Blu-ray loses the format war?

[AlexJ]

At least one analyst (http://www.technewsworld.com/story/WIkqRmgiiUw0IV/Blu-ray-Loses-RhapsodyMTV-Target-iTunes-Weakness-Product-of-the-Week.xhtml) has predicted that Blu-ray has now lost the HD format war. It's come about because of the upcoming launch (http://www.venturer.com/news-details.aspx?id=15) of cheap HD DVD players from the far east in time for Christmas and the switch of Paramount and Dreamworks to HD DVD. Now I still think it's too early to decide, there are still films on either format and the studios aren't going to have the last say. If BR-RW drives come out cheaper/earlier than HDDVD-RW then that will hand the advantage back to Sony.

Another thing the analyst quotes as being a key factor is the "failure" of the PS3. "This means that developers, instead of favoring Sony with their best stuff, are now concentrating on the Xbox first, and increasingly the Wii." Again this comment seems premature to me, the PS3 has a lot of ground to catch up on the other two, but it's yet to have it's first Christmas sales period. 3rd party developers are notable by their absence for the most part on Wii. Not just this, but the "best stuff" will inevitably require the best platform and PS3-exclusives due to hardware limitations are likely to appear in the next 12 months or so. The guy doesn't seem to realise that the capabilities of games consoles aren't really stretched until 2-3 years after it's release meaning the 360 is now showing near it's full potential while a near identical port on the PS3 will be using only part of it's capabilities.

[Harrison]

I agree. It is still way too early to make such predictions. This guy is making assumptions based purely on the current market and not on past trends and how the market for previous console generations as evolved and changed over time.

I also still don't think a prediction on the HD format war can be made either yet. Way too early, and as far as I know the majority of the general public haven't even bought into the HD era yet.

Favoring Xbox first? I think this comment is made by someone looking purely at current release dates from both systems and not taking into account the huge time difference in the release dates of the two platforms. Of course the 360 will have more releases before the PS3 due to it existing a year before it!

Any such articles written at the moment are complete speculation and have no substance or evidence to back them up. We need to wait until the end of next year, then we will see a better picture of what is really happening.

[FOL]

To be honest, I hope they do loose the war, cause there are to many formats already. My job is made even harder by this fact. I end up out on call on a daily basis going to customers who have bought the wrongs discs.

Its the same as HD Ready, every salesman tells their customers, you can take it home and watch tv in HD straight from the box, then guess what, im out on call again cause the customer says its faulty. They dont understand you have to buy extra's to make it HD.

Sorry, im rambling, just I feel strongly about all this as its directly related to my trade.

[Sharingan]

Tomorrow you'll find an 'analyst' who predicts the exact opposite. And so it goes on. And on.

Whatever the outcome of the BR-disc/HD-DVD war, it doesn't really affect me. If one wins, I'll pick up the corresponding player to play movies with - when the prices come down. I didn't even own a dedicated DVD-player (save for my PS2) until about one and a half year ago, go figure.

[Harrison]

The difference with DVD was that there was no competition. Which was a bit strange as normally other companies are always trying to develop a competing format for most things.

Analysts are just that. They analyse the data they are given and give predictions. All just guesswork.

[J T]

Analysts are just that. They analyse the data they are given and give predictions. All just guesswork.

Let's be generous, educated guesses.

It's still too early to say for sure, neither format really appeal to the everyday person right now, many are still happy with the quality of their DVDs - and as FOL said many don't really have a clue about high-def formats other than "it's the next big thing, because 'X,Y,Z' say so"