Panasonic exec says Blu-ray will win soon
By Steven Kim 
posted October 3rd 2007 12:28PM
posted October 3rd 2007 12:28PM
We don't know what sort of crystal ball Matsushita (parent of Panasonic) exec Kazuhiro Tsuga has, but during a briefing at the CEATEC show this week in Japan he predicted: 1) a big Q4 2007 - Q1 2008 that will put Blu-ray on a path to win the format war; 2) an end to the format war in another year's time. Toeing the Blu-ray line, Tsuga also downplayed the Paramount defection to HD DVD, noting that it "only" lasts 18 months. We're not so sure we agree with your predictions or dismissal of the Paramount deal, Tsuga-san, but we are looking forward to the aggressive promotions (read: discounts and offers) that you say the studios want to see by the end of the year. Bring those cheap Blu-ray players to market, and let's all let the market decide, ok?
I think both sides of this war, can agree, to disagree with Kazuhiro Tsuga. Far too early.
Whew, I was wondering when the monthly hollow Blu-ray declaration of victory was going to come out. I thought they had given up :)
Yeah, it's been a while since the BDA announced that they would win. I'm still waiting.
Wow, a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association predicts that Blu-ray will win--how original.
Shouldn't there be a classification tag on here for "BluRayVictory," since the BD camp seems to announce this every month or two... For the past year and a half.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Or, at the very least, a FormatWar tag.
I would like to take this opportunity to officially announce that....I will be winning the format war!
True story, I seen it
FF rise of the Silver Surfer is on a *BD-50gb* disc and that in itself is impressive. I think the BD camp has a few things worth paying attention to. My argument has always been based on.."What media do I want to burn on in the future?". HD-DVD or BD. My answer is BD. Whats yours? I also own a HD-DVD drive so I don't have to miss out on any exclusives. I do feel that blu-ray will most likely succeed unless they completely drop the ball and don't release a cheap stand alone this Christmas holiday season.
Do you mean the same Fantastic 4 BD disc that came out just this week and already have been reported that many standalone players have trouble playing the BD+ layer? Wow, it truly is impressive.
I'm prepared for no winner. When I went through this 7yrs ago with SACD and DVD audio; then mp3/PMP's beat them both. It just doesn't make sense. Some product will come from left field stifling the war.
i agree with you totally. with larger bandwidth and larger hardrives the options are endless.
@justin
Good point.
Like I said on other forums...Ill believe it when I see it.
-dad
I am almost positive I will never burn a BD or HD DVD. By the time they get cheap enough to ignore coasters, flash, hard drives, and networks will have made them obsolete for storage and transfer.
I whole heartedly beleive that I will rarely if ever burn a BD or HD-DVD... I don't do much burning of DVDs now... CDs/DVDs/HD-DVDs/Blu-Rays are only mediums to get content to consumers (aka large distribution). This is because WAN technology cannot transfer enough data to, say, 100 people... LAN Technology on the other hand can easily distribute 30GB to 1,2,3 or 4 TV sets...
As for backup... how many of you buy $15 50GB discs and then take the time to swap while recording? Then repeat weekly... Isnt it easier to simply get a 500GB drive
for $100?
The only very small area is... distribution of code such as OS, Software, etc... how much space for that do you really need?
Can't the Panasonic, Sony and Pioneer guys all get drunk together, and issue a joint victory declaration? I mean, this almost calls for a YouTube parody.
At least they are consistent.
I own a Toshiba and I'm waiting for a Panny to be full spec and a reasonable price. But whatever delivery method wins Blu/Rd or HDD, lets get the ball rolling and get prices down.
Ok, I get the point about solid state media, HDD, and downloaded content and I agree these mediums are at an advantage in price and in ease of use. Still for those that choose to use a disc why not use the one that offers more space right? I mean this is a valid point. I feel that HD-DVD is great and I do own the 360 drive. On the other side of that coin though...I truly don't think it SHOULD win. Based on the available space factor alone. I kind of feel the same way about mp3 players. When I buy an Ipod I buy the biggest one, even if I don't intend to fill it up. Does that make any sense?
Yes it does!!! Trust me don't let hese cats make u think otherwise. Worse mistake I ever made a couple of yrs ago was buying some small portable USB HDD. AT one point I had like up to 3 of them. Eventually I just sank money into a 500gb NAS device and haven't looked back every since. A yr ago I AGAIN made the same foolish mistake of buying an Ipod Nano instead of buying a regular Ipod w/ more storage space. Now I highly regret it b/c it seems like every 2-3 days I got to re-sync my Ipod b/c I gotten tired of the songs on there. If I would have follwed your path I would of saved alot of money.
I agree with Justin. We have multiple game platforms with no clear winner that puts everyone else out of business, why must we have only one video format? (Not that anyone likes it) Let's hear it for cheap multi-players. Then we will see things moving of the shelves!
Listen, everyone knows that the first format to get "Food of the Gods" exclusively is going to win this thing, so Tsuga-san should relax until then.
I cant find food of the gods to save my life!!!! I loved that movie. if that comes out on HD-DVD its ALL over! lol :)
-dad
well when bd winnign 4-1 in europe and is winning every were in teh world(besides india and dependednt on week newzelend)i belive this guys its been over a year know 2 and half year for the war is pritty long and hey
BD+ has not been put into ANY DISCS YET i knwo this cuz i just used any dvd to unlock it ideots
@julian
Would you mind re posting in English so we can all understand please.
Why does standalone matter so much w/ 6,000,000 PS3s sold worldwide. Stop living in denial people. Many people buy the PS3 instead of the blu-ray standalone because it is the same price as the cheapest blu standalone player. It's like getting a Playstation for free, then add in the fact that its got built in wi-fi, internet browsing, and free online play, it only makes sense to purchase the PS3 over a standalone to watch blu-rays.
Follow this link and read the paragraph under the remote control picture. http://reviews.cnet.com/game-accesso...g=nefdprod.rev CNET uses PS3s to test many of the HDTVs they review.
The only 'denial' going on here is from those who fail to understandthat 6 million PS3s resulting in a 60:40 lead is astoundingly poor & rather pathetic.
As HD DVD market penetration rises that gap will close, it's only a matter of time.
No wonder Paramount dumped Blu-ray.
I actually read the linked article. It seems to actually be bad news for HD-DVD.
He stated that the BD alliance is going to cut prices to compete. If he mean true competition then we could see $200 BD players vs $200 HD-players.
It seems like BD was just waiting for the right time to slash prices below costs, ala HD-DVD style. We will see very shortly.
You see.. that will NEVER happen. The only purpose that CE companies are supporting Blu-Ray is EXACTLY because they have higher margins. If they need to cut the prices to meet HD DVD ones and chinese players they've been playing the wrong game from the start as at that point Blu-Ray exclusive support doesn't mean squat.
The whole reason behind most of these companies supporting Blu-Ray was not because Blu-Ray supposedly a "superior" format. If anyone thinks that they are clearly delusional and very naive.
This format war is going on just because of ONE thing. Sony, Panasonic and Philips have been extremely greedy and are simply viewing DVD market as a complete miss as they can't make money. With $30 chinese dvd players they have been riding an empty bottle.
DVD Forum comes out with HD DVD format and says, hey, let's do the same approach as we did with DVD, but give users even more this time around as we've seen that regional coding really didn't work and we can include this cool online and interactive features as a hook.
When Panasonic, Philips and Sony heard about this, their hair stood up on their necks. OMG, they cannot allow the next generation format to be same razor/blades model. They don't make ANY money.
So comes Sony, the master of high prices and mediocre quality and says, hey guys, we'll put out PS3, we'll suck the losses and push Blu-Ray to beat HD DVD, then we can rip the prices for $1000 for a while, then lower it to $600-$700 and finally stabilize somewhere around $400.
This is exactly what's going.
On one side you have HD DVD with Toshiba, Microsoft and a few other big companies, firmly believing that licensing is enough to make money off the format, and is aiming for razor/blades model, promoting cheap players very fast. In addition they offer the "hook" - interactivity and online features, great HD quality and cheap prices.
On the other you have so called the 3C and passe. Consumer electronics companies who were hoping that PS3 will wipe out any idea of HD DVD and allow them to make a BUNDLE on hardware as well as licensing (royalties). To reach this, they promote higher bit rates and so so bigger discs that have horrible replication numbers compared to dvd and hd dvd, where this increase in bitrate doesn't really transfer to better quality, but is an excellent talking point.
Now, when things didn't go as well as they planned, PS3 getting completely annihilated (this console is completely hopeless,even with few exclusives there's absolutely not chance they can catch up to Xbox 360 and Wii) and drops in price were so badly needed, everybody started scratching their heads. What went wrong?
What they have left? Marketing, PR and the 100th time repetitive claim that HD DVD is dead. In the meantime, software sales have been steadily dicreasing from 4:1 to 1.5:1 (!!!) despite the slight increase in PS3 installed base.
There's a reason, why Samsung canceled the more expensive 2400 BD player and is delaying the hybrid player. They simply want to play it smart and see how this holiday season goes. If HD DVD continues to narrow the gap in software sales as of course we see that cheap HD DVD players are just starting to gain momentum, I'm pretty sure that Samsung will revamp their lineup with HD DVD standalone players.
Couple that with eventual Warner HD DVD exclusivity (which is pretty much inevitable), the ONLY format that will be dead will be Blu-Ray. That's the REAL writing on the wall.
ACHTUNG!!!
Ve vill vin zis vor becauss ve lozt ze lazt 2, unt ve cant afford to loose anuzzer
Zeigheil!
My friend its not wise to make a huge post on a topic w/o first understanding the fundamentals of it. I know I'm coming off kind of rude and I apologize......but honestly if you want anyone to take ur comments seriously you're going to have to show ppl you have a grasp of the topic at hand. Most of the statements you made sounded as if they were based solely out of forum or blog websites, where alot of thoughts, ideas, and rumors get thrown around but are never provened. Listen every being on this planet feels that they are right and that what they believe is true, but most are never willing to put in the work neccessary to prove that what they believe is true.
Spooky... I kind of agree with you.
Bluray is supposed to help provide better margins on both the media and the players.
From a consumer standpoint the 2 formats are equal besides support.
Studios think from a studio standpoint. The BDA seems to be spreading the rights and profit around more equally.
BDA also supports region encoding which is a MAJOR plus for movie studios and distributors. It can be worth literally millions in cost for international releases.
BD+ on top of the AACS was also a very smart move. It made the assumption that AACS would be quickly cracked and provided a mechanism to reprotect media. For movie studios that is pretty big.
The promise of those 2 reasons alone is enough to get Disney and Fox to come along.
The use of java is also pretty key. It allows for off the shelf silicon to run the interactive content. It enables the possibility of BD+ and the interactive content using an industry standard language.
I don't doubt that the BDA also doesn't want to take a loss on profit margins for making players.
I don't think that the race to the bottom was intentional by Toshiba but a direct result of the major players in CE walking away. With almost no industry support they had to do something to not die right off the bat. They turned the companies that broke them last time into allies. Even more telling in the exchange they allowed them to make players without paying any licensing. The new Chinese standard HD is a HD-DVD player with a small tweak and no license fees.
The BDA with its larger size and broader support base can act slower. It takes a lot of time for a new format to be adopted. Early adopters pay more. It make sense to keep the initial player price high simply because you are only going to sell a few no matter what. Toshiba proved this by having a sub $200 player on the market for the better part of this year. Even then they started giving away 5-7 movies per player. Toshiba is running like a jackrabbit to try and wrap this up asap.
MS isn't having much better luck. They seem to recognize the weakness they have in the game market. They have no profitable gaming lines and could ill afford to raise the price of the xbox system. More telling is that they still refuse to release a xbox model with integrated HD-DVD drive. The sales of their system have stagnated. They announced the sale of their 10 millionth console LAST Christmas. They have sold about 1.7 million units since then, about the same as the much more expensive PS3. The PSP sold around 8 million units that time,the ps2 15 million units, the ds 24 million units, the wii 8 million units. In short the xbox 360 is the thinnest kid in fat camp and only looks good compared to the PS3.
Microsoft has no leverage to push HD-DVD beyond raw cash for deals.
If Toshiba starts to win the BDA would be very unhappy but could match Toshiba in the race to the bottom by slashing player prices. Do you expect them to shake hands say "good game" and walk away? The BDA is in a much better position thus can wait and soak up less losses in the meantime.
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Red Screen of Death on Tuesday along with The Day After Tomorrow unplayable on many Blu-Ray players.
Netflix 2.4:1 in favor of HD-DVD (But both formats less then 1% total)
DreamWorks Animation, Paramount, Universal, Warner, and M$ join with Toshiba to promote HD DVD interactivity.
Samsung bailing on at least 2 Blu-Ray models (ok one is dual, blah blah)
I'd like to know what Kazuhiro Tsuga is smoking. Blu-Ray will not win this so-called war. I don't think HD-DVD will either. Sony's greed has doomed HD disc based movies, period. Instead of creating another standard like DVD and playing nice with everyone, they tried to leverage their lead in gaming consoles. Sounds a lot like trying to leverage their lead in studio camera's (BetaCam) in the the home VCP player battle. Ultimately the losers will be the consumer as movies in HD will head to a Pay-Per-View streaming format controlled by the telephone and cable companies. Thank you sony.
yo man are u crazy replace toshiba with sony in your words and your correct if anything toshiba is not playing nice the bda has over 170 members and has support from all majore ce beside toshiba and microsoft and intell and univi and paramount i can count them on one hand!!! and with toshiba playinger only having somthing like 54% of stand alone salles while at half the price of blu-ray!!!!!!
I cant see how the BR consortium can play the price game. Their entire set up is based on big profits from raping the public, if they go the price war route, they will be losing money hand over fist, so what is their to win? If sony drop the price of PS3, $M, without hesitation, will match the same price drop and maybe Wii as well, so as a games console, I cant see any advantage, especially with their crap PS3 games line up, the only result will be more financial pain.
Will people then start buying it as a BR player, not a games machine? If they do, where does that leave all the other BR CE manufacturers? Up shit creek, that's where! How could the other CE manufacturers compete with a cheap PS3? They cant, the whole BR consortium starts to unravel if this happens, the only BR players selling will be PS3.
The sales of HD discs are just to small to support them all at this stage if it becomes a price war, 1-2% is unsustainable for BR, their sustainability levels must be at a much, much higher level.
As I have said before, I think Tosh, with the smaller, price driven consortium can win this war, BR cant afford to go down that route, if they do and win, what spoils are left for the victor, none!. Sonys greed has set them up for a fall.
Win, loose or draw, BR is in a 'world of hurt'
(Also, last few months XBox 360 has been SMASHING the PS3, so some posters here need to get their facts straight!)
For the BR Fudmeisters who keep hoping and saying PS3 is their savior because it is/will be a huge sales success, you need to read some of the latest stats.
Not only is the PS3 current games line up poor, their holiday season releases are also poor.
Even sony must be bitterly disappointed with PS3, it is less then half of their initial sales estimates and going no where fast, and it is still getting belted by PS2!
http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=542
LOL at your post, and you have nerve to say something to me? Your post did absolutely NOTHING to show how my opinion here is wrong and how I don't have any understanding on the topic in hand. Enlighten me please.
Everything that I've mentioned or discussed in my post is based on factual information that comes from either corporations involved in the format war, or analyst information, not to mention that I actually work in entertainment industry so I do have some inside information.
Let me give you an advice, when you spit on someone's posts and insult them, at least have the decency to show your so called "expertise" in the manner and address properly anything that I've said that doesn't make sense to you.
There's a lot of Blu-Ray fans on Engadget, but unlike you, they are civilized enough to address specific parts of my posts and explain their stance on the matter. You however did nothing more but insult me and basically just talking out of your ass.
I meant Diceburna post, not your Smee.
Go get him Nfinity, he is obviously a deluded BR troll who hasn't got a clue what he is talking about, Diceburnass response was an irrelevant, pointless peice of uneducated garbage.