Bay Predicts Death of HD-DVD

Michael Bay fired off another post on his forums regarding the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray debate. He has a real jones for Transformers to pop up on Blu-Ray for some reason.

Well another studio down. Maybe I was right? Blu ray is just better. HD will die a slow death. It's what I predicted a year ago. Now with Warner's down for the count with Blu Ray. That makes it easier for Wal-Mart to push Blu Ray. And whatever Wal-Mart pushes - wins. Hd better start giving out those $120 million dollars checks to stay alive. Maybe they can give me some so I can give it to my Make-A-Wish charity, just to shut me up. Have faith people Transformers will come out in Blu-ray one day!

Bay

He does have a point. Warners jumped ship. Universal is going with both formats (the exclusive contract with HD-DVD ends at end of the month) and rumors continue that Paramount is considering a switch.

However, Toshiba isn't taking the news lying down with across the board price cuts (not sure if temporary or permanent). The line of HD-DVD players have all been cut in price (cheapest is $150), the 5 free HD-DVDs with purchase has been extended and Amazon is running a 50% off sale on HD-DVDs.

As always, the studios follow the money, and until the last two studios make a decisive decision, the game isn't quite over. With only 10% of consumers out there owning HD TVs, if your not one of them (such as me) the format war is irrelevant as its just a complete waste of money to buy the next gen format if don't have a TV that takes full advantage of it. On top of that, a success in either format is 500,000 copies sold. Compare that to 5 million+ for DVDs. Quite a substantial gap that still has to be crossed before a winner can be declared. As always, time will tell and until I can afford an HD TV, I am content to sit on the sidelines and wait it out.

Update: According to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the studio war on the formats is kind of ugly under the surface. There have been rumors that HD-DVD payed Paramount $100 million to go exclusive to their format and Blu-Ray apparently did the same thing. Waners where going to go to HD-DVD but Blu-Ray swooped in and gave them $400 to $500 million to go to their format. They also did the same with Fox to prevent them from jumping ship.

So basically, if not for nearly a billion dollars total win fall from Blu-Ray, HD-DVD would have had 4 of the 6 studios rather then Blu-Ray. I don't know about you, but having to pay atudios to join your side isn't exactly confidence builder when it comes to your format. If Blu-Ray was the best and selling like they keep claiming, I would think they numbers would have spoken for themselves. Instead, apparently the camp willing to blow the most money up front will decide the format wars rather then the consumer. Its money and only money, pure and simple. "Quality" has nothing to do with it. (source)