Week 4 - Top News

"HD War" is over?
(This story is based on the premise that Reuters is correct in their scoop)

When I awoke this morning, I found it no surprise that Reuters confirmed that Toshiba, the main driving force behind the HD-DVD format, would no longer be manufacturing HD-DVD players. However, it is somewhat of a surprise to see them just drop manufacturing altogether. If Reuters is correct, the company stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on this decision. But why would they decide to stop the production?

There have been many queues in the past several months, but it all started back in June 2007. The domino that started it all was Blockbuster, when they decided to go Blu-Ray only and not offer HD-DVD to their customers (however, let it be known, that I have never seen an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc in any Blockbuster ever - apparently they are only carried at select locations.). The world seemed to shrug this decision by Blockbuster off, because their revenue was down and their company seemed to be fading away (thanks to Netflix). Then in January 2008, Warner Bros. Studios stopped manufacturing their movies on HD-DVD format and decided to go completely Blu-Ray. This brought them up to par with the likes of Disney. Then just this week alone, both Netflix and Wal-Mart, the biggest seller of all DVD media, dropped the HD-DVD format for Blu-Ray discs.

This strange play of events has one company extremely happy and soon to be much richer; Sony. Top game analysts and major game publishers called the mandatory inclusion of a Blu-Ray player in the Playstation 3 (PS3), which resulted in a higher price tag, a huge mistake. They claimed the high price tag would discourage the average consumer from purchasing the new Playstation 3 (PS3). Apparently Sony gambled on the right format, because it looks like they won their first format war, after losing every other one in the past (ATRAC, Betamax, UMD)

This story has impact and timeliness due to the fact that people who already purchased HD-DVD players are out of luck and people that were on the fence waiting for war to end can now buy the winner with no buyer's remorse.

This story most certainly also has prominence because of Sony's defeat in the past. No one thought they would win, but yet here they are.

Last but not least, this story also has currency. This directly affects the high definition era in the years to come. Now instead of deciding whether to buy an HD-DVD player, or a Blu-Ray player based on movie availability, the public will now have to worry about buying the "most affordable" Blu-Ray player.

Link found here: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSL1643184420080216