 that it once enjoyed.</p>
<p>Hence, we should all microwave some popcorn, get comfortable, and watch Blu-Ray die a slow, agonizing death.<span id=)
This is a symptom, however, of a much larger issue than we can truly address here, but we can start the discussion: Is Sony still a viable market force (given the last year as an example), or is it on its way to the graveyard of formerly great companies? Well, what do you think?
Sony: Will it Sink or Swim?
Blu-Ray Drowning in Negative Buzz: Report [ArsTechnica]
In my opinoin, both formats are looking at a limited life. When/If Sony ships more units, it will certainly give Blu-Ray a boost but why bother. Sony won’t die, people still buy the stuff. Some of the marketing regarding their phones is still viable. I think they should keep at the effort.
sony needs to stick to what is does best, hardware. at some point they need to realize that and stop trying to rule both worlds and just put their energy into what they’re good at. but, you have to hand it to them, they don’t give up…
oops
It’s ok, Sydney. We still like you.
drdrew: blake and I the exact same conversation when this posted. heh. Of course, you’re right.
Great Graphic. I have nothing more to say.
I wish one of the formats would die early in the game to save the consumer from a lengthy format war. It is definitely true that Sony didn’t do itself a favor by making the PS3 Blue-ray only. When Microsoft released an HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox360 it didn’t look as if they were pushing the format, but if they had included the drive into the standard model things would have looked differently. A $200 cheaper PS3 with a Blue-Ray add-on would have served Sony much better.
Don’t forget Mini-Disc!
Reagan.
HD-DVD is going to trounce Blu-Ray.
Sony’s big play was to get Blu-Ray into millions of homes with the PS3. While they will have some success in that attempt, they won’t be able to accomplish this before HD-DVD players drop in price enough to be viable as a stand alone option. Since an HD-DVD costs substantially less to produce than a Blu-Ray disc, the publishers will be pushing HD-DVD. Sony had/has some exclusive contracts with studios, but several of those are going away. Also, I’m sure that these studios would not have signed indefinite exclusivity agreements and will probably be able to publish for whichever format they choose way before Sony will be able to reach a significant portion of the market.
expensive PS3 as a distribution vector to the masses = bad
expensive production costs (both hardware and media) = bad
blu-ray = next betamax
As far as formats go, Sony has been successful more times than not. People seem to forget the CD, DVD (partial credit), DV, miniDV, Hi-8, Video8, and many others. Sony is the only Company that appears on the Great Inventions list provided by the Encyclopædia Britannica. Sony also has the most successful consoles in the history of gaming consoles. Why would this be any different using the same fomula? Plus, this is also one of the best Blu-ray players (and the cheapest) and the most powerful gaming console in the world.
This Sony hate is mindless. Microsoft is doing their best with this huge smear campaign. Microsoft has failed at products as well. Do you remember the when Microsoft started producing networking equipment? Where is it now? Can Windows stop crashing as much as it does?
Sony has had a TON of success. I do not dispute that.
But, they have had a very large share of public failures such as beta-max, MiniDisc (while not a total fiasco, definitely not a success), their first digital music players (no mp3!), their DRM laden second gen digital audio players (you can only have a copy of the song on device at once… computer OR player), the PSX (that weird media-center like device), UMD, online music store, aibo, sony pdas, cell phones (before they purchased erriccson), the VAIO UX Micro PC, etc. Many companies have launched failed initiatives. Very few companies have done so on such a grand scale.
That isn’t really the point though.
The point is that Blu-Ray, for a variety of reasons, is not fairing well against its competitor. When you add up all the factors and do the comparison. The future looks very dim for this format. I’m not saying that HD-DVD is the end all, be all, but it is the current favorite for the replacement of the DVD.
If there was any question as to whether this is a biased piece or not, the comical survey at the end seals it.
The truth is neither HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray will make much of an impact. Remember laserdisc? SACD? DVD-Audio? All technologically superior formats, all ignored by the unwashed masses who were happy with the cheaper, inferior alternatives. The technophiles will enjoy the benefits while Joe Consumer still doesn’t have a high def tv. The rate of adoption will not achieve a critical mass in time and the formats will both be declared dead while Oppo sells 10 million upscaling DVD players in 2008.
You lost me at “Reagen” anyway.
How they lost the walkman to ipod should go down into their failed history books. Their first mp3 players with the proprietary codec ATRAC was the initial death blow for their ability to compete with Apple.
On Blu-Ray, I think the name was the beginning of the end. HD-DVD, is just plain catchier and self explanatory. Blu-Ray to my parents does not make sense. Let’s blame Blu-Ray’s ultimate demise on the name…
Uh @ Wellinformed, Windows has stopped crashing as much as it used to. In fact windows uptimes for servers are around 111 days.
I don’t even really like Microsoft that much, but I’m really tired of people saying it crashes. It doesn’t. That being said it’s a huge security hole to run IIS, but that’s not to say the system isn’t stable? OK? Bash Microsoft for being vulnerable not cause they crash.
Well over a year and a half ago I read articles saying that HD-DVD was going to come out first but that blu-ray had the capacity for more storage. This is just the first half of the story. HD-DVD is starting out ahead of the game but they will lose out on capacity. I don’t care what format movies are burned to because I buy my movies online. I need high capacity discs for archiving all the video that I work with. Anything below 50GB is not worth looking at. The only question in my mind is whether blu-ray will get enough momentum going before holographic storage takes over.
I don’t think consumers will by HD-DVD players. They already just switched over to standard DVD in late 2001. Regular consumers don’t have nice TVs either. What they do want is the best gaming system: PS3. Niether format will be super popular for awhile, but Blu-Ray will win. Nobody enjoys buying a $200 addon to anything. Case in point -> PS2 Hard Drive.
You can store up to 50GB on a blu-ray disc. Versus HD-DVD @ 30GB.
While sony gets all the credit for Blu-Ray, let’s take a look at who actually is part of the Blu-Ray Disc Association (aka the collective of companies responsible for the developement and creation of the technology and the companies holding all the patents that make it possible
Apple
Dell
HP
Hitachi
LG
Mitsubishi Electric
Panasonic
Pioneer
Philips
Samsung
Sharp
Sony
Sun Microsystems
TDK
Thomson
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney
Warner Bros.
Sony is only one of them, this is not Sony’s format, this is their format
It is all so confusing.
What is amazing is to see people running out of big box stores with the blu ray as if it is gold. And smiling yet.
Wish that I could find women that gullible.
@Ben Dalton
Just for the record, Sony didn’t purchase Ericsson. Sony and Ericsson merged their mobile phone businesses. Ericsson is still an independent company and the worlds largest manufacturer of tele infrastructure.
“HD-DVD, is just plain catchier and self explanatory”
How so!?
“When you add up all the factors and do the comparison.”
What factors!?
“At some point they need to realize that and stop trying to rule both worlds and just put their energy into what they’re good at.”
…well your an idiot.
What its seems to me here is that people are just taking some slander they’ve heard from god knows who, and now is spouting their nonsence onto the internet.
…Do your homework and come back.
SONY needs to solve its internal battle between its “content” side, which wants to DRM everything it sells, with its hardware side which depends on consumers buying a brand for ease of use and and playability with any content. SONY needs to realize that freeing up the restrictions on its content will allow it to sell more hardware—–lots more hardware.
I look at it this way…
Apple has a big part in this. If you all remember when USB came out it was not readily adopted due to other interface formats that were still available (PS/2, serial, parallel). This was until Apple switched their entire desktop line over to USB only peripherals and jump-started the USB trend. Likewise, the same sort of thing happened with wireless internet. Apple pioneered the Airport on 802.11b and solidified that as the standard (over 802.11a). They later adopted 802.11g and again things followed suit. This same trend can be seen with both Firewire and Bluetooth as well (but to a lesser extent). Now Apple is including Blu-ray drives in their desktops.
I’m not saying Apple doesn’t have it’s own share of banking on losing technologies, just that lately Apple has tipped the scales in one direction or the other despite their small user base. With the popularity of the iPod right now and with Apple in being cast in a favorable light, I wonder what that will do to bolster the popularity of Blu-ray.
Also, looking upon the list of companies involved in the creation of Blu-ray, you will notice that both Dell and HP are on the list. If you take Apple, Dell, HP, and Sony and add them together, you get a HUGE chunk of the personal computer market. That has to count for something.
I think the most likely scenario right now, given the low overall number of HD capable households and the fact that DVD is still a more than viable candidate when it comes to an enhanced movie experience, is that HD-DVD and Blue-Ray will both fail and some new 3rd option will reveal itself in 3-4 years when there is a wider adoption of HD television and A/V equipment. I own the 360 HD-DVD, but I have no illusions that I’m an early adopter who jumped on right boat. I think given the low number of titles and sales in the HD-DVD and BR markets right now for players and movies, neither one is winning anything, while good ol’ DVD is cleaning up, and to be honest, should be. It’s 90% of what the home theater experience should be, and it’s not worth $500-$1000 for most people to move that extra 10%, even if they DO have the HD equipped home theater to make it worthwhile.
HD-DVD makes more sense because it allows current DVD production lines to be converted to HD-DVD production instead of companies having to completely retool for a new format. BUT, at the end of the day it’s going to be about content and I think Blu-Ray having more studios onboard will turn the tide for them. Especially since they have 20th Century Fox, whose business is largely effects-heavy blockbusters that will translate extremely well to high definition. They’ll start rolling out box sets of the Alien and Star Wars movies by next summer and HD-DVD won’t have a reply. I think that’s what will end up winning the format war this time, even though HD-DVD makes more sense in a lot of ways and has had a nearly year-long lead on the marketplace.
So I dont get it, whats the problem, Blu-Ray uses a 405 nm blue-violet laser to make its mark and so does HD-DVD, but Blu-Ray clearly had more storage capacity, so why cling to old technology?
Anders:
Thanks for the correction! I hadn’t realized that.
Way to go CrunchGear… this is the best discussion of this topic I’ve seen in a long time…
I’m tired of hearing how supposedly superior formats were thoughtlessly
discarded by the public. Betamax was marginally superior in ways that were of
no benefit whatsoever to the consumer. Its problems were that 1) you had to pay a premium for a player that would accept the tapes; 2) the tapes weren’t long enough to hold most movies at an appropriate speed. Sony didn’t realize that rental movies were going to be such a large factor.
It’s hard to believe that Sony , of all companies, should be so incredibly arrogant as to believe that the public will follow their lead after the BetaMax
debacle. No company can possiby be this stupid and in denial. After all of their recent catastrophes with laptop batteries, poor sales, etc. , another catastrophic format war defeat isn’t what Sony needs. They seem to be failing at every single thing they try to do these days. Sony is nothing but a shell of what it once was. I don’t think the company can long avoid Chap 11.
Public surveys recently have shown surprisingly hostile feelings against
Sony in general and BluRay in particular. This is unheard of with respect to Sony. It just shows that even the strongest company can be laid low by managerial incompetence. And it doesn’t take all that long to occur.
ecammit – you’ve been drinking way too much apple koolaid.
I cannot agree with this post. I see big companies like Sony and Samsung push BR devices. The PS3 is coming (and I think it will be a great success). Most Movie studios support BR.
Anyway I expect most movies to be delivered in digital form (over your internet connection) in the near future. Even so, BR will be more usable (for example as a backup tool) thanks to the greater capacity.
For personal computers bluray is going to trounce everything else for the near future because it has the major computer manufacturers behind it. As for video content, I give it a year max before Apple and other online stores are offering HD content for download – why bother mucking around with removable discs when you can have all of your movies just a couple of clicks away?
I don’t normally respond to nonsensical ramblings of twelve year olds, but I couldn’t help posting this:
“To be in FREEMODE we ask that you be our friend and hang out with us, we normally do not let people join FREEMODE that are stupid. We do not want to seem like a group of bad people, we are all nice and we cannot have people doing stupid things to ruin our image.”
so, ffs, just how is it that you’re involved? “…well your an idiot.” doesn’t seem very good for your image and makes you look stupid because it’s “you’re an idiot”. at least learn to insult someone correctly.
i’ll give you another shot though… post some persuasive information that supports…whatever argument it is that you support to enlighten us, oh wise one. unless you’re too busy watching G4…
Yea, when i saw the blu-ray discs at CES 2006 i was like wow that is awesome… for storage. But i didnt even fathom using it for high-definition movies. When the price of the drives and their media goes down i am definately getting a drive for my computer, they are like little hard drives.
I want Blu-ray to die an ignominious death in the valley of so much consumer electronics garbage.
One Standard – HD DVD!
I hate to say it but, the battle between beta max and VHS came down to Porn. Content is always a player in format battles. Many small video stores back in the day (befor Block buster) had adult sections and all of the porn videos where on VHS. Why? For 2 reasons VHS had a longer running time and it was cheaper. The porn market was defiantly responsible for making VHS the format of choice.
Lets take a look at the power of porn!!!
Just take a look at the internet; Porn, Porn, Porn and more Porn!!!
Once more I hate to say it! Porn is responsible for most of the advancement in multimedia over the net.
Why did MiniDV take off so fast? Porn Producers started using it to make movies. It was cheap and it worked good. Then Consumer market started using it.
The Porn industry is always the first to adopt new technologies and porn is a world wide multi-trillion dollar industry.
I’m curious to see which format the porn industry adopts first: Blu-ray or HD-DVD. What ever format the Porn industry adopts first will be the winning format!!!
NO I’M NOT A PORN FANTIC!!!!! BUT I JUST WANTED TO ISSUE ALL YOU YOUNG-INS A HISTORY LESSON ABOUT FORMATS AND PORN!!!!!
I hope they both succeed. Eventually companies like Apex will make players that play both formats. PS3 w/ a few games and about 20 BR movies.
As for the porn industry, there are already releases in both formats. As for you Sony haters, beta-max was a hit in the commercial market. Yes it failed in residential. Mini-disc did average in the US but is huge in other countries.
Wow. Porn huh? The only thing sillier than this argument, if I may ad hominem, is the Apple causes progress argument.
Blu-ray will definitely succeed, even if it is relagated to the comptuer storage role. I have one in my Dell lappy as I type this. But note, optical storage has is specific uses, Enterprise server standards (beta like!) still use tape mediums that hold half a terrabyte of information per cartridge-and its about the size of your fascist ipod too. Had one of these tape’s on my desks awhile back too.
So . . .whether or not Sony wins the market of video library waits to be see. I’m pretty sure, like some guy above me, that downloading video and transferring to optical (or tape!) discs for storage should take off. Logically, a blu-ray disk is a better choice because it holds more data.
The list of co-patents to blu-ray is something I want to look into. I wonder if these are merely investors of sorts . . .
Yeah why stick to Old Technology. Blu-Ray is ALREADY old technology. HD-DVD is ALREADY old technology. The time for Terabyte Formats are already here. we already have Holographic media formats that have exponentially more space than blu-ray drives. so yeah Blu-ray is just going to be another Lazer-disc a stop-gap measure for the next generation of superior formats.
Well it would apear that blue ray is now out selling HD-DVD 2 to 1 and has majority of the studios under its belt. With at Hitachi 200 gig blue ray disc on its way it would appear that blu-ray isnt going anywhere for quite some time. Its cheap affordable and contains a 1080p picture quality and 7.1 channels of surround sound how could you go wrong.
This blog posting feels as blustery as a corporate press release. Let’s keep it real.
Teh future is Blu!
I have to say as I am not a technofile… I suppose I would be what many of you are referring to as a “joe consumer” -I watch a lot of movies. I love movies.
I don’t want a blu-ray. I have watched a movie on a blu-ray. I looked at the special features. What a load of crap. I just want to watch a movie and watch a blooper reel. That’s it. I don’t want to play a game with the characters, I don’t want to mash my own car sequence together, I don’t want to watch the movie again and stop at any time and point to something on the screen.. and I don’t wanna have to pay extra money for crap I don’t need or want.
I don’t have an HD tv. I don’t want one. All that HdTV does is make everything look cheap that isn’t filmed in HD and anything that is shot in HD makes me dizzy. If there is going to be a new and exciting form of movie watching so be it – however It is not blu ray. It just isn’t. If that is the best that all the brains in all those companies can come up with I am sorely dissapointed.
MY biggest beef? The part that makes me itchy under my fingernails is that they have taken alllll of the special features off of DVD’s. Give me back my bloopers and just a couple of special features on the dvd- until you get a real viable form of entertainment. They have taken away what made the DVD kind of neat and have forced the DVD into being just a way to watch the movie when it still is a viable form. WHICH THE BLU RAY IS NOT. ergh.