Format war? I don't think so... · 2006-04-24 18:03 by Damian
Yesterday I wandered through the aisles of the local Eden store (a big chain that sells anything that runs on electricity), and in the midst of the flatscreen heaven that is the TV department, I noticed a demo station for Toshiba’s new HD-DVD player. A demo reel of Biohazard was running, and it actually didn’t look very impressive. Also, people didn’t really seem to notice it all that much. I played around with it a little, and sure enough – it felt pretty much like a standard DVD player. However, walking away from the display I realized one thing:
I don’t think there’s going to be a fierce format war this time around. Why? There’s just not enough incentive for people to upgrade. Sure, people like you and me with a keen technology interest have been following the buildup of HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray for more than a year now, picturing fierce battles being fought by blue laser-wielding executives from Sony and Toshiba. But in all of our excitement over HD-content, we’ve forgot one thing – the rest of the people don’t really care.
So what’s going to happen? Well, some early adopters everywhere have already went out and got the Toshiba HD-DVD player. They’ve got a bit of a headstart over Blu-ray, but not a very significant one. Once the first Blu-ray players hit the market in a few months the same thing will happen again, another bunch of early adopters will run out and get a first-generation player.
The vast majority of people will still not care. They’ve heard about the rumored “format wars”, but don’t really know what to make of it. In any case, they won’t really care about any new format until it becomes a lot more affordable than the $500 that the Toshiba player sells for. Mind you, here in Japan it sells for JPY 99,000 – $860, not exactly fuelling its popularity.
The playing field will actually be fairly level until November when Sony launches the Playstation 3. Through the sheer volume of units shipped, Blu-ray will instantly gain a huge installed base. This alone will tip the scale solidly in Blu-ray’s favor. Because of the bigger user base, more content will be released for Blu-ray, and after that I expect that HD-DVD will wither away.
However, regardless of who wins, I don’t think the format will be anywhere near DVD in terms of growth. DVD’s will be around for a long time, players are cheap, there’s tons of content available, and for everyone with a normal TV it’s good enough already.
Everyone already knows that using the PS3 to launch the Blu-ray format was Sony’s plan all along. With so much of Blu-ray’s future resting on the PS3, Sony obviously had no choice but to delay the console to wait for the specifications to be finalized. While I’m sure that their strategy will definitely win the Blu-ray – HD-DVD war for them, it remains to be seen how big piece of the next-gen gaming market they lost to Revolution and Xbox 360 by doing so. A bold gamble indeed.
One thing is certain, here in Japan the PS3 – Xbox 360 war has already been won by Sony, even though the PS3 won’t launch for another six months. In any case, I don’t really care that much, I’ll be playing Kid Icarus on the Revolution while I wait to see which of the other platforms will have the best games. As for Blu-ray or HD-DVD, I’ll get a burner for my PC to use for backups, DVD’s just don’t cut it anymore. Whichever format has the cheapest blank discs will get my business.
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