While entering a
format war is still worthy of a cautionary tale or two -- Sony, you may have been on a winning side this time, but we remember Betamax -- Toshiba appears to have escaped the fall of HD DVD a bit more intact than
expected. Its official forecast for the financial year shows a loss of 65 billion yen ($669 million U.S.), a bit less than the ¥100b/ $1b U.S. figure anticipated last week. Unfortunately, the company as a whole is expecting slightly lower profits, so former red campers may not want to light cigars just yet.
Update: That's actually 65 billion yen PLUS an additional one-time charge of 45 billion yen for a grand total ¥110b ($1.12 billion) going the wrong way in 2007's books. Hey Toshiba, uh, you guys want a
Best Buy gift card?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Darrol @ Mar 19th 2008 4:38AM
They knew the risks when they entered the war.
That reminds me, I still need to build up my HD-DVD collection as I am not going to get rid of my 360 add-on.
John @ Mar 19th 2008 9:52AM
While the Betamax format failed, the Betacam format is still used today and is a professional standard for recording video.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacam
Educate yourself, please.
Jeff @ Mar 19th 2008 1:03PM
@ John: ...why are you lecturing Darrol about Betamax when he didn't even mention... oh wait, i see. you're one of those assholes who replies to the first comment regardless of if you're actually replying to the comment, you just want your comment to show up near the top. how selfish.
anyway, Betamax WAS used professionally (I actually had 4 beta editing decks) but isn't much at all anymore. Everyone has long ago moved to Digital, if not HD. (Partially because the analog cutoff...)
so how about you "educate yourself" with information that's not half-a-decade old. (for the record, betacam and betamax are not the same thing, and calling hdcam the same thing as betamax is like saying that records and hard drives are the same thing because they both have "spinning platters")
like Michael Scott said " Wikipedia is where anyone in the world can write whatever they want.... so you know you're always getting the best information!"
Kurian @ Mar 19th 2008 4:49AM
Hope they go bankrupt so they dont put out another shitty format and cause us more problems.
Sukhminder @ Mar 19th 2008 4:53AM
Your comment is wrong on many levels.
tekdroid @ Mar 19th 2008 5:01AM
competition and innovation are rarely problems. We could do with a Blu-Ray challenger or thirty, I say. Offering us more.
papafew @ Mar 19th 2008 6:13AM
silly comment
papafew @ Mar 19th 2008 6:15AM
@ kurian i mean, sorry folks...
Byzil Mystwing @ Mar 19th 2008 6:39AM
By your logic, Sony should have gone bankrupt with Betamax so they couldn't hit us with another losing format--wait.. well, there goes that plan. damn.
andyg8180 @ Mar 19th 2008 8:48AM
the original creator of VHS went bankrupt... is this a sign of things to come?
avdesign4 @ Mar 19th 2008 9:10AM
@andyg8180
VHS (Video Home System or Victor Home System) was created by JVC. I dont think they are out of buisiness yet.
Also if you want to look at broadcasting, the Beta wasnt a total faliure, just in the consumer world. But was the standard for years at Broadcast studios.
Jeff @ Mar 19th 2008 1:10PM
@avdesign4
VHS stands for "Vertical Helical Scan" - it's an acronym of the the technology.
tekdroid @ Mar 19th 2008 4:52AM
am I missing something:
----
"2. Reasons for the Revision
Net sales are expected to be lower than previously forecast, reflecting the discontinuation of the HD DVD business and the decline in sales prices of NAND flash memories."
-------
Where does break down HD-DVD figures alone in the linked article?
tekdroid @ Mar 19th 2008 4:59AM
oh. it's in the pdf. Nevermind :)
leo.hj.chen @ Mar 19th 2008 5:24AM
You can buy almost 3 Bear Stearns with that money!
leo.hj.chen @ Mar 19th 2008 5:24AM
You can buy almost 3 Bear Stearns with that money!
Fraggle.Rock @ Mar 19th 2008 5:31AM
I'm watching an HD DVD right now (Ray), it's been a perfectly decent format for me. I'll also invest in Blu-ray in the near future, but it's all hi-def to me... ain't nothing wrong with that!
papafew @ Mar 19th 2008 6:19AM
the problem is not the best format (long time ago betamax was far better than vhs), but a war between communication groups + media networks + lobbies
rayza563 @ Mar 19th 2008 6:39AM
Actually Papafew it was VHS had porn, then when SOME people said oh HD DVD has got SOME (that word again) porn industry behind it there gonna win now. well Japan porn was Blu ray exclusive the WHOLE COUNTRY and ppl should have known, YOU JUST DONT BUY PORN THESE DAYS.
lobbies? you mean political lobby groups/pressure groups?????
Fraggle.Rock @ Mar 19th 2008 6:37AM
@papafew
Trust me, I understand the issues at bay... back in the day I owned both VHS and Beta (and LD too, I must be a format junkie). I'm just saying that for all the HD DVD-haters out there, and there are quite a few, especially on the Engadget boards, that it's a format that works just fine. YES, I'll be investing in Blu-ray too, but in the end, hi-def is hi-def - it all looks and sounds good to me.
Nuff said
Cheapo @ Mar 19th 2008 7:07AM
I saw a BBC report last week it would be $2 billion! $1 billion for HD DVD and $1 billion in contract obligations with production/studios... ect.
Way to get facts wrong BBC!
Numus @ Mar 19th 2008 7:11AM
Might we not forget along with the failure of betamax, sony had another flop when they introduced the revolutionary Minidisc (MD)...
John Stracke @ Mar 19th 2008 4:43PM
And Memory Stick, and Digital8, and SACD...I've probably forgotten some.
Sony seems to have an institutional predisposition to creating formats and trying to get rich by licensing them. Blu-Ray is only the second I can think of that succeeded—the first was the 3.5" floppy (There were several smaller-than-5.25" floppy formats in the early 80s, but it was hard to convince people to buy a new drive. Apple ended the war by choosing Sony drives for the Mac.)
Jeebus @ Mar 21st 2008 12:23PM
MD was successful for almost a decade as a portable recording format.
webon @ Mar 19th 2008 7:35AM
1,000,000,000; 1,000,000,000,000: which billion is it?
My guess is its the former, but I'm not in the US of A so I'm not sure
John Stracke @ Mar 19th 2008 5:06PM
10^9, of course. I don't think any company could survive the loss of 10^12 dollars.
dallas @ Mar 19th 2008 8:36AM
I wonder how much Microsoft lost because of HDDVD. I hear that Dreamworks deal cost them at leat $500,000,000 by itself
primetime4 @ Mar 19th 2008 10:50AM
The writing was on the wall and Toshiba should have known this (honestly, they probably did). HDDVD had almost no hardware support other than Toshiba. Studio support lagged behind Blu-ray not to mention Sony owns one of the larger ones. And the PS3 launched with an internal Blu-ray drive which Toshiba chose not to recognize as it was not a standalone player. They were lucky losses were not over 1 billion.
HD Guy @ Mar 19th 2008 10:56AM
In fact, if you check the record, Sony made a lot of money on Betamax, as it was a pretty successful format, it merely failed to become the winner of its format war. Unlike the case with HDM, the videocassette format broke into the mainstream while the format war was still on, so Sony did benefit from the early surge in interest in home video. And they never sold product at a loss the way that Toshiba did: although early units weren't profitable, then never kept lowering the price over and over again to gain market share, and eventually their Beta decks and tapes turned a profit.
Mcn @ Mar 19th 2008 11:01AM
I really believe Sony "bought" the business in this format war. I suspect they gave away the "stamping" equipment and/or lowered the license fees to the media companies. Sony even gave Toshiba a sweet deal on one of their PS3 chip manufacturing divisions, allowing Toshiba to make back what they lost! I'll wait until the Blu-ray players come down to a reasonable price ($200) until I buy in. In the mean-time I purchased a HD-DVD player for fun while I wait about 2 years for Blu-ray to mature. Besides, many of the HD-DVD discs are dual format, DVD on one side, HD on the other. Not much to lose there.
Ender Wiggin @ Mar 19th 2008 11:32AM
It's only a flesh wound. It'll soon heal.
n8manAfter @ Mar 19th 2008 11:57AM
I would to see a community built around making the most of the now discontinued HD DVD hardware. The hardware is powerful (obviously able to decode full 1080p H.264 and/or VC-1) and clearly has network connectivity. I'd like to see these features exploited in order to extend the functionality of these devices and the linux firmware that they run on. It would be great to see what more these devices can do for their owners now that HD DVDs will no longer be produced.
Imagine a set top box that can be acquired on the cheap could play back your 1080p (or 720p) high profile H.264 MKVs over the network.
Rick @ Mar 19th 2008 12:34PM
So if Tosh dropped that ina losing effort, I wonder how much Sony has lost in order to guarantee (buy) victory?
Ratteler @ Mar 19th 2008 2:56PM
$669 Million just to kiss the ass of the movie industry by not selling recorders. Even though they would have been cheaper and easier to make than BluRay recorders.
And what's WORSE.... they turned the entire Hi-Def Market over to SONY is already price gouging and screwing consumers.
I'll wait for Option#3 to pop up. SONY didn't loose the beta war because of technical inferiority. THey Lost it cause the were greedy bastards who tried to nickle and dime the market. THAT we all know, has only gotten worse.
Kevin Sims @ Mar 19th 2008 4:08PM
In my best Nelson impression; "HA HA"
snowglyder @ Mar 19th 2008 4:40PM
At the rate the dollar is falling, it could still reach $1B US.
happy_penguin @ Mar 20th 2008 12:37AM
Comparing the Blu Ray vs HDDVD war to the VHS vs Betamax war is not a fair comparison. Beta and VHS were completely incompatible. Both Blu Ray and HDDVD players are compatible with DVD as far as I know. Also, I believe that all or most HDDVD players have the upconvert feature for standard DVD. HDDVD players will not become useless because they will still be able to play standard DVD and having the upconvert is a great feature. So HDDVD players will only become semi obsolete to the end user instead of totally useless. True, early HDDVD adopters are getting burned a bit, but at least they still have useable machines for years to come.
maruawe @ Mar 20th 2008 12:01PM
IF bluray tries the monopolistic pricing we may see a resurgance in hddvd. So I hope that Toshiba does not completely abandon hddvd, but has the resources to keep the technology for couply years. They may win yet
Riley Freeman @ Mar 20th 2008 2:38PM
to richard lawler write for engadget that was a cold cheap low blow offering the best buy gift certificate shame on u... lol no i love it that had me rolling at work lol. this format was over as soon as bluray went into the ps3. had microsoft put hddvd in their xbox and waited and not rushed their piece of junk of system with the red ring of death (haha think about it hdvd was red it was shape round like a ring and its now dead lol hmmmmmmm) it would still be going and sony might have even lost this one too only because xbox was cheaper then again if it had an hddvd xbox wouldnt be as cheap so it would definitely still be going. ah well when ur playstation ur playstation 4 lifeeeeeeee (NWO fans will appreciate that)