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[sulrich]

QUOTE(SuperStition @ Jan 13 2008, 05:54 AM)

I wish Microsoft had the same price, but with a built in HD-DVD player, thats 17 million HD-DVD's players sold at least, then they would have had that tiny advantage earlier...

You are spot on - I personally think MS didnt do enough to support the format.  I can't help thinking that they were never behind the format at all...they really should have used the 360 to get HD-DVD into living rooms like Sony.  An overpriced add on for the 360 is a token gesture at best.

Cheers

Steve

[sicknasty413]

Personally, I think HD-DVD could have EASILY won if they knew how to market that shit. If they would have taken the same approach as the marketing of Halo 3, HD-DVD players would be in 3 bajillion households as we speak.

...granted, perhaps putting "HD-DVD" pictures/words on a mountain dew would have been pushing it to far, but it's all about the advertising!

I RARELY see a movie commercial where the movie is coming out on DVD and HD-DVD.. it's ALWAYS DVD and Blue-Ray. Sure, that may be because the majority of the movies these days all originate from companies backing blue-ray, but there are other forms of advertisements.

I don't think they have much chance now, but we'll see.

[iam]

QUOTE(twistedsymphony @ Jan 12 2008, 04:47 PM)

If Toshiba wanted to win the format war they would have subsidized the use of an HD-DVD player as the disc format in the Xbox 360...

Had they done that the early PS3 floundering and strong 360 sales would have convinced quite a few BRD supporters to switch to HD-DVD and the PS3 probably wouldn't be doing as well as it is today considering the number of people that bought it just for a cheap HD movie player.

I'm not so sure about that.

The 360 would have been sold over 600$ with a built-in HD-DVD player. Not so many people would have acquired it at the price, just as not so many people bought the PS3 before the price cut.

[Charbless]

HD-DVD wasn't ready for when the 360 came out anyway so they couldn't put it in the thing even if tosh was willing to give it away free.

I don't see why hd dvd can't be used in the next MS console it has the storage capacity and supports dvds also if games are on it would make them hard to copy if no blank hd-dvd media is available to buy.

[cyberg4]

Please just let this format war end.  While I wanted HDDVD to win i more cared that someone would win as opposed to who would win.  I know it sucks for a bunch of people who bought HDDVD players but that was a risk they were taking when they bought one.  The amount of money required to turn this around would be phenomenal and in the end wouldn't be worth it.  Toshiba should just recover their losses and see if they can get some compensation from the blu-ray camp before there is no reward for ending this stupid format war.

[OrkanMan]

Anyone that thinks "downloads" are the future is insane.  There's no chance of it becomming a standard untill the whole world has free broadband internet.

[21cwSpanky]

QUOTE(juan_2006 @ Jan 12 2008, 11:59 PM)

I really wanted hd-dvd to win seeing how the A3 is about 200 dollars cheaper than the cheapest br player (150 cheaper than the ps3). But its over i was able to take my hd-dvd back after the news of warner going br. So ps3 here is come...its the only option that i actually have (unless i wanna pay 50 bucks more for a standalone player)  

but like twistedsymphony said if toshiba and ms had made the xbox 360 with an hd-dvd player from the beggining things wold be different. sure it wouldn't have sold as much as now (17M units) but possibly around 8-10 million, and that would have given hd-dvd a boost.

But you see MS was too busy bashing sony for losing the console war, and in the end sony won out anyway. I can guarantee you that sony hoped this would happen to begin with. Even if they did sell 1/4 of the consoles as MS, thats still a good 4-5 million blu-ray players to fuel the format war. In the end they still won, maybe not on the games front, but they're making $ off blu-ray anyway.

[FCTE]

QUOTE(iam @ Jan 12 2008, 04:02 PM)

I'm not so sure about that.

The 360 would have been sold over 600$ with a built-in HD-DVD player. Not so many people would have acquired it at the price, just as not so many people bought the PS3 before the price cut.

I don't buy that at all, when people want something they come up with the money for it. At worst people would've complained just like they did with the PS3, but they would have taken the time to save up the extra cash to buy the system and play next gen games.

The PS3 having a Blu-ray player very much had everything to do with Blu-ray winning. Now most people don't care, but the people that do care about HD DVD should know that if the 360 had had an HD DVD player from the start the war may have gone very differently.

[darthjedi]

QUOTE(Xbox-Scene @ Jan 12 2008, 01:15 AM)

What Toshiba Could Do Next
1. The most attractive and apparently least risky path is to sue for peace. This is where the losing side goes to the winning side and says that for some predetermined consideration it will walk away and give up the fight. Sony and its partners might still be willing to pay a large sum of money and/or give Toshiba significant concessions to simply walk away.

2. Assess what it would take to move Time Warner back into the Toshiba HD-DVD camp and execute against this plan. All of the studios, thanks largely to the writers' strike, are looking at what will likely be a massively bad year when it comes to both revenue and profit (it should easily reach over a billion dollars by mid year). Sony likely already paid it a lot to make this move, but if Sony paid the subsidiary Warner Brothers, there is a chance the parent Time Warner could override.

3. Go after Disney instead. One of the mysteries in this segment is why Disney jumped from the HD-DVD camp to the Blu-Ray camp, and the back story behind that move might identify a negotiating vector that could open up a major opportunity for HD-DVD.

4. Do an end run and move to blended download and/or dual-mode devices. The market is moving to downloads, but it will take some time to get there. Offering a player that could both play HD-DVDs and gain access to the content already being licensed to Microsoft (which includes most of the Blu-Ray camp) could provide a compelling consumer mix of the present and the future. Were the company to subsidize a combination Blu-Ray, HD-DVD player, given that the existing content is split, it could put the consumer in the position to make the choice.

5. An interesting alternative or addition would be to work with Microsoft to create the same thing, but as a significantly improved and price-reduced HD-DVD enhancement to the Xbox 360, which has a market penetration of over four times the Playstation 3. Alone, I don't think this would be strong enough to change the outcome, but coupled with any one of all but their first plan this could ensure an eventual HD-DVD victory.

You are missing the way HD-DVD can kill off Blu-Ray with in 3 month with just on press conference.  If Universal and or Paramount release a statement that they will stop producing SD DVDs and go with the Hybrid TL Disc for all future release; this will be game over for Blu-Ray. Legally Blu-Ray can not make a Hybrid disc so they would have zero come back. With a Hybrid disc this is what can happen. With one crappy movie the new disc would out sell both formats put together since the war began. The DVD layer when played could tell consumers that they could access the better quality version of the movie by purchasing a HD-DVD player from their local retailer. A transition DVD to HD would be much easier if they put HD in the hands of as many people as possible with as little effort as possible.

I own a Hybrid movie and it works in both my DVD and HD-DVD players, and If Universal and Paramount were to this, all the other studios would have to follow because they would not want to be left out of a huge installed base.

[0794]

QUOTE(OrkanMan @ Jan 12 2008, 04:45 PM)

Anyone that thinks "downloads" are the future is insane.  There's no chance of it becomming a standard untill the whole world has free broadband internet.

really, well that would be very "inside the box" thinking.  actually, optical HD media itself is years away from becoming a "standard" as well since the general consumer is very satisfied with current DVD quality, prices for hardware and media, as well as a universal format.  it's not so much about becoming a "standard" but when certain technologies are actually released to the public...


and i don't suspect that there will be a very quick ending at all to the format "war" regardless of what the HD DVD camp does next...

[Lordscr]

QUOTE(darthjedi @ Jan 13 2008, 04:33 AM)

You are missing the way HD-DVD can kill off Blu-Ray with in 3 month with just on press conference.  If Universal and or Paramount release a statement that they will stop producing SD DVDs and go with the Hybrid TL Disc for all future release; this will be game over for Blu-Ray. Legally Blu-Ray can not make a Hybrid disc so they would have zero come back. With a Hybrid disc this is what can happen. With one crappy movie the new disc would out sell both formats put together since the war began. The DVD layer when played could tell consumers that they could access the better quality version of the movie by purchasing a HD-DVD player from their local retailer. A transition DVD to HD would be much easier if they put HD in the hands of as many people as possible with as little effort as possible.

I own a Hybrid movie and it works in both my DVD and HD-DVD players, and If Universal and Paramount were to this, all the other studios would have to follow because they would not want to be left out of a huge installed base.

I thought the exact same thing. Stop making DVD and start making Hybrids. But they should have done this last year to have any effect.

[steveju]

QUOTE(21cwSpanky @ Jan 12 2008, 11:53 PM)

But you see MS was too busy bashing sony for losing the console war, and in the end sony won out anyway.

I seriously doubt you'll find any proof to back that lie up. Maybe you got confused, since Sony was doing all the bashing, they were bragging about their Cell and BluRay and never noticed that people weren't buying the PS3, but were buying Wii and 360 (mostly the Wii). They even thought that stores were running out of PS3s and offered major cash if you could find even one from a store. Microsoft had other problems to worry about, like the warranty issues and making better models that wouldn't break down.

QUOTE(21cwSpanky @ Jan 12 2008, 11:53 PM)

I can guarantee you that sony hoped this would happen to begin with.

QUOTE(Sony Computer Entertainment Europe CEO, David Reeves @ May 19 2006, 03:07 PM)

We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games.

To the topic, I think that video on demand -type services and HD video from Cable/Satellite/Terrestial is going to be enough for many people for a good 5 years+. I don't think the masses are going to be buying HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, because they would need to buy expensive HDTVs to fully enjoy the HD-ness. Besides, the DVD versions are cheaper and still available, and the difference isn't THAT big compared to the costs of what it takes to move from SD to HD.

I haven't bought the PS3 or the HD-DVD addon for the Xbox 360, since all movies can be encoded into WMV-HD and streamed easily through LAN on a Xbox 360 or burned on a regular DVD+DL disc that you can take anywhere and watch just about anywhere too (some CPU power required and a Windows OS). That's why imo Toshiba should kill HD-DVD and come up with some Ultra HD-DVD, which would have Quad HD resolution and stop trying to revive soon-to-be-dead HD-DVD.

[Chancer]

QUOTE(OrkanMan @ Jan 12 2008, 10:45 PM)

Anyone that thinks "downloads" are the future is insane.  There's no chance of it becomming a standard untill the whole world has free broadband internet.

Yes I do. I think you will find the people touting everything should be downloaded, are the ones with cheap super fast internet speeds. the reality for many people is that is not happening. In the UK alone the whole infrastructure would need upgrading. Not a quick job by any stretch of the imagination.
 Despite what people believe whatever future methods are used it has to be available worldwide not just to certain countries or areas.

[MarvelJAM]

I do believe that Microsoft is not truly in this console war.  This company really only cares about its download service.  The truth is MS is heading for the correct format.  It is missing the mark by making users rent movies.  Many people consider the cost difference to purchase the movie worthwhile.  Why not give an option to purchase (at a slightly higher cost) the movie with temporary storage on your XBOX360 hard drive.  If you want to see it again you simply download it again as you would a live arcade game.  Everyone wins.  

The end user does not have to store the media (long term) and lower media cost.  There is no need to go to the store to purchase a disk.  Limited hard drive storage is a non-issue as there is no need to keep a local copy of a movie you rarely watch.  Eventually bandwith will not be an issue and the media could be pulled from a nicely organized library at will.  This media could also be seen from any Windows computer (including laptops mobile) that connects with the live service.

Microsoft wins as they get fees from everyone as they are the distribution point for the purchase.  They get additional money from the end user as it is a slightly higher cost then a rental.  DRM gets used as it is convenient to the end user.  This is exactly the way MS currently does business with television shows so there is little necessary for technology changes.  The users have an opportunity to use the PC live service for media will also purchase Windows Vista as it is necessary for connection to the live service.  MS has to see that the live service on PCs really needs a boost as gaming is not taking off.

Movie studios win because they finally have a DRM controlled point of sale.  The costs of packaging and shipping should go down as there is little to ship.  They also gain an inexpensive way to distribute and advertise low budget films.
 
THE LOSERS OF THIS are the hardware manufacturers unless Microsoft licences (more money for MS) the connection with the XBOX live marketplace to 3rd party players for media.  This way Microsoft would be able to stay in the hardware marketplace with a value added player but NOT be a monopoly.

[Reaper527]

QUOTE(iam @ Jan 12 2008, 05:02 PM)

I'm not so sure about that.

The 360 would have been sold over 600$ with a built-in HD-DVD player. Not so many people would have acquired it at the price, just as not so many people bought the PS3 before the price cut.

subsidizing it means that toshiba and the other companies on the HD-DVD consortium would have paid the difference on the system to keep the price the same as what it was with the dvd player it got in the end (or only a minimal price difference). this would have benefited microsoft by giving them an hd optical drive in the system, and the hd-dvd team by giving good market penetration. think of it as large scale advertisement.

QUOTE(MarvelJAM @ Jan 13 2008, 12:19 PM)

Movie studios win because they finally have a DRM controlled point of sale.  The costs of packaging and shipping should go down as there is little to ship.  They also gain an inexpensive way to distribute and advertise low budget films.
 

let do this without the strict DRM that we know the studios are going to want. there is nothing more frustrating then when a 360 dies, and then xbox live arcade games can't be played unless your signed into live. the specific method you mention also would make it impossible to watch the movies while traveling (on a laptop in a car/in a plane).

i would take optical media over DRM raped downloadable content any day.