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misterd on 06 January 2008
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Renar said:
misterd said:
epsilon72 said:
In response to news article: Well duh, of course they were paid off! Companies don't usually make bottom line hurting decisions out of "the goodness of their hearts".

 

Eps, supporting both formats was hurting their bottom line. The HiDef war was supressing support from both consumers and retailers. Having to tailor the same titles to 3 differnet formats increases production costs. It encourage WB to flush money down a blind alley by developing a hybrid disc (compatable with BR and HDDVD), which it had to abandon because no other studio was willing to support it (I think Paramount had signed on, but pulled out when they contacted to be HD exclusive).

If there was really a net profit in supporting both format, WB would not have been the only studio still in this position.


 Yes, I can see supporting both formats would be hurting their bottom line.  But as long as they and Paramount hold out as HD-DVD, they are hurting the BR studios bottom line  by making the market smaller and split.  Thus movies that might ordinarily get bot by a consumer would not if they went down the HD-DVD path.   So, I can see a game of 'chicken' developing.  Who will / did blink first?  Who really needs to be sure that BR succeeds?  

Did Warner go hat in hand to the BR folks, saying "We see the error of our ways.  You're right, and we deserve to paid whatever you want to charge us for BR royalities"?

Or is it more likely that the BR folks, while pretty sure they could win, didn't want the format war to drag on for who knows how long.  And to get it wrapped up this year, customers under 1 format, less confusion over which one to upgrade to, that the BR folks told Warner, "You know, we really like you.  And for our friends, we have a special royality rate."

Basically as dschumm and a few others have said, no cash payoff like the Paramount deal included.  Just a better deal for Warner than otherwise would have happened. 


Again, if you believe the rumors that started 12/31, both sides were offering the money to WB. Warners had no reason to go "hat in hand" to BluRay - they needed Warners as much if not more. That doesn't mean that Warners WAS paid off, but they certainly didn't have to take a crappy deal from BR either. Odds are good both BR and HDDVD had been in constant contact with Warners for months, and doing all they could to "persuade" them to come to their format. That's the nature of the business. It made some sense for Warners to wait and see how this holiday went, and the results were unmistakable, so they could finally tell BR that they were ready to deal.