Sony’s domination = How much profit?

[johnlucas]

sharky said:

Why does this postboard hate Firefox?! I don't wanna go back to IE no more! I just wanna erase these quote trails neatly, that's all!

How is it a cash in if they're driving costs dirt cheap therefore making less money?

Wal Mart now has a hundred million investment in HDDVD, that means they now are going to fully support the format over Blu-Ray, basically.

 

The order is for two million players..considering probably less than 100k stand-alone Blu-Ray players have been sold (meaning, not PS3's), that's a huge magnitude.

Plenty of companies, huge companies, support HDDVD, like Intel, Microsoft, and Toshiba which is a PC OEM that ships millions of PC's.

 

The studios support looks good for Blu-Ray, but a lot of the companies in Blu-Ray camp have offered only half hearted support such as 20th Century Fox. The problem is if the tide swings to HDDVD because of things like this Wal Mart order, they will all jump ship. Sony itself will be the last one to jump ship.

But Sony has a terrible track record with formats, Betamax, Atrac, UMD..is Blu-Ray next?

 

This is profound what you said. The world's largest retail outlet will probably decide the outcome of this HDDVD/Blu-Ray dealie greater than anyone else. If Wal-Mart gets behind HD-DVD it will end up the dominant format simply because of its availability. People forget most of the USA lives in less citified regions and this is where Wal-Mart is king. Wal-Mart/Sam's Club is often whole tri-county area's shopping center. They make these gigantic "Everything Stores" that take over the town and most people just end up going there out of convenience and because it can be hard to find certain things in other stores.

Chicago? Maybe no Wal-Marts much there. New York City? Not much pull by Sam Walton's monster there. Los Angeles? Not quite. Small to Midsize towns with suburbs that make up the bulk of the USA? Wal-Marts galore.

And think about this. Dollar General is the junior Wal-Mart in the making. It's where a lot of poor and working (and cheap) people go to shop. They are a bit late on tech but they also end up getting things eventually. They sell PS1 & PS2 games in the stores. And this store copies the Wal-Mart playbook using cheap labor made products that sell for low prices even after crossing vast oceans and the bother of docking and trucking cross-country. The cheaper smaller up and coming Wal-Mart that will reinforce the majorly selling products years down the line when the cost of the new tech drops and Wal-Mart has made it the dominant format.

Always think bottom up when dealing with audiences. In this greedy world there will always be more poorer than richer. The pyramid of life is always held up by the base. The more specialist stores and slightly more upscale places will also give a choice with some going one way and others going the other way. But Wal-Mart sort of forces everyone else to pick one direction based on sheer availability and convenience. End game: HD-DVD

However that's just USA. The other world markets might go another way or negate both altogether. As for USA though those superstores that take over rural and lightly citified areas decide what goes where. Not those big singular dept. stores in the big cities. They only influence the cities alone great as that influence may be.

Wal-Mart is the epitome of mass market. That's how they became the biggest selling retailer in the world.

That and cheap Chinese labor.

John Lucas

(do you realize that Wal-Mart is so big that they want to start up their own bank??? After awhile Wal-Mart armies and special forces aren't far behind!)