Whoever said that technology is too fast to control has hit it bulls-eye once again. I was strolling in a mall, brought my trusty 80GB iPod with me and tuned in to TWIT’s Leo Laporte saying “HD-DVD is now DEAD”. That’s too many D’s to control I know! The death blow may well be Walmart saying they will now officially just sell Blu-Ray DVDs, BUT won’t push for it, would still continue to sell HD-DVD formatted way back the aisle.
I was a bit relieved that I didn’t include an HD-DVD player in my Christmas list! I could just imagine my frustration to find out that that player dead technology a month later. Crossing my mind is Tom Hanks’ “Green Mile” liner… “dead man walking… dead man walking….”. Now it’s “dead tech gone… dead tech gone!”.
OK so aside from Walmart, what led to HD-DVD demise???
- “Warner Bros.’ move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want,” chairman and CEO of Warner Bros.
- All of us at Sony are feeling a bit blue today, but that’s a good feeling,” CEO Sir Howard Stringer said at a news conference, chuckling. “Along with Warner Bros.’ decision to support Blu-ray I want to thank Bob Iger at Disney and Rupert Murdoch at Fox for being ‘true blue’ from the start.”
- Disney, the parent company of ABC News, was one of the first to commit to the Blu-ray format.
- Rick Clancy, Sony’s senior vice president of electronics, echoed those sentiments
Well to note here that the rivalry between the two platforms of high-definition DVDs — Blu-ray is supported by Sony, while HD-DVD is supported by both Toshiba and Microsoft — has been raging since the discs’ development. While other Hollywood studios have gradually chosen one format over the other, Warner Bros. had been the lone exception, publishing movies in both formats.
There is a rumor that Toshiba will stop manufacturing HD-DVD players… just a rumor folks! Now will that leave Microsoft alone on a limb… goodbye XBox?