Why I want HD DVD to fight back!

[makingmusic476]

madskillz said:

makingmusic476 said:

madskillz said:
Do any of the single format supporters know anything about business?

Let me give you a scenario: Mom and Pop store sells said item for $15. Wal-Mart comes into town and sells the same item for $7.50. Mom and Pop store can't take that much of a loss, so they lower said item to $10. Wal-Mart lowers item to $6 and guess who wins? Wal-Mart. Why? The mom and pop store can't compete with a giant. Eventually, Wal-Mart offers sooooo many items at lower prices that local businesses fold. Guess what happens then? Without a direct competitor, Wal-Mart sets prices even higher because they can - and no one has a real choice.

The only reason the BR camp lowered prices was to counter HD DVD's charge to the $100 HD player. Had they kept player prices higher, the HD DVD would have expanded the margin of dominance even further. And in the standalone market, HD DVD is absolutely KILLING the BR camp. However, since the PS3 is a BR player, it is added in the sales figures, boosting BR's number.

Had Sony went with a DVD system and not BR, HD DVD would be killing BR, but the PS3 would be knockin' hard on the 360's door.

I'm sorry madskillz, but everytime the format war is brought up, you start spreading anti-Blu-Ray FUD and lies, and I am tired of you BULLISH! (can you please clean this garbage up for the children?) In the standalone market, HD DVD is NOT "killing" the Blu-Ray camp. In fact, Blu-Ray standalones were outselling HD DVD standalones throughout December despite a $100 price premium! The ONLY time HD DVD standalones were outselling Blu-Ray standalones over the past six months were when they dropped to $1-200 back in November, while Blu-Ray players were still $4-500. Even then, they could only outsell BR 1.6:1 despite being less than half the price.

Just look at this slide from Toshiba's CES press conference:

Blu-Ray had 48% marketshare, HD DVD 49%, and dual format p;ayers 3%. After the $99 Wal-mart sale, Toshiba had over 60% marketshare. After Blu-Ray standalones dropped to $299, the BDA managed to gain back almost 10% marketshare. In only a month! As it is, 49% vs 48% marketshare isn't "killing" by any means.

Look at what Bill Hunt at the Digital Bits said:

One of the things you see in the NPD data for this fourth quarter was that even with a $100 [price] premium, Blu-ray set tops outsold HD set tops in December. Even with Toshiba having the lowest-cost player in the market, software sales remained 2 to 1 in favor of Blu-ray.

The consumers have chosen Blu-Ray, despite it's higher price. Deal with it.

You know, from your rant, it's clear you bleed Blu. Folks are using the HD DVD/BR standalone sales AND the PS3 thrown into the mix back and forth. The HD DVD numbers don't even include the 360 add-on!

Even based on the market share figures I have seen (I haven't been following the CES conference and didn't see the current graph until you brought it up), HD DVD isn't killing the BR market, but baffles me folks would rather spend $400 for a BR player when you can get the same quality for half the price. (I have yet to find that $299 BR player you speak of) Still, in my post, the absence of competition would still have the PS3 at $599, the BR players much higher. The price won't fall much further faster once HD DVD dies because there is no direct competition, thus no need to do anything spectacular because Sony knows 'Customers will buy whatever crap we put out because they are just that loyal!'

And the truth be told, the format war isn't over yet. Yeah, Blu won a key battle, but don't think that this is over. Unless I have missed something, Universal and Paramount are still making HD DVD movies. There's no way I am adopting Blu Ray until DVDs are dead. If the HD DVD format dies, oh well. As long as my HD DVD players can play regular DVDs and my HD DVDs I have (and will buy at fire sales), I will be a happy camper.

Deal with it? No sir, I don't need to. I have no plans whatsoever to go Blu anytime soon.

Both the Sony S300 and the Samsung BD-P1400 dropped to $299 at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc., and even lower at Amazon, about a week after Black Friday. Even the Sharp BD-HP20 was $299 for a while.

Actually, the BD-P1400 dropped below $270 on Amazon for a short amount of time, and dropped to $280 at CostCo over the holidays.

As to why people would spend more on a Blu-Ray player, that's your biggest problem. You can't see things from other people's point of view. There are plenty of reasons why somebody would choose Blu-Ray over HD DVD, much like there are plenty of reasons to choose HD DVD over Blu-Ray. There are two main reasons why I think somebody may have chosen BR over HD:

1. Higher bitrates and larger storage capacity. This may only matter to the vieophiles like me, but videophiles make up a large part of the early adopter crowd.

2. Studio support. Prior to Paramount stabbing Blu-Ray owners in the back (how would you like to recieve an e-mail saying your pre-orders have been canceled? At least Warner is supporting HD DVD for an extra five months), every major studio except for Universal was releasing on Blu-Ray. To many investing in a movie format, movie selection is key. The second most important studio after the giant Warner (and some argue that it is the most important studio, even more important than Warner) is Disney. Disney is the tipping point for many families, such as my sister's, and it pushed many people to choose Blu-Ray out of the two.

And yes, I agree that HD DVD played quite a hand in getting Blu-Ray to lower prices. However, the time for that has passed. Prices can only drop so much lower, and competition between standalone manufacturers and between the ps3 and standalones are enough to get them to the $100 mark. At this point in the game, HD DVD sticking around would cause more harm than good, as consumer confusion would still be high, slowing adoption of either format. Prices will always be high if the formats remain niche, as it will be the only way for CEs to recoup R&D costs selling in such low volumes.