Fox's Steve Feldstein Puts The Format war To Rest (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

I need to be very careful about what I say here.

It's amazing that the above is mentioned, because I can totally
relate to what has been said.

I hope that you will believe my absolute sincerity in what I am
about to say because it's so easy for people who disagree to
label me as a studio "shill"....

In all my years with this forum and working with various PR
people from all the studios, there is no person who rises above
the rest as being a class-act than Fox's Peter Staddon.

And you know what? I don't need to tell you this. There are
dozens of members here that have met Peter in person during
our many HTF meets at Fox Studios. There are countless more
members that remember the chats that Peter used to OFFER to
do with us.

There has never been any individual involved with the studio
system who has embraced this forum more than Peter Staddon.

The reasons he did so are quite evident. Peter is a smart
individual. He knew where his consumers were. He reached out
to our community because he realized that we were the voices
that could help shape his studio's product. The man never came
off as being pompous, and it always seemed that his main concern
was over what "we" thought rather than what "he" thought.

I am not too surprised to find that there are others now realizing
the change in attitude from that studio towards this forum.

The fact of the matter is, Peter Staddon was promoted. Not
surprising when you realize that Peter did indeed make a lot of
good choices in his old position that really put Fox Home Entertainment
on the right track.

Steve Feldstein has essentially taken over Peter Staddon's position.
This is the reason why you don't see any chats nor anyone visibly
reaching out to our forum. I'm not here to badmouth Steve -- it's
just that his style is radically different than Peter Staddon.

On the other hand, I can tell you wholeheartedly that everyone
at the studio continues to reach out to this forum. Michael Dunn,
the President of Fox Home entertainment, is one of the nicest guys
you would never think was running a home video division. I can
honestly tell you Mr. Dunn and his staff at Fox read this forum regularly,
and are committed to their consumers on and off this forum.

What I am trying to convey here is that despite the change in
job titles over at Fox and the lack of presence that has been seen
here since, the studio has immense interest in this forum.

I don't personally agree with Steve's statements about X3 and
Playstation. I think the studio has a lot of faith in Blu-Ray and
have put all their eggs into that one basket -- which is fine. However,
from a personal standpoint, HD-DVD has been doing just fine on
its own and I think most of us are kind of taking a "wait and see"
attitude as far as which format will be victorious.

 

[Paul_Scott]

To Steve I would merely say "good luck with that."

 

[ppltd]

Wrong. When we talk about blockbuster status, it only relates to Domestic Gross numbers. Everything is meaningless with regards to wheter the film is a blockbuster or not.

If you want to look at profitability, that is another matter. But even that can be tricky, as non-domestic release rights might be though a different studio. Same goes for rights for the home market.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I have read and reread that article several times and I don’t really see that Fox or Steve Feldstein come across as pompous. Of course he is putting the best spFox’s marketing.

Actually I think that the effort to link game players, the PS3 and X3 is well thought out and probably on target.

The MSRP is clearly too high for the mass market, of course.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Yeah, I mean basically, what else is the studio going to say?

Fox has a lot of faith in Blu-Ray. I have seen first-hand the
amount of effort the studio has put into not only promoting
their upcoming line of releases, but the amount of care in
making sure whatever they do with this format is done right.

Of course they are going to tout Blu-Ray as being the definitive
format, though nobody can say at this point whether it
will be or not.

I'm not offended by Mr. Feldstein's remarks. I read the article in
HOME MEDIA RETAIL and unless there was something else I missed,
I don't see anything in print that shows he is making any negative
remarks towards the HD-DVD camp.

This is all just spin for the media.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Lew,
I agree with you, I think some of us just have a beef against Fox for being such a strong proponent of Blu-ray while stating HD DVD is a weaker format, thus, why they won't support it. Some of us are really taking it personally what is being said publicly by some BR proponents as a personal swipe against them for buying HD DVD players. I bought a HD DVD player and have a second generation player on order, but I view such comments as nothing more than noise as they circle the wagons to fight off the competition of HD DVD.




Crawdaddy

 

[GlennH]

Sure would be nice if Fox and Disney (BR) and Universal (HD DVD) would be like Warner and Paramount in supporting both formats. Then these silly debates could go away and people could just get what they want.

Better yet, let's see a good selection of universal players out there so the studios can choose one or the other software format and it won't matter.

 

[ppltd]

Robert, after reviewing one of my posts above, I realized it, while made tongue in cheek, came off a little strong. I have therefore edited the post. Reading through your response(s) allowed me to reread what the Fox Exec said in a little different context. Thanks.

 

[RobertR]

It's fascinating the degree to which Fox is married to the BR format. I have to believe there's more to it it than what they believe about prospective sales or picture quality. They must be totally sold on the advantages of BR copy protection or some such thing.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Give that man a cigar!




Crawdaddy

 

[AaronSCH]

It is usually HD DVD owners responding to the outrageous comments and prognostications coming from the rather desperate Blu-ray camp. If someone could quote an executive at Toshiba or Universal making such pronouncements I would welcome the opportunity to be enlightened. Why do we not hear these ridiculous statements coming from the HD DVD camp? Maybe they are so confident in the ability of their product to deliver that there is no need to convince people of something that is apparent. I subscribe to the idea that silence is passive agreement or indifference. I don't agree so I choose to speak out. Some call it anger I call it passion.

 

[Mike_G]

Ron,
I respect your position, but I'm a LOOOONG time gamer - way back to the Odyssey 2 and the Coleco Telstar which both pre-dated the Atari 2600.

NOBODY I know cares one iota about the PS3. NOBODY. The same people I've been seeing in and out of my local Gamestop for the last 11 years don't care. None of them have a PS3 on preorder, and we could have ordered one if we wanted to.

If Fox wants to put all their eggs in that basket, I think it's a terrible mistake. IMO they should have taken the Warner approach and supported both and saw what happened afterwards.

The biggest problem with the PS3 is that there are ZERO good launch titles. With the PS2 I was in heaven for months after getting it. I could care less about the PS3's launch titles. Even the Wii isn't doing anything for me. The 360 just continues to kick ass and take names.

You could look at it a different way - there are so many people playing PC games lately. 7.5 million playing World of Warcraft alone. That should tell anyone that the console industry isn't what it used to be.

I own a BR player, but I use it very infrequently. I've considered selling it several times. The only reason why I got it is because I was a big 35mm film collector for many years. I love movies and didn't want to miss out on HD presentations. Right now, I have a tall stack of HD-DVD movies and about 6 BR movies.

Consumers have said for years that a format war would be bad for the industry and I think it's true.

I hope Fox reconsiders its position in the (near) future.

 

[Ron-P]

Well said Aaron.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Aaron,

I don't have the exact article and reply in front of me, so
please excuse me for being just a little vague here. Those
who have been following remarks from both sides of the HD
camps will probably help me out here...

A few weeks ago there was another article in (I believe) Home
Media Retail Magazine that had the media announcing that the
format war had already been won by HD-DVD. I think that this
announcement was made based on sales figures.

Steve Feldstein made a very interesting and humorous reply
in that he thanked the media for declaring a winner before his
studio (and Disney) even entered the Blu-Ray race.

A very good point was made.

Absolutely, Blu-Ray has had a very slow and rather rocky start.
However, very shortly product is going to roll out from Fox and
Disney and we'll soon find out how successful PS3 and other new
Blu-Ray hardware really are.

And Mike (just caught your post), you may be right about
Playstation 3 not being the holy grail that the BR camp is pending
on. I have never been a gamer so it's rather difficult for me to
guage whether people would want to use a gaming console as a
dedicated player for movies.

You know me as being a HD-DVD diehard, but these days I am
very careful about saying anything negative towards Blu-Ray for
the mere fact that I know how much effort is being put into the
the launch this quarter.

 

[Steven Simon]

Crawdaddy..

Give that man 2 cigars

 

[Romar Armas]

The Xbox 360 HD DVD Add-on will be released this month packaged with King Kong. Amazon.com and Amazon.ca is sold out on their first shipment. It would be interesting to see how this turns out.

With the PS3 and Xbox 360 coming into play, things are going to get quite interesting.

 

[BrettGallman]

The fact that the PS3 sold out within thirty minutes shows that your situation is an exception. The PS3 is going to HUGE despite its price.

 

[ppltd]

I agree, and I am a 360 owner. While the PS3 holds no interest to me (neither did the PS2), there is no doubting the impact it will have in the gamming community. Whether it will be able to do the numbers of the PS2 (unlikely) does not take away from the large sales numbers that it will have.

It is likely that it will catch up to the sales of the 360 in the next 18 to 24 months, assuming current growth trends for the 360 continue, and that is just fine. There is more then enough room in the gamming community for two systems, or for that matter, three.

 

[Mike_G]

When there are 12 PS3's to sell, do you really think it's THAT hard to sell them out? That's how many my local Gamestop had.

 

[BrettGallman]

I'm a 360 owner too, and I am absolutely stoked for the PS3. I can't believe it's only 2 weeks away! It seems like only yesterday that the PS2 was coming out. I'm really excited about this generation of consoles in general: there's no doubt that there's more than enough room for all three major consoles, and I think all will thrive.

Now, I don't know how the PS3 is going to impact the Hi-Def format war; I've always said that Blu-Ray can't just rely on curious gamers to buy BDs for the format to thrive, but we'll see.