Disney's Bob Iger on Blu-ray and senseless wars
During a quarterly analyst call, Disney's Bob Iger spoke out in support of the Blu-ray format over the competition. This is kinda special because Disney tends to keep its mouth shut when it comes to business-oriented, well, business. To see they're supporting Blu-ray is a tremendous thumbs-up for all of the HD movie enthusiasts.
When asked if he's consider releasing Disney films on both formats, he gave a lengthy response. While the entire transcript is very interesting, we've singled out what we think is the crux of his spiel: "I think the single greatest thing we can do right now is to not waffle, but to be very, very blunt about it, to continue our support of Blu-ray because we sense a real advantage. The best thing that could happen is for the format war to end, which will be very pro-consumer, particularly as hardware comes down."
Iger expects retailers to weigh in this holiday season as they fill their shelves with a perceived "winner" in this "war" that doesn't actually matter yet. Along with that, he believes that there will be strong price drops in standalone players, helping to bring the format to the masses. So, if the standalone players drop to cheaper than a PS3, why would the PS3 cut its price? It's a player plus other stuff, right? Logically, it should stay where it is, but businessly (no, it's not a word, deal with it) it might have to drop as well. We'll see.
