| Prodigy_BE said: I know what Sunk Costs mean, but people pull out of businesses all the time. Sega's Dreamcast had a "sunk cost", and they decided to stop producing their console because they would never make money. I don't really think you understand the impact of Sony winning out with blu-ray. This is going to be the format for the next 5 to 7 years, and if MS makes a new console, it wil HAVE to contain a blu-ray drive. Because that tech will be the only one which is cheap to produce (by then). But that puts them in a tight spot, because Sony will get money for every Xbox 720 they sell, and every game they sell. Shareholders know this, and are NOT happy with the way things are going. Why the hell do you think MS gave Paramount 100 million USD to stick with HD-DVD? Their only hope now is for Digital Distribution to catch on very fast, but frankly, most parts of the world are just starting to have high speed internet. And their 720p hd-ready movies, which you can play two times, and are then deleted, are no match against a BD-disk which you can store, lend out to friends, of watch later on. I'm telling ya, if PS3 surpasses them in the USA, there's a 50% chance MS will pull out of the console war. Because if they can't win now, blu-ray and their bad reputation (RROD, the fast abandonment of Xbox 1 and probably Xbox 360) will prevent them from winning the next round. Their plan was good, but they didn't see the RROD coming, and they didn't think Nintendo would rise from its grave. So right now, they have their hardest battle before them, and not much ammo in their rifle. |
BAHAHA. Just last year people were comparing the PS3 to the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast never made money, the 360 is currently making hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter. It isn't going anywhere.
Listen to yourself for a moment. Even assuming that Blu-Ray becomes the standard (and it will NEVER be ANYWHERE near the size of DVD), do you actually think that MS will not use it because a consortium of Blu-Rays investors (over a dozen companies only one of which is Sony) will also receive a royalty?
As for why MS may have (I say may because this was never proven) given Paramount money? Two reasons. The first was too prolong the format war to give downloads more time to expand. The second was because Microsoft did a lot of the software development for HD DVD, so they had a vested interest in keeping it afloat.
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