Due to the hangover that I have from last night's primary coverage, I am willing to make my prediction....
Congratulations to Sony and their Blu-ray format. My understanding is that the battle went down to the wire with Warner but your 500 million prevailed. A few things that will be interesting to see how they play out:
1. What will Toshiba do? They are now manufacturing players for a format that has essentially lost. Perhaps they hold on and hope that HD-DVD keeps a foothold in do-it-yourself markets due to it's lower cost?
2. How long before Microsoft releases a Xbox Blu-ray accessory? Perhaps their adoption of HD-DVD was merely a competitive ploy against Sony? I tend to think they are banking on their Live download service, and at $6.00 per HD movie rental why wouldn't they be?
3. Will we continue to see Blu-ray player costs dramatically drop if the competition is down and out?
My geekness almost won out over socially acceptable behavior at the local Wal-mart a couple of days ago. I had to utterly restrain myself from informing the dude in the cowboy boots and trucker hat that he wouldn't be able to buy movies for much longer for that HD-DVD player he was lugging around. In the end I decided that there was probably a better chance the guy thought he was buying a souped up VHS-DVD combo, than he was a HD video enthusiast.
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3 comments:
You never know, as soon as the Kentucky Headhunters come out with a 3 volume concert set on HD DVD, I bet sales for the units go up by at least 3.
Since my comment was getting lonely, I'll post another...
I think the winner in all this foolishness is going to end up being Apple and Netflix. Apple for their reasonably priced rentals, and Netflix for their unlimited streaming package. I think physical media is going to be a rarity with the advent of supercheap online storage. I could be wrong, but this is what I see happening.
Personally I see VHS making a comeback. With a projected 57.8 million Americans being between the ages of 66 and 84 by the year 2030 just think of the implications. Millions will be retiring, quickly realizing they can barely afford health care, much less new A/V devices for all the "new-fangled disc formats". Those old trusty VCR's will get dusted off and turned on in droves! Just think, they make a tangible sound and oh-how simple, no menus, Director's commentaries, or scene selection. The next thing you know it won't just be DVD/VHS combo units but Bluray/DVD/VHS or soon Xbox 5000's with USB-18 attached VHS expansion modules. Let us only hope they make it easier to set the stinking clock.....
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