Totaly not bothered here.

but i get ur point, if ms wanted hd dvd to work they would have put it as standard in the xbox

I think you're reading too deep into this.

How is putting support, small or large, behind HD-DVD leading it to its failure? If they wanted it to fail, the best way is to just not support it at all (save for supporting Bluray, but MS won't want that).

Are you saying that MS wanted HD-DVD to bite into Bluray, and the HD Disc userbase? If so shouldn't you be more specific and say Microsoft wanted HD-DVD to have enough success in order to cripple Bluray, but no succeed completely to be the dominant format?

Did they want HD DVD to fail? Well... maybe. Certainly they wanted BR to fail. Are they backing DD? Certainly seem to be.


Therefore I think they figured that any of the following was an okay result, and were trying to cover multiple options by backing, but somewhat unevenly, HD DVD (I've put them in what I suspect would be their order of preference but it's open to debate):


1 - Both HD formats fail. They have DVD and PS3 is stuck with dead format. They rapidly accelerate (in US initially) their DD plans then expand them to Europe. PS3 ideally 'dies' as no-one will want to buy a console with a useless, and expensive, BR player built into it.

2 - BR fails as format. HD DVD soars. They back it fully via add-on, stick to DVD for games, and slowly grow their DD options. PS3 hopefully 'dies' as above and they quietly plan to ensure HD DVD has shorter life than DVD due to rapid growth of DD (particularly in US) and they get to ramp up DD in line with increasing demand while still supporting the current HD media of choice.

3 - BR wins but its adoption is slowed by as much as a year (in terms of being the sole HD media format), PS3 adoption is also slowed, they quickly ramp up DD and stick to DVD, refusing to put any additional impetus behind BR even though it is the HD media format of choice


In the end they got 3. But can you imagine the price discussion now if PS3 had an arguably useless price overhead due to BR while people want an HD DVD player?

So yeah, I think they're preference was for HD DVD and BR to scrap for an extended period then both collapse just when they were ready to ramp up DD content in US.

But maybe I'm just paranoid.

I'm not wearing a tin foil hat, though.

As far as i know MS had fingers in both pies

"I used to think MS was a very short-sighted company that made many dumb decisions at the spur of the moment"

No short sighted company goes 20 years without posting a dip in profits, this is the first year. I would also guess that the majority of people at Microsoft are intelligent because they have only had a few products bomb.

Almost the totality of HD-DVD players used HDi, MS' proprietary implementation of HD-DVD interactive contents, no little economic interest for MS in the format, besides damaging Sony if it succeeded to defeat BD...

M$ most likely wanted both of them to fail, in favour of downloadable content. Or at least slow the adoption.
But, since the two format competition is expensive for studios, the studios made their decision instead of consumer.

I do not think they wanted it to fail but I also do not think they cared enough to prevent it. They could of easily put the boot in by shipping 360 units with HD DVD inside but this would of involved additional cost. HD DVD probably should of won this skirmish but it did not have the backers that actually mattered i.e. Sony.

As someone mentioned earlier, the combination of both the physical and the digital should of been a strong enough argument for them to have pushed harder. So to my mind this is an example of short sighted thinking on Microsofts behalf rather than any clever long term plan.

MS didn't just want HDDVD to fail. They wanted the entire HD media format to fail. MS are really keen on Digital Distribution which would have taken off had BR not won so crushingly a victory.

They wanted to delay and confuse the consumer to the point where HD media completely failed. In supporting Toshiba and financing a sub-99 dollar player, they spent a lot of money.

While it eventually became a waste, MS knew exactly what they were doing, and it wasn't a stupid move, it was one of the smartest moves.