Blu-Ray Geared To Win Format War
The Blu-ray and HD-DVD Battle Looks To Be Coming to an End
HD-DVD and Blu-ray have been embroiled in a format war, however Warner Bros' switch to Blu-ray and the PS3 seem to be intricate moves towards a victory.
Before it was HD-DVD and Blu-ray it was Laser Disc and DVD and before that it was Beta and VHS. The format wars have been raging for decades but one thing is for sure, there is always an obvious winner. Laser Disc for example bowed out fairly quickly and Beta eventually succumbed to the power of VHS but HD-DVD and Blu-ray is gearing up for a long war, or so it seemed a month ago.
Blu-ray which is the brainchild of the Blu-ray Disc Association, a cumulative effort by several companies, has had a strong showing in the last month and is becoming an obvious and significant threat to its rival HD-DVD, a product of Toshiba.
The companies have been openly competing for the affections of consumers and production studios alike, hoping that a large consumer base would draw production studios to them and vice versa. In December HD-DVD was holding a solid hand with Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks exclusively working with them and a handful of other studios producing titles on both formats. One of the biggest assets to both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray was Warner Bros. which was producing both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs.
Warner Bros. is a subsidiary of Time Warner and noted as one of the largest film production companies in the world. They have claim to an impressive film library that includes Blood Diamond, The Ocean’s series and the much beloved Harry Potter films.
On January 5th, the company announced, in a public press release, they would drop HD-DVD in favor of Blu-ray and begin producing exclusively on the format in the summer. It was certainly a huge blow to the HD-DVD format and helped spike Blu-ray disc and player sales.
In Jan. Diane Garrett reported for Variety that Market research showed that a week prior to the announcement sales of the two formats were evenly split, the week following Blu-Ray took nearly 95% of the sales. The HD-DVD market plunged 88% and the Blu-Ray sales rose some 42% according to the NPD group research.
While one week of sales does not prove to be a definitive trend it seems that the wind is certainly blowing in Blu-rays direction and it’s likely other companies will soon follow Warner Bros. example and jump ship to help quickly end the format war.
Format wars are not conducive to sales for anyone, in fact the war puts a damper on the introduction of the new format to most consumers as they tend to take a wait and see approach to buying certain products. With something like a disc player most consumers would rather have a single option as they are aware eventually one will win and they likely do not want to spend more money if they’ve bought the wrong format.
Blu-ray has also been given a boost by the Sony PS3. The gaming device is a complete entertainment solution and includes a Blu-ray player even in it low end model. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 supports the HD-DVD format but only if the consumer buys and extra add-on that costs roughly $200.
It seems Blu-ray Disc has certainly won one of the major battles but as many experts note dancing on the grave of HD-DVD already might be a tad premature.
