Reed Hastings Once Again Calls for HD-DVD Format Truce as Sony Delays Release of Blu-Ray
I have commented before on Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ call for format agnosticism regarding Toshiba’s HD-DVD and Sony’s Blu-Ray technology. Now that Sony has pushed back the American release of its Blu-Ray DVD players to October, Hastings has reiterated this demand, citing the presence of consumer anxiety in the face of competing formats that will assuredly dampen DVD sales for both Toshiba and Sony. And to make matters worse, Samsung apparently has a third type of Hi-Def DVD player on the market (although it is almost impossible to find).
I think Hastings is completely correct. Unless Sony, Toshiba, and maybe even Samsung, get on the same page with this, Hi-Def DVD technology will never be embraced. Consumers need to be confident that in buying a new type of DVD player they are not buying another Sega Saturn, MiniDisc Player, Panasonic 3DO, or any other destined-to-fail piece of home entertainment technology.
[Via Net Music Countdown]
August 31st, 2006 at 7:55 pm
I don’t see this happening for at least a year. Sony has already lost too much by holding out, they aren’t going to abandon their monopolistic ways until they have a chance to launch their PS3 and see if they can get market share. It was a smart move to do a head fake with Microsoft a year ago to keep them from adding HD-DVD to their Xbox 360 and I bet in retrospect Softie would have done it, if they knew how long it would be for Bluray to launch, but the truth is that we are at least a year away from seeing the war resolved and maybe even not then if both sides can’t out sell the other. I think a more likely scenario is that we’ll see HDTV won by the cable companies and that the studios will eventually lose to the conveinance of VOD in SD.
September 1st, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Interesting take on the Microsoft connection. I’d never thought of that.