| FishyJoe said: Wal-mart sells over half the DVDs in the USA. Wal-mart is going to nickel and dime to get the best deal. It's anybody's guess if they will choose one or both formats, but they could change the face of the format wars in an instant. Wal-mart could sell 4.5 million players in a week if the price was low enough. |
It's more complicated than that. You need an up-to-spec HDTV for next-gen video to really shine, and then you need distribution outlets so that people can buy/rent next-gen media. All the parts have to fit before you make a single penny of profit. Sony's BluRay strategy is a product of bitter experience - a long time ago, they had a great product, the Betamax, and got clobbered by Toshiba's less sophisticated VHS standard, because Toshiba emphasized access and availability. With BluRay, Sony made sure the studios and infrastructure were rolled out first.
The funny thing is, Microsoft never understood this side of Sony's strategy. I'm not sure why, they have some bright executives. Maybe they're just too much of a computer company to think like a media company.
