Re: BREAKING NEWS!! Warner Brothers is now Blu-ray Exclusive
I fully do not agree that what happens in the next year is an indicator of whether or not HDM is doomed.
First of all:
the format war is not over until HD-DVD officially bows out and all major studios support Blu-Ray. Those of us "in the know" understand that WB's announcement is close to a death knell for HD-DVD, but until their product is off store shelves, there is still going to be the mass consumer confusion/indifference. With Paramount signed on for potentially another 15 months, HD-DVD may not concede until 2009 [or later, if Toshiba really wants to see this through to the end], thus things will still be muddled for consumers for much of 2008.
And think about this: it took
over a year for DVD hardware to ship one million units (not sell, ship). And I'm counting from the official nationwide launch, not counting the six month, seven test city period. DVD had no rival, no competition at the time, as VHS was largely a rental format and LD was a small niche device. If you look at that chart, DVD player sales don't take off until 1999, which is the year after all seven studios supported DVD (I think Disney and the other holdouts joined some time in 1998). Neither HD format can currently claim either 1) a lack of competing format, or 2) complete studio support, as of now or the near future, so it isn't fair to judge their success/failure by current or near-future standards.
Interestingly, though, as I linked to, it took about a year or so for DVD to hit 1 million hardware units shipped.
HD-DVD claims 750K players sold and BD claims 2.7 million players (both figures include game consoles/add-ons so are admittedly inflated), which when you compare with the first year-plus of DVD's release doesn't look too shabby. Also remember that the late 90s were economically very different than today - dot com hadn't changed to dot bomb yet (2000-1), gas prices were around $1.50 per gallon, the housing market hadn't begun to crash, the nation wasn't facing a looming recession, hadn't gone through 9/11, the country wasn't involved in a war, the dollar was much stronger. All things which play a big factor in consumer spending.
DVD really took off in the second holiday season without competition, its first with full studio support, so I think it's only fair to give its successor at least that long. Even if HD-DVD were to bow out tomorrow, the 2008 holiday season would be the first that BD would have without competition/confusion, and probably won't have full studio support until 2009.
All I'm saying is: give it a real chance. Don't judge it based on what happens in the next 12 months because, as I've pointed out above, it wouldn't be fair.
