I am referring to a time way before Warner's move - CEDIA, CES, etc. The high-end players Loewe and Denon announced, etc. The Warner move has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that major manufacturers did not buy into Toshiba's pricing strategy and/or expressed any desire to side with them. I am not even sure why you bring Warner into this.

Pro-B

This is crazy talk. You're saying that what killed HD-DVD was that the price was too low? Given the fact that the HD-DVD players didn't have a fraction of the issues that BD players have (and still do), what does it matter how many manufacturers produced other HD players? The fact that their hardware was aggressively priced was what kept them in the war until Warner's decision.

There were so many reasons why BD ended up winning that it's almost baffling to point to inexpensive players as the downfall of HD-DVD.

The way you worded your earlier post made it sound as if the downfall of HD DVD was that high-end player manufacturers weren't supporting it. Rusty James is disagreeing with that.

The lack of much meaningful hardware backing outside of Toshiba definitely didn't help, but if I were listing the factors that killed HD DVD, that wouldn't be in my top 3 or 4 reasons.

No CE company can take the kind of losses Toshiba was surely taking by selling so low forever. The software sales never came around to help them out, so they had to pull the plug.

Another aspect that can't be discounted is brand loyalty. Many people prefer certain brands. If I'm a Panasonic guy, and I only buy Panasonic, well I can't own an HD DVD player, because Panasonic doesn't see any profitability in developing and marketing a machine against Toshiba's kamikaze pricing.

I believe this is a good reason why Sony is careful to not include Blu-Ray features on the PS3 until there are at least a couple other players from other CE manufacturers that also have those features.

It makes sense that if they lost less money (by keeping player prices near or at par with BD players) that they could sustain the fight longer, have more money to pay off studios, money for marketing, money for subsidized disc prices.

It isn't enough that Blu-Ray won for him, he still feels like he needs to piss on anyone that has anything at all good to say about HD DVD.

I just meant the toshiba news. Obviously I knew there was discussion going on, that's why I added it to the discussion, but thanks.

And how, exactly, is making the silly (and utterly incorrect) comment that Warner "blindsided" Toshiba saying something good about HD DVD?

But there are so many reasons that Toshiba was shooting themselves in both feet that pointing to the one thing that was allowing them to (mildly) compete with the PS3 install base rings terribly false to me.

If WB picked HD-DVD, then everything else would have fallen into place for them. I haven't seen anything official about subsidies or payouts, although it's likely that they did happen, that caused WB to switch officially. But if HD-DVD kept their prices at the BD range (~$400-$500), I think they would have failed even earlier.

Is it inaccurate to say they were blindsided? They were to be the centerpiece of the presentation a day or so after they announced.

Toshiba WAS blindsided.

Then Toshiba was blind, and deserves the fate that befell them. There were rumors of Warner dropping one format for months before it actually happened. And if the rumors that many of the HD DVD faithful keep spouting have any basis in fact, Toshiba was trying to woo Warner to their side, and at some point Warner declined their offer. That alone would have been enough of an indication that bad news was coming to debunk the "blindsided" comments. But you can keep believing them if it makes you feel better, I guess.

Wow... day after Toshiba official killed the other format. Way to be on the bleeding edge.

yeah. the toshiba pulling out links hadn't been posted before that. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but if you bothered to read the first few pages, you'd see that information was already posted numerous times. Posting additional links, with copy of articles does nothing more than clutter an already lengthy thread.

so if they (amazon and DVDempire) are still going to carry the titles while they're being made, what was the point of this 'news' other then grabbing free publicity?

From the language on those quotes ("for the time being") it certainly looks like DVDEmpire will be clearancing out their HD-DVD inventory completely. Maybe Shannon Nutt can give us some more info directly.

Warner stated before the holidays they would see how sales go and then decide on a move. Seeing the sales figures during that time the writing was on the wall, Toshiba must have known that as well.

I would use blindsided to describe what Paramount did to BD last August, ie an unexpected move by dropping the format in a blink of an eye. However, WB rumors of picking a side had been building for weeks. The fact that they actually did choose a side should not have surprised anyone who has kept up with the format war.

Cool, I see you weren't trying to be a jerk and I didn't read that's why I put sorry if repost. Now, I just cluttered it some more, anyway all good. I'm just glad it's looking like the format war is over, so the machines/discs can come down in price and I can jump in.

There is a lot of evidence (albeit circumstantial) that Toshiba was in fact blindsided by WB - because they expected WB to pick THEM, not the Blu-ray camp.

Remember, WB had announced it was participating in the HD DVD press conference scheduled to open CES. And this is from the Digital Bits:


Interestingly, it's being reported by Nikkei this morning (registration required) that some Toshiba executives actually considered suing Warner last month in response to what they considered the studio's betrayal. However (according to the article text):

But the firm realized that such action was impossible "without preparing for the worst, considering Hollywood's overwhelming influence on the U.S. industry," said one executive. America is Toshiba's main market for core operations like computer chips and nuclear power. A misstep there could easily cost a huge amount of business.

The piece also confirmed that as early as February 4th, Paramount was still willing to stick with Toshiba and HD-DVD, but a "sense of crisis grew" at Toshiba nonetheless. From the text:

What would make Toshiba think WB would pick them when sales were double for the same title on BD?

Who knows. We're not privy to behind-the-scenes negotiations/deals. But it is obviously the WB decision, and the domino effect it had, that made Toshiba realize it was time to pull the plug. Otherwise, they'd still be in it. Remember they even bought a Super Bowl ad.

Most likely, they paid for the ad space way ahead of time.

Hollywood BD insider Penton-Man has posted on blu-ray.com that the delay of Paramount's re-announcement of BD support has to do with....money. Apparently, lawyers between Paramount and Toshiba are figuring out a compromise on the remaining incentive payments. Makes perfect sense.

I ALWAYS have been blu when I first started with it in July of 07 with my 40GB PS3 and it is an awesome piece of equipment and a terrific player too. Then my wife and I decided to upgrade our crappy old TV for the Westinghouse 42" 1080p TV at Best Buy. We also got a deal on the Toshiba A3 and plugged it in and what happens? The HDMI did NOT work with my TV and had to use the stupid component wires which only come out to 1080i. That REALLY PISSED me off so I returned to player and exchanged it because I thought it was the player. They gave me the A30 and guess what? The same thing happened! What a crappy piece of machienery! I returned it and got my money back! I even called Westinghouse AND Toshiba and nobody knew what to do. My PS3 has worked flawlessly with my TV. I knew this war was gonna be over, it was just a matter of time! Now all I have to do is wait for some AWESOME Universal and Paramount movies!