Forum - View topicNEWS: Netflix, Best Buy Choose Blu-ray Disc over HD DVD
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
tidusora
Posts: 65 |
|
|||||
|
Looks like ADV Films can thrive prominently from that announcement, for now.
|
||||||
|
||||||
Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
|
|||||
|
I find the comments that Best Buy was always supporting Blu-Ray to be humorous, if nothing else. Like supporters of a certain long shot Republican candidate, it seems so many HD-DVD fans are now turning their attention to making excuses and pointing fingers to explain why their preferred format failed.
I live only a few miles from Best Buy corporate, and I don't need to tell you there's no shortage of Best Buys around here. I imagine I go to about a dozen or more different Best Buys each year. When this whole thing started I remember going in to Best Buys and thinking Blu Ray didn't stand a chance since it was nothing but HD-DVD everywhere you looked in their stores. I go to the stores more recently and the HD-DVD section was still as big as the BRD section until the past month or so. Some people cite what is displayed in the stores and what is put on endcaps. I worked merchandising and Best Buy for years and when those displays needed to be changed or adjusted or when a rep was coming through it was our team that took care of everything. None of those displays generally exist because Best Buy decides they like one product over another. Pretty much every shelf in those stores is real estate that companies pay Best Buy to place their product on. When something is on an endcap or has a prominent display in the story it is generally because that company paid Best Buy quite a bit to display their product like that for a certain period of time. If a product ran out we would have to replace it with another product from the same brand, since they essentially owned that space. If Best Buy favored BRD, it is more likely because Sony was willing to pay more. |
||||||
|
||||||
Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
|
|||||
For starters it is Blu-ray not Blueray. I own a PS3 and only have bought 3 games in what is close to a year, but have bought nearly 100 Blu-ray movies. Two of my roommates also own PS3s, but own more movies than games. I think one of them doesn't even own any games for the PS3.
Where do you get all of this information? Please show us any evidence that this is remotely true on a national level. This thread's article is also a clear indication that HD DVD is not winning. I can see an argument that HD DVD will be around for a few more years (this is my unscientific guess on what will happen) and will not disappear overnight but all of the sales figures I've seen is closer to 2:1 in Blu-ray's favor.
Once again where are you getting this information? I've considered on a few occasions on upgrading my HD DVD player (to an A35) since they are cheap. The cheapest new HD DVD player online that I can find is still $130 at amazon. This is due to HD DVDs recent price drop following the news Warner was going Blu-ray exclusive. On the other hand the cheapest new Blu-ray player is $322 at amazon. Granted HD DVD players are cheaper (the main selling point for the format) it is a far cry from $100 vs $899. I actually bought my 60GB PS3 when it first came out for $600 (MSRP more than the 20GB) so I have no idea where you got the $800 figure from. I find that HD DVD is not a bad deal at $130 (cheaper than 5 domestic anime releases) and is worth buying for the many hours of Heroes and Battlestar Galactica (at least until Universal decides to release them on Blu-ray) despite the lack of other titles. On the other hand I think the PS3 is well worth it's $400 MSRP for all of the Fox, Disney and Warner films that are not available on HD DVD. I'm actually very confused why there are such format fanboys out there who have nothing but hate for the other format. I for one think both my Toshiba (just watched the Big Lebowski on HD DVD tonight) and Sony are both solid HD machines but sadly enough agree that the industry can only support one format since HD is still (and will continue to be for some time) a niche market much like LDs were in the 80s. I also notice that most people who seem convinced that one format is better than the other only own one format and frequently know very little (even misspell the name) about the other format. Do these people have stock or work for these companies? Why do they have such blind loyalty to these formats? Last edited by Randall Miyashiro on Tue Feb 12, 2008 4:34 am; edited 1 time in total |
||||||
|
||||||
|
DmonHiro
|
|
|||||
|
Sign me up for Blue-Ray. I always knew that HD-DVD would not last much.
|
||||||
|
kittycatgirl2k
Posts: 57 |
|
|||||
|
I hate fanboys.
I would also make the bold statement that more people probably own Blu-Ray players than HD-DVD players simply because the PS3 supports Blu-Ray playback right out of the box whereas you have to buy an add on for the XBox 360 to run a HD-DVD movie. That being said, I have supported both formats until now and knew that one would die out eventually. All these little announcements over the past month have accelerated the death toll for HD-DVD though as more companies are jumping ship on the dying HD-DVD format. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
everybody_loves_hypnotoad
Posts: 46 |
|
|||||
|
I really liked HD-DVD, the biggest draw was that it was absolutely region free. Oh well, guess I better buy a PS3 because, there's no point of buying a stand alone blu-ray player.
|
||||||
|
||||||
phoenixphire24
 Posts: 260 Location: SoCal |
|
|||||
|
Personally, I don't care about either format. With the internet and the spread of wireless, how long before we don't need discs at all? Not only will this save space, but plastic and paper.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
ZeroRyoko1974
Posts: 258 |
|
|||||
|
stick a fork in them, HD DVD is dead. Only Microsoft will continue to beat this dead horse
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
GATSU
Posts: 15344 |
|
|||||
|
Keonyn:
I imagine Sony's desperate to cover the massive losses from low PS3 sales and the subsequent early price drop. If at least BD is a success, then the profit from their cut off each individual disc sold this year should theoretically please share-holders. Still, it bodes badly for the company that demand for MGS4 isn't enough to justify huge early sales of the console as was the case with MGS2 and the PS2. kitty: More people own a Wii than a PS3, though, cus they want games, not up-scaled dvds. 
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
|
|||||
Sigh. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
herbkir
Posts: 251 Location: Michigan |
|
|||||
|
Sony took a beating in the beta-VHS format war, despite having a superior format. But they learned that the way to win a format war isn't through technical superiority. Winning requires getting the major content producers to back their format, through whatever means works.
Blu-ray and HD-DVD essentially do the same thing. Neither had any innate technical advantage perceptible to consumers. So the war was fought in the boardrooms of the content providers. And Sony won this fight. I think this war will offer a lesson to any future developers of new media formats of how to put their format in the winner's circle. (^_*) |
||||||
|
||||||
SoloButterfly
 Posts: 239 Location: Masaki Residence |
|
|||||
|
I held off on buying either format until a winner started to develop (and still have to hold off as I have no money right now). I figured it would be Blu-Ray because it seemed to have more studios backing it from the beginning. It also had several technical advantages. Larger actual and theoretical storage space, theoretically could hold up to four layers, and whether consumers like us who would be interested in importing like it or not, it does have region protection which I guess companies want. But from what I understand, Blu-Ray has only 3 region codes, and the US and Japan are in the same one now, so I'm not gunna complain
 .
Price is higher because of the way it works, but I think that has evened out recently. It'll be interesting to see how many HD-DVD movies will be re-released on Blu-ray as the companies have already converted their facilities for HD manufacturing, and spent lots of money on production and marketing of the titles themselves. |
||||||
|
||||||
zetsuie
 Posts: 193 |
|
|||||
Blu-ray can't hurt anime fans since it offers the possibility of storing an entire series (13-26 episodes) on one disc. Of course anime companies will probably only release like that for box sets in order to save on production costs, but even that would probably be enough to bring some people back to buying anime. |
||||||
|
||||||
braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
|
|||||
But wouldn't the quality be bad if you have 10+ episodes on 1 Blu-ray disc? Last edited by braves on Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||
|
||||||
|
jdnation
Posts: 2010 |
|
|||||
Depends on what you mean... if they're taking traditional SD episodes of anime that we've been getting for years on DVD and stick them on a blu-ray disc, then no, there'd be no loss in quality, though of course they'd still only be SD and not HD. But I can see it working out and blu-ray players will upscale the content for HDTVs. However if they intend to release anime in HD quality then it'll pretty much come to around the same amount of content as you get on DVDs, only high-def and better sound (Unless they keep pushing blu-ray's capacity up, then we might get more content!). But not a lot of anime is in HD, moving forward we can expect to see more anime coming out in HD from bigger studios, but a lot of old anime is only standard definition, and unless companies are going to take those old episodes and digitally remaster them, then it's possible to just take them all, complete shows even and stick them on blu-ray discs and sell them. I'd certainly love the idea. Blu-ray discs can now go up to 100GBs worth of stuff and still be usable on all players thanks to TDK. I think the storage can be pushed further still! And for those arguing that only gamers are buyign blu-ray because of PS3, not hey're not, HD-fanboys continue to conveniently ignore that the PS3 is the best quality and future proofed blu-ray player on the market that all hi-def enthusiasts recommend! So yes, non-gamers are also picking up PS3s specifically for blu-ray. Blu-Ray has been outselling HD-DVD in terms of disc sales by huge margins! Only standalone HD-DVD players are outselling standalone blu-ray players... but that's because they're cheaper than blu-ray and everyone prefers to get the PS3 anyway, it's the best value for your money! Aniem fans are also usually gamers and like Japanese games, so the PS3 is the most suitable choice to that demographic too.
Actually, most people own a Wii because it's the cheapest, and also it's innovative controller and casual games are appealing to everyone. If the 360 and PS3 were around the same price, they'd also be selling about as much, though Wii would still be ahead due to the common denominator games and of course the unique controller so many who didn't play video games before would be picking it up. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group