wooing their competitor's biggest supporter with money. Toshiba lost out but if WB was the only thing keeping them alive, then it wasn't like their planning was exactly stellar. They deserved to lose at that point. WB doesn't care one way or another as long as their content sells. They don't really have a horse in this race even though they've acted like it. They could easily abandon BluRay tomorrow. The only party that didn't get what they wanted out of this deal was relying on another company's non-binding agreement to keep their entire product line alive. If you're that upset about it, then feel free to release your content on some other format. The free market lets you do that.
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
It's spelled 'we, the people', dumbass. The 'problem', such as it is, isn't the system, but your particularly shitty implementation of it.
We got to see at least three major (and differing) implementations of Marx' setup. The number of deaths from it climbs up into the hundreds of millions, all told, and in places like North Korea, still climbing at horrific rate. Problem is, too many people are eager to claim their actions in the name of "the people", but the reality ends up being just the opposite. I think the USSR lasted approximately three years before it stopped being about "the people" and started being about "the state" (and yes, there is a distinction).
Capitalism (as practiced) isn't exactly a perfect system either (far, far from it). Quite frankly, it can outright suck at times. OTOH, it does have a tendency to keep its body counts down to a much more acceptable level.
Socialism? Cool... now who gets to fund it all when the majority of a populace figures out that they can do just fine without actually having to work for what they get? Ayn Rand may have been a nut case, but she does have a point - even economics has an ecosystem that requires each part of it to function well enough to survive. Humans are too damned lazy in nature to be eager about providing excessively for others in a system where they objectively don't have to.
Now here's the weak link in your arguments as per the free market... Collusion only works for as long as the people are willing to fund it. If not enough people buy Blu-Ray gear to justify the costs going into it, it eventually dies. If something freer, easier, and cheaper comes along (pick at least two) Last I checked, a lack of Blu-Ray gear won't prevent me from eating tonight, nor will that lack prevent me from drinking clean water, or having a nice warm environment in which to sleep tonight. This in turn leads to apathy among the larger population, which in turns leads to...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I wonder if Nintendo and Microsoft see the opportunity for a semi-proprietary disc format here. They've got a stable and cheap format that's already gone through all it's development phases and is proven to hold 50 gigs. Five years from now getting a hold of a consumer level HD-DVD burner will be a real rarity, so piracy would be really hard. Blue-Ray may have won the movie format war, but there's still a lot of potential in this format by virtue of it's soon to be obscurity.
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.
Even if this specific rumor turns out to be false, the broader implication that Sony was willing to sacrifice to ensure the success of Blu-Ray is undeniable. For a while Sony's use of a Blu-Ray player in PS3s was considered a blunder. The fact is, Blu-Ray is more important to Sony than the PS3 was. If coming in behind their competitors in this video game generation is what it cost to make Blu-Ray the HD standard, Sony is perfectly happy with that. Of course, there remains the possibility that Blu-Ray will turn out to be a competitive advantage for the PS3, in which case it would be so much the better. The point is, from Sony's perspective, it didn't matter if the Blu-Ray turns out to be good for the PS3 or not, because they consider it a win either way. If it is, they're obviously happy, but even if it isn't, they're still happy because they still win by massively inflating Blu-Ray's install base. For Sony, Blu Ray>PS3.
In contrast, to MS the 360 was a much higher priority than Toshiba's HD-DVD. MS has been trying to get into our living rooms for over 10 years now. (Bill Gates was already obsessing about it in The Road Ahead and that book was written 13 years ago.) All things being equal they'd prefer Toshiba to win and Sony to lose, of course, but it wasn't important enough to them for them to risk 360's success on.
The idea is that competing products weren't allowed to compete on the merits of the product--rather, they were competing based upon who could grease the most palms.
In this case, however, it could turn out to be better for the consumer. If there hadn't been these bribes, who knows how long the format war would have lasted? I bought into HD-DVD and I think that it was the superior (for the consumer) product, but without these dirty tricks, the format war could have gone on for years longer, and any customer who wanted to upgrade to HD would have to either buy two separate players (or one combo player which is much more expensive and which doesn't include all of the features of any one player) or relegate themselves to only buying movies from studios who support that format. Worse, it might be a trend that the studios realize they could push further--imagine if each studio had its own format (as you see with DRM downloads, in some cases) requiring its own player?
That doesn't mean that allowing bribery, collusion, etc. is better in the general case.
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.
Every time there's an article about Blu-Ray someone always trots out the point that Blu-ray is not, in fact, Sony's, but is actually from a larger group of manufacturers and media companies.
Well, yes, there are a lot of members, but Blu-ray is still Sony's. They not only have the most invested in Blu-ray, they have the most to gain:
1) They developed the hardware platform entirely on their own and gain royalties from the format's sales
2) The success or failure of their gaming console is tied inexorably to the success or failure of the format
3) The decision to splinter off from the DVD Consortium, following the DVD Consortium's choice of HD-DVD as the next format (supposedly chosen because it would be ready sooner), was entirely theirs. Broader industry support came after that decision, and was reportedly driven by studio fear of Microsoft. Without Sony, there's no format war.
There's a very very good reason that people associate this format with Sony - it's their format, it's just supported by other people. Lots of people support the CD format but that doesn't make it any less Sony / Phillips' format.
So two people voluntarily made a transaction and you don't like it because it goes against your morals and what you think is "correct"?.
So you agree with the crowd that wants to ban gay marriage?
What are they, buildings?
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Short answer, yes and no.
Longer answer, there are plenty of things we don't allow people to decide to do together. For example, kill each other. Doesn't matter one bit whether it's in private, voluntary, or not, it's simply not allowed. Likewise, things like bribery and collusion are regulated against because the majority find them unacceptable and detrimental to the general public welfare. Until somebody comes up with a consistent, coherent, universal ethical system (and nobody yet has), we're stuck with "mob rules" on a case by case basis when it comes down to it. Either that or barbarism and anarchy. Unfortunately, if the majority find gay marriage unethical (I certainly find no such thing), then we're stuck with that until and unless they become more enlightened.
That is... unless you've got a Philosopher King in mind for us?
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. Big damn difference.
I wouldn't be so sure... Mao managed to wipe out (roughly) 100+ million of his own people during the "Great Leap Forward"... over 10% (at the time) of China's entire population. The USSR comes in at a somewhat close second, and only had a peak population of ~300m during the 1980's. I'd have to go dredging numbers (population vs. deaths during a given Purge or Gulag expansion period, and esp. during the starvations in the Ukraine), but I'm fairly willing to wager that as a percentage of the whole, it was a whole lot safer (odds-wise) to live in 18th/19th century England than it was to live in 20th Century Russia.
It's one thing to get killed due to willingly working under unsafe conditions and the like. It's another entirely to get executed or sent to die in a slave labor camp, just because the neighbor down the street reported you as a 'counter-revolutionary' to the local authorities. You're still perfectly free to walk away from the latter situation with at least a reasonable chance at continued survival...
Now as to whether or not free and open Capitalism would ever get to the point where millions are killed off due to malice on the part of those at the top of said system? Remains to be seen. OTOH, it's a lot harder to pull off than if you were in, say, Stalin's boots...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?