Universal Drops Blu-ray Support

Bad news for Sony as the first major studios drops support for its Blu-ray DVD format. Universal Pictures is home to movies like The Hulk and Erin Brockovich, one of which is a movie about an ugly beast who gets angry, and the other about a Marvel comic book character.

As one of the only studios to support HD DVD directly, Universal is putting all its chips into one can of salsa, whereas a few others are doing both formats. In any case, this is the first we’ve heard of a studio dropping support for a next-gen format. A sign of things to come?

Sony having Another Bad Week [Megagames via Slashgear]

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9 Comments so far

 
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Johnal (Who am I?)

ouch…

 
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Raj Patel (Who am I?)

Sony is being punished for that $600 console…heh

 
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webonics (Who am I?)

Overall, I think Sony is still in the lead for studio supporters. Universal was always on the edge.

And I’ll so be disappointed to miss out on buying a copy of the lame-ass “The Hulk” on HD-DVD even though admittedly, I own it on DVD…ah, the shame. (Hey, at least I never bought Daredevil!)

 
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webonics (Who am I?)

I also like Universal’s President’s quote, “Take today’s announcement of new players from Toshiba, new PC hardware from Niveus and new titles like ‘The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,’ and add the hardware and movies that are coming this Fall and you can see why HD DVD is poised for a strong holiday.”

A. I would never buy anything Toshiba again..ever. I had a DVD player (paid $150 retail) that only worked for 9 months and crapped out. The repairman said it would cost more to fix than buy a new one. I bought a cheap one at the holidays for like $30 for a spare bedroom and its been going for like 3 years now. Toshiba has horrible support and customer service. Read some of the reviews on their laptops.

B. Yeah, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” will really compel people to go HD-DVD. Good lord, puuu-lease.

 
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Peter (Who am I?)

Even more reason why Sony has been on the decine the last decade

 
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Paul (Who am I?)

Does anyone remember BETAMAX?

 
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xaviertooth (Who am I?)

You haven’t followed the forwat war don’t you? From the beginning, Universal supports HD-DVD. In fact, previously, Warner and Paramount are exclusives to HD-DVD until they decided to also support Blu-ray. Please next time, before you write crap, do some research first. You look stupid with this kind of mis-information that you are writing.

 
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xaviertooth (Who am I?)

You don’t follow the next-gen forwat war, don’t you? From the beginning, Universal supports HD-DVD. As a matter of fact, Warner and Paramount are also exclusive supporters of HD-DVD until they decided to support also Blu-ray. Please, next time before you write crap, do some research first. There are a lot of sources you can get information from, just don’t be lazy! You look like stupid writing this kind of mis-information.

 
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Tony (Who am I?)

Exactly right xaviertooth. Universal has never supported Blu-ray from day one. This is not news–simply a publicity stunt to make it appear Blu-ray is somehow losing studio support.

In fact, what part of 90% studio support do some not understand here? Blu-ray has support from Disney (exclusively), Fox (exclusively), Sony Pictures (exclusively), MGM (exclusively), Paramount, Warner, Lionsgate, and Weinstein Company (who just recently joined the Blu-ray party).

The only holdout–Universal. It is a shame really, that we have one studio and essentially one hardware backer in Toshiba giving us a format war.

Remember that Blu-ray has the majority of CE and IT companies backing it as well–Apple, HP, Dell, Panasonic, Pioneer, Sharp, Sony, LG, Samsung, TDK, and on and on. So, for those spewing BETAMAX, you need to do you homework as Betamax failed because it had less storage, no licensing, and didn’t have the backing of the majority of Porn studios–all of which Blu-ray has (more storage, a plethora of licensing, and the majority of support from Porn studios) which is why it is looking damn sexy right now.

I give HD DVD until the end of 2007 until it dies a very deserved death.

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