Pacther: MS to pay Sony $150-$250million in royalty for Blu-Ray. Says he is right 70-80% of the time

[Alby_da_Wolf]

pezus said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

[...]

The current 18 board members (as of June 2013) are:[4]

    Dolby Laboratories Inc.
    DTS Inc.
    Hitachi, Ltd.
    Intel Corporation
    LG Electronics
    Mitsubishi Electric
    Oracle Corporation
    Panasonic Corporation
    Pioneer Corporation
    Royal Philips Electronics
    Samsung Electronics
    Sharp Corporation
    Sony Corporation
    TDK Corporation
    Technicolor
    20th Century Fox
    Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group
    Warner Bros. Entertainment

[...]

It's possible that Sony's share be 10% or even something more, but 20-30% is very unlikely. Samsung, Philips, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Sony, LG, Pioneer and Hitachi are, or were when they created association and standard, all big in optical drives, while TDK is the biggest of the whole association in optical discs, Oracle provided the Java dialect for the interactive contents, Intel, Dolby and the others added some other things. But even just counting the biggest members in the sole optical tech and imagining other techs account for, say, no more than 10%, it's quite difficult to stretch Sony's share up to 20% or beyond.
But let's accept 20%, that means something less than $2 per unit from MS to Sony, not $2-3.

Anyhow, like I already wrote, I still think that if we sum the money on HW and installed SW and FW royalties, plus the royalties on discs, plus the value of MS endorsing and helping spreading the standard (relative value further increased by the fact that during the format war MS was instead fighting AGAINST BD), the benefit for Sony is far bigger than those hundreds million $.

This article from 2008 speculates:

"The royalties will be split among several players, said Doherty.

Blu-ray has a lot of grandfathers. A lot of people call it a Sony standard but by our estimates Sony doesn't even have 30 percent of the IP," Doherty said. The top four intellectual property holders are likely Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Warner."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9874317-7.html

"Sony doesn't even have 30 percent" sounds to me like they could be somewhat close to that number.

Even counting only the 9 initial members and taking into account those four were the top IP holders, they'd have to divide a share smaller than 100%, as the others members have a share too. Then you must add the other 9 members that entered later, each one giving its big or little contribution. TDK gave a big one, amongst its tech contributions there was one for hardening the external layer of the discs enough to not require a cartridge. Then there is Oracle, owner of Java, used as basis for BD-J. Then there are the patents cross-licensed on audio and video codecs, processing and filters. Then there is one of the most important techs in BD, and its most iconic, the blue laser diode itself, Sony owns part of the techs of one of the most widespread implementations, but it isn't the sole owner of it and it hasn't exclusive rights on it, this contributes to further divide royalties on the most important patents of the standard. And all this just to mention the most known contributions. "Doesn't even have 30%" doesn't necessarily mean "close to 30%", it depends on the context, and this one was quite negative, about denying that BD was a mainly Sony-owned standard. Add that he wrote "the top four are LIKELY", not surely and implying their share exceed the one of others but not overwhelmingly. Anyhow, as I wrote, stretching Sony's estimated share to 20% starts being in the difficult range, but not impossible or unlikely, stretching it further becomes unlikely. We are still in the same order of magnitude for the estimate, anyhow, unlike those that underestimate Sony's share putting it around or below 10% and underestimating the royalties due on each console too, making the order of magnitude drop from hundreds to tens million $. Anyhow, as I wrote, MS adoption of BD will probably help Sony in a far larger measure than the money directly given to it.