This is a very non-developer post, I promise I won’t do this often… 
I saw this over on CNET tonight. I love how companies try to put a positive spin on things – and Toshiba is trying.
For those of you who haven’t been obsessing over the who HD-DVD & Blu-Ray wars, its a battle that smacks of the old BetaMax vs VHS debate 30 years ago when the market chose the VHS format over Sony’s BetaMax. With HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, they’re both basically the same and for a long time the market was split 50/50 with about 1/2 the movie titles available on each format. There were a couple of publishers (Warner Bros in particular) that made their titles available on both formats, but there were plenty that were exclusive to each format.
So…most of us have sat on the sidelines. But, after Christmas, Warner Bros has decided to drop HD-DVD in favor of Blu-Ray. Now less than 25% of the titles are going to be HD-DVD. I think Blu-Ray has won.
That brings me to this article. Toshiba is cutting the prices on their HD-DVD players! Can you believe it!?!?! I love this quote: “For them to drop MSRPs now couldn’t come at a better time”. Really? Now that only 1/4 of the titles are on the player? Wow! And this one: “Even if we promote a single format…people are still not going to pay three to four times as much for a player, they’re not going to pay double the price for movies” – Sure… I’m gonna run out and buy a HD-DVD player and save money on it so that in a year when I have nothing to watch on it, it becomes a cheaper boat anchor.
I have no idea why this got me wound up tonight, the article just seemed like such pathetic spin to me…
