OT: Warner may be Blu-Ray exclusive next year
The alMIGHTY N
My apologies if this was already posted. I just read it a few moments
ago.
If Warner were to become a Blu-Ray exclusive studio, that would pretty
much seal the deal because Warner is by far the biggest next-gen
format releaser of all the studios and has an excellent portfolio of
titles.
CellFish
news:1193928237....@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...
I would agree about that. Warner being exclusive on Blu-Ray would weaken
HD-DVD considerably. I still love movies from Universal and Paramount
studios though.
The alMIGHTY N
> "The alMIGHTY N" <natle...@yahoo.com> wrote in messagenews:1193928237....@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...
>
> >http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Warner/Warner_Mulls_Change_in_...
>
> > My apologies if this was already posted. I just read it a few moments
> > ago.
>
> > If Warner were to become a Blu-Ray exclusive studio, that would pretty
> > much seal the deal because Warner is by far the biggest next-gen
> > format releaser of all the studios and has an excellent portfolio of
> > titles.
>
> I would agree about that. Warner being exclusive on Blu-Ray would weaken
> HD-DVD considerably. I still love movies from Universal and Paramount
> studios though.
I'm pretty sure I have favorite movies from all the different studios.
On the Blu-Ray side, it's hard to ignore the Spider-man movies, the
Terminator movies, the soon-to-be-released Aliens films, anything from
Disney, and other similar major titles.
Whether any specific person likes them or not, they're still going to
be huge movies that will sell well, relative to the size of the
market.
Once those dual-format players hit reasonable pricing levels, this
whole format war will be irrelevant.
Big Daddy
I especially like that Disney got pissed about Paramount's "sell out" for
the MS cash, so they have come out and said "we're going to begin marketing
our blu-ray movies". Up until that point you hadn't really seen any
commercials regarding blue-ray, but I've seen dozens now all showing some of
their Disney titles in Blu-Ray.
RMZ
> http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Warner/Warner_Mulls_Change_in_...
>
> My apologies if this was already posted. I just read it a few moments
> ago.
>
> If Warner were to become a Blu-Ray exclusive studio, that would pretty
> much seal the deal because Warner is by far the biggest next-gen
> format releaser of all the studios and has an excellent portfolio of
> titles.
If Warner goes exclusive Blu-Ray (big "if"), then I agree war between
the formats is over... The war for HD media in consumer homes still
has a tough road ahead.
The alMIGHTY N
> "The alMIGHTY N" <natle...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
It wasn't just Disney. Up to that point, Fox, Disney and MGM had been
pretty lackluster with their releases. As soon as Paramount made their
announcement, Fox fired back with announcements of a slew of titles
for early 2008... many more than they had released in all of 2007.
The alMIGHTY N
I'm sure Warner Bros. is waiting to see if Wal-mart and K-mart can
sell the Toshiba HD-A2 to those consumers less willing to spend $300+
on a next-gen movie player.
If those two retailers can help HD-DVD make headway, Warner likely
won't change their approach because they won't want to give up that
kind of money.
Private Private
just saw one tonight after work.
CellFish
It turns out that Warner is not favoring Blu-Ray at all. In fact, they let
their Blu-Ray license expire last night on October 31st. Apparently, they're
set to announce exclusivity to one format or the other by the end of the
year. Hopefully, it will be HD-DVD.
Jordan
> It turns out that Warner is not favoring Blu-Ray at all. In fact, they let
> their Blu-Ray license expire last night on October 31st. Apparently, they're
> set to announce exclusivity to one format or the other by the end of the
> year. Hopefully, it will be HD-DVD.
It wasn't so long ago that that was the rumor. HD-DVD exclusivity:
http://hidefdvdempire.blogspot.com/2007/09/will-warner-bros-go-hd-dvd-exclusive.html
Can you imagine the hue and cry if, say, the Harry Potter franchise
was HD-DVD exclusive? Or the upcoming Blade Runner set? (One more
month! Yay!)
For the record, it would seem that Warner does favor HD-DVD. More of
their movies are on HD-DVD than Blu-Ray and there are Warner titles
that can ONLY be had on HD-DVD. If it's true that their Blu-Ray
license has expired then it sounds like they're ready to jump. Maybe
they're holding out for some Sony payola.
- Jordan
CellFish
news:1193968740....@v29g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
Sony doesn't have money to pay them. Besides, isn't Sony the company that
claimed that it doesn't need to pay for exclusives?
The alMIGHTY N
> "The alMIGHTY N" <natle...@yahoo.com> wrote in messagenews:1193933729.8...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Warner/Warner_Mulls_Change_in_High-Def_Strategy/1123
The greater install base for Blu-Ray and the lower prices for set-top
players are things Warner obviously can't ignore.
The alMIGHTY N
> On Nov 1, 6:36 pm, "CellFish" <nomores...@forme.com> wrote:
>
> > It turns out that Warner is not favoring Blu-Ray at all. In fact, they let
> > their Blu-Ray license expire last night on October 31st. Apparently, they're
> > set to announce exclusivity to one format or the other by the end of the
> > year. Hopefully, it will be HD-DVD.
>
> It wasn't so long ago that that was the rumor. HD-DVD exclusivity:
>
>
> Can you imagine the hue and cry if, say, the Harry Potter franchise
> was HD-DVD exclusive? Or the upcoming Blade Runner set? (One more
> month! Yay!)
>
> For the record, it would seem that Warner does favor HD-DVD. More of
> their movies are on HD-DVD than Blu-Ray and there are Warner titles
> that can ONLY be had on HD-DVD. If it's true that their Blu-Ray
> license has expired then it sounds like they're ready to jump. Maybe
> they're holding out for some Sony payola.
>
> - Jordan
Correction: Warner *favored* HD-DVD. They've publicly stated that they
would release all movies now HD-DVD only on Blu-Ray as well.
In any case, Warner Vice President Dan Silverberg reaffirmed the
company's commitment to Blu-Ray at the October 29 Blu-Ray Festival in
Los Angeles. The only format in question for them is HD-DVD although
Silverberg didn't actually say that they were dropping support - he
just said that the company was reevaluating a dual-format approach.
A loss of Warner Bros. for either side would be devastating. The
company is by far the biggest supporter of both formats. It's not just
Warner Bros. movies, either... Warner owns New Line which means that
one side could potentially get The Lord of the Rings as an exclusive
in addition to the Harry Potter movies - those two are by far the two
biggest franchises.
CellFish
Except that the installed base for Blu-Ray isn't exactly buying movies
whereas the installed base for HD-DVD is SPECIFICALLY buying movies. No one
that has an HD-DVD drive right now is buying it for games whereas a lot of
people who have a Blu-Ray drive are.
The alMIGHTY N
> "The alMIGHTY N" <natle...@yahoo.com> wrote in messagenews:1193973578.4...@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
> > The greater install base for Blu-Ray and the lower prices for set-top
> > players are things Warner obviously can't ignore.
>
> Except that the installed base for Blu-Ray isn't exactly buying movies
> whereas the installed base for HD-DVD is SPECIFICALLY buying movies. No one
> that has an HD-DVD drive right now is buying it for games whereas a lot of
> people who have a Blu-Ray drive are.
I don't see how you can claim that owners aren't buying movies. There
are a LOT more sales of Blu-Ray movies than there are of HD-DVD
movies. In fact, in the first 9 months of 2007, there were almost
twice as many Blu-Ray than HD-DVD movies sold.
You can say that attach rate of movies to players is much lower, but
sales are sales... no matter what the reason, Warner Bros. cannot
ignore that there are undeniably more Blu-Ray movies being sold. They
even pointed out that their top-selling movie, 300, did much better at
retail in the Blu-Ray format.
Big Daddy
"CellFish" <nomor...@forme.com> wrote in message
news:3tFWi.5656$Pl6....@weber.videotron.net...
> Except that the installed base for Blu-Ray isn't exactly buying movies
> whereas the installed base for HD-DVD is SPECIFICALLY buying movies.
Except that you are completely wrong.
Did you even READ the article?
Silverberg went on to emphasize the Warner's strong Blu-ray sales, noting
that the studio's Blu-ray release of '300' is the format's top selling disc.
"We can definitely talk Blu-ray," said Silverberg. "We are committed to the
format."
Blu-ray disk sales is currently outselling HD-DVD by a 4:1 margin (9:1 in
Japan). Those are huge gaps to ignore unless MS is throwing money at you to
ignore them (a-la paramount)
The alMIGHTY N
> "CellFish" <nomores...@forme.com> wrote in message
Really? HD-DVD must have been doing pretty damn good in the beginning
of the year, then, because from January to September in the United
States, there were less than twice as many Blu-Ray discs as HD-DVD
discs sold.
Big Daddy
"The alMIGHTY N" <natl...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> Really? HD-DVD must have been doing pretty damn good in the beginning
> of the year, then, because from January to September in the United
> States, there were less than twice as many Blu-Ray discs as HD-DVD
> discs sold.
more thant twice as many in US, 4 times as many in Europe, and 9 times as
many in Japan based on the reports I've read.
Any way you cut it that's bad for HD-DVD. They'll need to throw some more $
at Warner if they want to win because trying to win a fair fight just isn't
working for them (though they already threw a couple of low blows with the
Paramount $ exchange).
The alMIGHTY N
> "The alMIGHTY N" <natle...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> > Really? HD-DVD must have been doing pretty damn good in the beginning
> > of the year, then, because from January to September in the United
> > States, there were less than twice as many Blu-Ray discs as HD-DVD
> > discs sold.
>
> more thant twice as many in US, 4 times as many in Europe, and 9 times as
> many in Japan based on the reports I've read.
>From January to September 2007, the sales rate of Blu-Ray discs in the
United States was 185% of the sales rate of HD-DVD discs according to
Home Media Magazine.
I don't know if this publication can be viewed as the end-all, be-all
like NPD is, but I would be surprised if the numbers for Blu-Ray were
off by 200,000 or more.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6214944.html
> Any way you cut it that's bad for HD-DVD. They'll need to throw some more $
> at Warner if they want to win because trying to win a fair fight just isn't
> working for them (though they already threw a couple of low blows with the
> Paramount $ exchange).
When was it ever a fair fight? Sony incorporated the Blu-Ray player
into the Playstation 3 for the purpose of having a Trojan horse into
consumers' homes. The whole "games need Blu-Ray" is just corporate
bullshit, legitimate in the future or not.
If you look at set top to set top numbers in the United States, HD-DVD
is slightly ahead. Movie sales became noticeably skewed at the
beginning of the year once the Playstation 3s were out in the wild.
Before that, sales actually favored HD-DVD slightly.
HD-DVD can't cry about it - all's fair, after all. However, I find it
hilarious when people try to say that HD-DVD throwing money at
Paramount to go exclusive is somehow morally wrong or unfair without
saying the same about Sony forcing many PS3 gamers to become default
Blu-Ray owners.
But in the end, it's all business, and both sides seem willing to go
far to get any advantage they can. It's ridiculous and we as consumers
lose out, but hey, when did those big corporations ever care about the
consumers?
Big Daddy
> like NPD is, but I would be surprised if the numbers for Blu-Ray were
> off by 200,000 or more.
>
> http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6214944.html
well that matches what I was saying (2:1 in US), so I don't dispute it.
It's doing worse in the US than anywhere else, and it's still got a 2:1 lead
here.
> When was it ever a fair fight? Sony incorporated the Blu-Ray player
> into the Playstation 3 for the purpose of having a Trojan horse into
> consumers' homes. The whole "games need Blu-Ray" is just corporate
> bullshit, legitimate in the future or not.
I don't agree with that at all. We're already seeing games in the first
year that are taking up more capacity than can fit on a DVD. What's it
going to be like in year 2, 3, or 4? It was "forward thinking" to include a
higher capacity drive (now the fact that it was blu-ray was for obvious
reasons)
> HD-DVD can't cry about it - all's fair, after all. However, I find it
> hilarious when people try to say that HD-DVD throwing money at
> Paramount to go exclusive is somehow morally wrong or unfair without
> saying the same about Sony forcing many PS3 gamers to become default
> Blu-Ray owners.
Sorry, I don't see how they forced anything on me at all. The fact that it
had a higher capacity drive was one of my points for choosing it over the
360. There's nothing *underhanded* about that. However when the customers
had made their decision, and it is overwhelmingly blu-ray (to quote
blockbuster), but to keep in the game you throw a few million at a studio to
support you? That is underhanded.
Private Private
>I especially like that Disney got pissed about Paramount's "sell
>out" for the MS cash, so they have come out
>and said "we're going to begin marketing our blu-ray movies".
>Up until that point you hadn't really seen any commercials
>regarding blue-ray, but I've seen dozens now all showing some
>of their Disney titles in Blu-Ray.
Yes so true, Disney has even taken it a step further and its titled as
almost one word---See it now on "(DisneyBlu-Ray)".....it makes it sound
like Blu-Ray is Disney's creation ,its even got its own 'blue' logo.
Private Private
>HD-DVD throwing money at Paramount to go exclusive is somehow
>morally wrong or unfair without saying the same about Sony
>forcing many PS3 gamers to become default Blu-Ray owners.
I was going to same the same exact thing, good point.
The alMIGHTY N
> http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Warner/Warner_Mulls_Change_in_...
>
> My apologies if this was already posted. I just read it a few moments
> ago.
>
> If Warner were to become a Blu-Ray exclusive studio, that would pretty
> much seal the deal because Warner is by far the biggest next-gen
> format releaser of all the studios and has an excellent portfolio of
> titles.
All of the wild speculation on the Internet motivated another Warner
Bros. executive to clarify the situation regarding the company's
support of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
The executive said that there are no plans to change a dual-format
stance in 2008 despite what hardware and software sales look like this
holiday season.
Take that with as many grains of salt as you like.