A rumor of offers between $250-500 million being offered by BOTH camps has been around for a few days. Warners has, near as I can tell, said only that incentives did not change their decision - not that they have not taken such incentives, or that they were not offered.

Realistically, the arguments for them to go BluRay, rather than remain the sole company straddling both formats, are pretty conclusive. It is likely that they would have declared BR at some point. Any money that might have changed hands (if it did, and I am not saying it did because there is NO EVIDENCE to support it besides rumors and some oddly phrased answers by WB) would have only had the effect of having them declare sooner, rather than wait for their HDDVD contracts to run out.

No Victory is had without challenging its validity it would seem. I doubt we'll ever see confirmation of such rumors given the nature of business place politics. All I know is that it would explain a great deal of the goings on with the format wars, but then again that, like anything, is questionable.

@ Onimusha12

I am a sony troll!? Wow, Armageddon must be near. My argument is right there, you are celebrating a rumor as if it's true. It's like you get some sort of sick pleasure when you are able to say anything horrible about sony, and are severly bitter when something their way happens, and must say something to try to bring down people from being happy. You genuinely do not like Sony as a company, for no other reason than that you own a competing console, and feel compelled to post in any thread that sheds sony in a good light. You troll the sony games databases, and post negatively about games in there, because you have nothing better to do. You are a blatant troll. Also, I was banned for a not-smart reason. I called someone dumb. People have called me and many members on this thread more than that, but I got banned, didn't make multiple accounts, took my week off from this site, wasn't a nuisance and came back.

sieanr said: ssj12 said: this is fake.. they denied this yesterday Funny that you had/have no problem claiming MS bought out Paramount exclusivity despite how they denied those rumors in the exact same way.

Paramount didn't deny the payoff at all (although I highly doubt it came from MS). They just wouldn't confirm the exact figure:

http://www.dvdfile.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6279

"Viacom (Paramount’s parent company) CEO Philippe Dauman was specifically asked about the financial deal later in the day.  He didn't deny the payoff, but added, “I won't comment on that number."

Warner have explicitly denied it. If it was true, the standard line for businesses to take is: "no comment".

What I don't understand is why those who came up with this BS didn't think of a more realistic number. $500m to make a sound business decision???? Just too far fetched. 

DMeisterJ said: @ Onimusha12 I am a sony troll!? Wow, Armageddon must be near. My argument is right there, you are celebrating a rumor as if it's true. It's like you get some sort of sick pleasure when you are able to say anything horrible about sony, and are severly bitter when something their way happens, and must say something to try to bring down people from being happy. You genuinely do not like Sony as a company, for no other reason than that you own a competing console, and feel compelled to post in any thread that sheds sony in a good light. You troll the sony games databases, and post negatively about games in there, because you have nothing better to do. You are a blatant troll. Also, I was banned for a not-smart reason. I called someone dumb. People have called me and many members on this thread more than that, but I got banned, didn't make multiple accounts, took my week off from this site, wasn't a nuisance and came back.

I see nothing good is going to come of furthering this fruitless game. You claim I'm celebrating a rumor when I've done nothing by state its likelihood. You claim I've raided the PS3 game database with trolling when I've maybe only commented on one or two games. You're clearly of a hypocritical double standard disposition here so any attempt to reason with you will just further your own dellusions of victimization.

You'd better shape up if you don't want a second ban.

Played_Out said: Paramount didn't deny the payoff at all (although I highly doubt it came from MS). They just wouldn't confirm the exact figure: http://www.dvdfile.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6279 "Viacom (Paramount’s parent company) CEO Philippe Dauman was specifically asked about the financial deal later in the day. He didn't deny the payoff, but added, “I won't comment on that number." Warner have explicitly denied it. If it was true, the standard line for businesses to take is: "no comment". What I don't understand is why those who came up with this BS didn't think of a more realistic number. $500m to make a sound business decision???? Just too far fetched.

You think 500 million is far fetched? Consider that the home video market is worth 50 billion over the next decade then look at that tiny little 500 million number again. *Assuming* that BD can fully supplant DVD, it would likely be a 50 billion dollar payoff on a 500 million dollar investment. Owning Warner/Fox + Paramount and Universal would have all but assured that HD-DVD would be the HD format. The opposite has all but assured BD will be the HD format.

This is worth way, way more than 500 million. Sony potentially lost an order of magnitude more than 500 million putting BD into the PS3. It's been a very expensive investment for Sony, which is why it is one they could not afford to lose. The stakes are high -- so high that 500 million for victory is *easily* a no-brainer.

@DMeisterJ: BD wasn't winning. Whoever got the vast majority of the studios would 'win'. Win being fairly subjective, because they'd still need to get adopted after ousting the rival format. Having less than 0.006 of the sales vs less than 0.004 of the sales for home videos isn't really winning anything, is it?  Neither format had 1/100th of the home video market for 2007, so how could either have a significant lead?

@ TheBigFatJ

I meant winning between the two HD format, which I explicitly said in a sentence in my post.

WOW thats a lot of money. But honestly, I dont care. So they accepted money. 3rd parties do it in the gaming industry too. Moneyhats happen, this is business. Its not fair, nor honorable. Its business.

Borkachev said: ... The HD formats are never going to be as popular as DVD, no. But that doesn't mean there's "no future" for them. A significant number of high-end consumers are going to want hi-def movies, and when prices drop to the level of DVDs over the next few years and HDTV penetration becomes total, many casual consumers will make the move too. 25% of the home video market is realistic, I would guess, and they may well do better than that in the end. That would be a huge success, and everyone involved would profit. Remember, laserdisk was considered a successful (if niche) product, and the HD formats are already more mainstream than that ever was in terms of things like retailer shelf space. They have nowhere to go but up.   ...

HDTV penetration becomes total?  Definitely not in a few years, and probably not in 10.  Remember, DVDs were designed to be used in players connected to standard-def TVs.  I can't imagine most consumers going out in the next few years and replacing all the TV's in their homes just so they can play HD material.  When Bill and Sue consumer are 56 years old and just want to watch the latest sitcom and the evening news, they're not going to run out and replace their 2-3 TVs so they can watch the Discovery Channel or the SciFi Channel or Letterman or a Blu-ray movie in HD.

 

The US government realized it was folly to try and force 100% HD adoption... that's why they're going to make certain down-converting equipment can be purchased for cheap before the broadcast-HD switchover. 

DMeisterJ said: @ TheBigFatJ I meant winning between the two HD format, which I explicitly said in a sentence in my post.

My point is that when you're talking about fighting for less than 1% of the total market, it's irrelevant who is "winning" because anything can tip the scales in either format's favor.