It’s the question thousands are asking, which one will win the HD war, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? Well according to this rather in-depth and interesting article, written by Rob Enderle of Digital Trends, the HD DVD has pretty much secured the top spot already.
Rob Enderle did in fact at first give Blu-Ray the benefit of the doubt saying that Sony would not release a HD player alongside the PS3 until it was 100% finished. Well now the PS3 has been released its obvious that the Blu-ray player that comes with the next-gen console is far form finished. In the article Rob commented on the unfinished player saying, “The problems with Blu-Ray have created extreme cost and execution problems for Sony and now their premier division (instead of being the profit center for Sony) is predicting they will take a $1.5B loss next year largely resulting from this decision”. Yes thats 1.5 BILLION Dollars.
What’s more HD DVD players usually retail for around 50% less than Blu-ray players and to add HD DVDs are for the most part $5 lower in price compared to Blu-ray movies. Blu-rays final blow it seems has come from Microsoft themselves (ironic or what) with the release of the new 360 HD DVD player which retails for a meager £129.95 a hell of a lotless than the Blu-ray equivalent.
Rob Enderle wrapped up his article saying, “The market wants one solution for High Definition video and we are already starting to see high definition downloads through services like Xbox live. Apple’s iTV is expected to go even further when it launches early next year. It may actually be too late for either of these platforms to move; if folks move aggressively to downloads for high definition content and if High Definition pay per view cable offerings continue to improve, even if I’m correct and HD DVD has won, it may have actually prevailed too late in the process to survive for long.
Be that as it may, with a 4x to 6x advantage by year end, you’d have to conclude that HD DVD has reached a point where it can’t lose and Blu-Ray is only now in a position to ensure both platforms lose. That last option still appears most likely if the market doesn’t move aggressively to one HD platform.”
Take a look at the full article HERE
Originally Written By: Lee Matthews
