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Reader Comments (55)

Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:06PM Peter Moore said

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I lol'd.

I'm not sure why, but I did.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:42PM jtenma said

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I did too OMG LOL I laughed and then asked myself" why?"
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 10:38PM Jerk Face said

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Because Griffin is an awesome writer, that's why!

Good work, pal!
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 11:13PM Starcade said

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I dunno...

I caught this story about a week ago, so it's a bit of a deja vu. But at the other location they put it more into perspective. Last year Toshiba made almost 64 billion. This year, they'll make 1 billion less.

They have their hands in litterally everything electronic. So while it's a disappointment that HD DVD did not pan out, they'll make their money elsewhere. As far a disc based players-- last I heard, they were going to start concentrating on making better upscaling DVD players.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:10PM Deck said

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"But as they say, in order to make an omelet, you've got to break a few eggs; though sometimes, you have to break 100 billion eggs, only to find that nobody wants to eat your omelet. Okay, nobody says that."

Love it Griffin! I lawlz.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:19PM embassy said

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they knew the costs when they came to the dance.

Unfortunately they didnt have a gaming division to push thier baby like Sony.

and MS had its own agenda from day one.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:40PM NutMan said

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The gaming division had nothing to do with it. Sony owns one major studio and has partial control of another. Blu ray also had the much needed manufacturer support. HD DVD only had Toshiba and Venturer, and afaik venturer just took the HDA2 and made it crappier. They also barely count because they were screwed by toshiba. right when the player launched Toshiba cut prices.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 10:15PM embassy said

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yes but its also a fact that the ps3's inclusion of blu-ray significantly helped BR market saturation. If I'm not mistaken, PS3 is still the # 1 selling BR player. If toshiba had a comparable multimedia device this "War" would potentially still be raging on.

Initial Movie Studio Support is pretty arbitrary cuz the studios will flock to wherever the highest volume of HD players are. and thanks to the ps3 the BR market had a vehicle to move substantially more volume than toshiba with HD-DVD.

MS just didnt want the 360 price to exceed $399 and they wanted ( and had to imo) beat sony to market. With Hd-DVD built in, they would've had to launch at a price similar to the ps3's initial price and probably wouldve had to launch a yr later as well, Which wouldve been suicide imo. And im sure toshiba didnt wanna budge on Hd-DVD prices to keep the 360 cost down.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:40PM NutMan said

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They took a risk. Thats business for ya. They'll make it up with DVD royalties and of course their ever flourishing semi conductor business.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:20PM (Unverified) said

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In the words of Nelson...."HaHa!"
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:25PM (Unverified) said

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I hope they have a large overdraft.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:26PM (Unverified) said

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It wouldn't have been as much if they just would've admitted defeat when Blu-ray took the lions share of all available studio support OR when Sony started shipping out PS3s.

It was a huge gamble on their part. I wouldn't have taken it as far as they did.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:26PM mr nimblewick said

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Damn, I wish it had been sony.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:28PM Nick the Hero of Canton said

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HD DVD really was a good format, it's just that blu ray was superior.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:29PM Nick the Hero of Canton said

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Edit:

No matter how you look at it, Blu Ray didn't win because Microsoft was attatched to HD. Sony didn't make Blu-Ray win alone, and Microsoft did not make HD lose alone, so really, It irks me when I see fanboys arguing about blu-ray VS HD-DVD and Sony fans bashing Xbox fans for the win of Blu-Ray, when it wasn't really just because of Sony.

Blu-Ray was a superior format with more studio support. That's how your going to win.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:49PM captcarl said

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For the first time that I can recall, the superior format has won.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 10:39PM embassy said

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yes but how do you get studio support?

by having players in people's homes.

the ps3 was/is the main BR player on the market and put BR players in peoples homes.Studios dont care which one is marginally better than the other, they're going to support the format that more people watch and have access to, simple and plain. Toshiba had no such device to rely on to put HD-DVD players in homes at such a high frequency as the ps3.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 11:02PM Abuzar said

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It had more storage, but I wouldn't call it superior. They both had their pros and cons.
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 12:03AM (Unverified) said

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@embassy
We get it you are a PS fanboy please stop explaining how Blu-Ray won

Now back to the story
I agree nick Blu-Ray is a superior format the HD is great but what I still don't get is what this has to do with games or gaming anyway? And why PS fanboys are still talking about this?
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 1:30AM BurntMeatloaf said

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The only way to determine which format is "superior" is to base your judgment on how well each format meets the needs of the customers.

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that MOST people did not see a clear advantage of one format over the other. Most people didn't even care about the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD war.

No, in the end it depended on how much money was being thrown around to buy the loyalty of movie houses, and the format with the most publishers won. Given this, it's pretty clear that the superiority war between VHS and Beta was more clear-cut than the war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. It had nothing to do with technology -- it was all about backdoor politics.

I liked HD-DVD because it had a more complete feature set at launch and required less and cheaper hardware. Given equal image quality, that better suits the needs of the customers. Most people couldn't tell a difference, and hardly anyone really understands how the technology works, either.

In any case, I decided to wait to see who won, which was really the only winning strategy for consumers. My dad didn't wait, and he just bought himself a "backup" HD-DVD player before he gets one of the next-gen Blu-ray players.
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 4:20AM embassy said

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mr Hala Madrid,

I used common sense and some logic in my post, a "fanboy" uses neither of those.

I also find it funny when you say "stop saying how BR won" when that is the basis of this very article.

basically what you said was "stop staying on topic"

see how retarded you sound?

who's the fanboy again?

try again.
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 1:22PM (Unverified) said

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@embassy
no thats not the topic read the headline nextime
is about toshiba losing money it doesn't say how blu-ray won
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 7:29PM Nick the Hero of Canton said

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HD had a huge player push when they went on sale, the issue was no one buying the discs, not the players. That's how blu-ray won it's final blow in studio support.

Also, why the Hell was my comment rated down, and then a post 2 below it which said the same thing (the better format won) gets rated up?
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:40PM Vegnagun said

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I can't help but think this is Toshiba's fault. What sounds more appealing: A Bluray or an HDDVD. Seriously.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:51PM jtenma said

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I would've thought that HDDVD would have been more accepted since it's a "step up" from DVD(in terms of naming). BLURAY just came outta nowhere, and I thought that the casual buyer would go- DVD: HD-DVD not DVD:BLURAY? IMO. I also think that's what kept the PS3 afloat till it got steam. PS1:PS2 AS PS2:PS3. It's the next step upward I guess, "so it must be better". ( casual buyer) Also, I always thought RED WAS COOLER THAN BLUE AS WELL!111!!1!!1(WAY OFF TOPIC)
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 12:28AM Vegnagun said

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You make a good point, almost. Think about your average American consumer. He/She likes fast cars, movies that feature exponentially more guns and boobs than substance, and likes their food fast and greasy.

C'mon now. Bluray > HDDVD. They don't know what a "Bluray" is, but it sounds like something out of James Bond, and they want it.
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 9:55AM Duke said

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The average consumer also likes something comfortable to him, which makes sense to him when he sees it on the shelf. I would think they would go for HD-DVD as it would seem like a comfortable evolution. (If we are talking about names alone)

In the end I don't think this was a war decided by the consumer. It was studio support that drew the line.
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Posted: Mar 18th 2008 4:43AM (Unverified) said

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Sometimes I read your "bluray" as BLURRAY XD (blurry for those who don't get it)
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 9:49PM (Unverified) said

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hey, shit happens.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 10:14PM hey buddy said

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Expensive shit happens
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 11:08PM TheMainProtagonist said

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Where shit happens.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 10:04PM (Unverified) said

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The PS3 had a huge factor in it in terms of studio support they kno ppl will buy the PS3s just like the pS2 with the dvd player it just makes cents get it lol i kno it was lame i'm ashamed :-(
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 10:09PM kspraydad said

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And SONY sold 10 million consoles at approx $200 dollar loss each for a total of a 1 billion loss too.

Suck it up Toshiba. Shit happens.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 10:55PM SharpShooter said

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Um, you realize that was when the PS3 launched? Sony isn't losing anything on the PS3(or since I last heard).
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 8:15AM erh said

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And Microsoft lost 4 billion on the first Xbox. That console is finished. There's no way Microsoft will ever recover that money, the Xbox might as well have never existed. At least Sony has a couple years to go so they might recover their losses on the PS3.
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 10:25PM xThePunisherx said

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$200 lost per cosole? I must've missed the article...
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Posted: Mar 16th 2008 11:13PM Eugimon said

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ah... remember back in the good'ol days when a billion dollars was a lot of money? Yay bush economic policy!
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 12:06AM (Unverified) said

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That's a LOT of zeros
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 12:42AM Mabui said

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Poor Toshiba, though I can't help but feel like maybe if you had made my laptop a little less likely to overheat this wouldn't have happened. I don't know how this would have changed, so we'll just call it a billion dollars worth of Karma..
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 12:57AM (Unverified) said

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Oh boy.. here we go with more hd dvd news that was posted on engadget last week..


Dang, do a game review or something if ya'll run outta things t write about.
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 4:12AM (Unverified) said

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do you ever not bitch and moan?
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 2:32AM (Unverified) said

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Toshiba's $1 billion lesson: dont mess with the Big S!
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 5:33AM drun said

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it is indeed "NIKKEI business daily".
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 6:28AM Tinmanau said

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Awwww...
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 6:56AM (Unverified) said

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qo op, I might as well give you a leash, because you follow me every where I go like a small dog. I feel like I gotta have some scooby snacks every time I post.. Go play a movie Troll.
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 2:40PM Top Cat said

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and i feel like i need a sedative everytime you post a "witty" retort.

also, "ya'll"? Really?!
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 7:40AM Spunky Monkey 190906 said

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Quite a hefty loss, but someone had to win I guess, almost as bad as Microsoft's with the original Xbox.
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 8:30AM (Unverified) said

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And now MS and Toshiba not finished with being the losers in the HD war will try and keep DVD going longer by adding extra functionality.
http://www.contentagenda.com/article/CA6539511.html
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Posted: Mar 17th 2008 8:31AM (Unverified) said

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Ill stick to my LaserDisk.
How can you go wrong when the word Laser is on your product?
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