HD DVD Will win and this is why:
- Thread starter Skyhi
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You can argue the price of blu-ray players but this holiday season is not going to see a winner of this format war, period. There are too many releases backing each side, especially newer ones. I personally don't believe Borne, Shrek 3 and Transformers can win the format war, not even at $98 player prices because the blu-ray releases are just too strong, and I don't feel it a bargain even at $98.00 to buy a machine where I can't play 70% of the Hollywood movies (That would be the libraries of 20th Century Fox, United Artists Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Walt Disney, Starz, Anchor Bay, Touchstone, Miramax MGM, and Lionsgate).
The prices for blu-ray players, I believe, are going to be equal to that of hd-dvd by mid 2008. Surely hd-dvd can't go any lower in price on the players than 98.00 lol. So they will be equal in price while the war is continuing. Also, by then Blu will be fully compatable with all interactivity. I believe blu-ray still has the best chance of winning this war. Toshiba did everything they could, but this holiday will just not be the deciding factor. I think they wasted 150 million dollars, not to mention the loss on those $98.00 players a few weeks ago. Aside from that, with support of 92% of the hardware manufacturers for players, it's almost an impossible odds game here for Toshiba alone (oh, and Onkyo and the Ventura). Blu ray has also added Sharp, Onkyo, Daewoo, and in addition to Sony (stand-alone and Playstation), Panasonic, Pioneer, Phillips, Lite-on, Mitsubishi, Samsung,Funai, Loewe, making it huge support hardware-wise.
The prices for blu-ray players, I believe, are going to be equal to that of hd-dvd by mid 2008. Surely hd-dvd can't go any lower in price on the players than 98.00 lol. So they will be equal in price while the war is continuing. Also, by then Blu will be fully compatable with all interactivity. I believe blu-ray still has the best chance of winning this war. Toshiba did everything they could, but this holiday will just not be the deciding factor. I think they wasted 150 million dollars, not to mention the loss on those $98.00 players a few weeks ago. Aside from that, with support of 92% of the hardware manufacturers for players, it's almost an impossible odds game here for Toshiba alone (oh, and Onkyo and the Ventura). Blu ray has also added Sharp, Onkyo, Daewoo, and in addition to Sony (stand-alone and Playstation), Panasonic, Pioneer, Phillips, Lite-on, Mitsubishi, Samsung,Funai, Loewe, making it huge support hardware-wise.
Anybody knows the number of non-PS3 BD players sold?
The last I heard, it was under 200K.
Diogen.
I have no problem buying 2 for 1 and making Sony bleed. Rest assured I will never buy at regular price.
I sure would like to know where you get your figures from:
The total United States film catalog (distribution rights for US only) break down as follows.
====================================================
Number of Titles
Warner Brothers 3019
Warner Brothers (Pre 1985 MGM Titles via Ted Turner) 2572
New-Line Cinema 521
Common 6112
Paramount 5370
Dreamworks 104
Universal 5157
Anchor Bay 596
Orion 200
Columbia Pictures 4224
20th Century FOX 2919
MGM/United Artist (Purchased By Sony) 1945
Buena Vista 812
Lionsgate 472
Sony Pictures 336
Tri-Star Pictures 241
Disney 238
Miramax 93
=====================================================
HD DVD 16743 Total (10631 exclusive)
Blu-ray 17392 (was 22866) total (11280 exclusive) Blu-ray loses 5474 releases
Common 6112 21.8 (was 41 %) HD DVD 10631 37.9% ( was 18.4%) Blu-ray 11280 40.3% (was 40.3%)
Total titles: 28,023
6112 is 21.8%
10631 is 37.9%
11280 is 40.3%
Basically 18% of the titles went from Common to HD DVD
S~
Note: SOny Pictures are distributed by Columbia before anyone rags about the number of Sony titles. TOuchstone is a subsidiary of Disney and Distributed by BV. UA (part of the Sony consortium) lost most of their library and are now in the hands of various studios inclusing Warner, Paramount, MGM, Sony consortium.
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Did you bother to add all of the companies that the other studios release for? For instance, MGM releases many indes and smaller companies like American International, for example. Between the blu-ray exclusive companies, there are thousands of films they own rights to,and Paramount doesn't even own many of their pre-1950 titles. Those figures may be accurate for the studio releases, but not for movies owned by the studios now for video rights. I might also add that the number of pre-1970 Universal films that had big boxoffice success is very very small, aside from the Hitchcock and the Universal horror, Universal never produced hits that compared to Lawrence of Arabia, Sound of Music, King and I, Bridge on the River Kwai, Oliver, Funny Girl, Patton, Sand Pebbles, Longest Day, Snow White, ect. That makes the Universal pre-1970 library much less attractive as far as upcoming classic releases. Plus, the contract is up soon on the video rights ownership of the part of the MGM library that Warner has been releasing. Those will go back to MGM and be blu-ray exclusive. This adds significantly wanted titles for the blu-ray format. Another important point is not in classics, but current boxoffice hits. In 2008, about 70% of the blockbuster theatricals will be blu-ray exclusive. You are talking about exclusive current hits of Paramount and Universal, compared to current hits of Fox, MGM, Columbia, Disney and the others. Plus the new Tom Cruise-owned United Artists, those will also go to blu as MGM has contract for UA including new theatricals.
It is interesting how your figures show the most released titles from Universal and Paramount, the 2 hd-dvd exclusive companies. MGM did not lose the UA titles, all Bond, movies like Chitty Bang Bang and other ua titles are all released through MGM. Check it out on the dvds of any UA title, especially those after 1945.
You like 70% don't you? There is no way to determine what a market share will be for the upcoming year. If you want to use this years box office totals as a guage, Universal and Paramount alone held 28.5% of the BO. Warner and New Line (neutral) held 18.5. That is not including any of the Independents they distribute for. There's 47% of the Box Office available for HD DVD owners. As for titles, there are 21 titles that reached $100m this year. Bee Movie and American Gangster are doing well after 2 weeks in release and will most likely reach that goal, also. 12 of those 21 titles are available to HD DVD owners. Either way you lok at it, that's around 50%.
5/21=24%
7/21=33%
9/21=43%
Paramount has 46 films coming out next near including Star Trek, Indiana Jones (won't be released on either format but will score huge at the box office but things could change by then), Iron Man, Spiderwick Chronicles to name a few that will do well. Universal has 52 films being released next year including Incredible Hulk, Jurassic Park 4, sequals to Mummy and Scorpian King, Hellboy 2 to name a few. There will also be some good sleepers like Knocked up. MGM/UA has 22 films, only Bond 22 looks like it will do well, might be another though. Warner has 46 including Harry Potter, which will be huge. So there is no way that BD exclusive studios will hold 70% of the Box Office exclusively.
By the way, I am neutral, I own two BD players and 3 HD-DVD players. So I buy what I like. Go purple and start being an HD fan. I just can't stand the FUD being spread. Next.....
S~
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