I think two more massive pre-Christmas $99 sales and can just about call the format war over.
Why do you feel this way?
I'm not knocking, I mean, I picked up a HD DVD player during this promotion, but it does seem like a promotion, and I have no intent to start buying HD DVD discs immediately as the format war definitely doesn't lead me to want to invest hundreds of dollars in software that may be part of a dead format.
Yet, in polls taken on other sites, a lot of people (about 33%) said that they purchased a $100 player as a second player for their homes - this does not lead to increased disc sales in any way.
So, while I do agree that 60K first time owners is significant, I wouldn't call it something that would lead to the word 'over' considering the competition.
Hi-Def DVD may or may not take off but you now have semi-main streamers getting excited about picking up the latest cool thing. Maybe enough to get the studios to shake loose with more titles.
Over 60K potential buyers? While selling 60K extra copies of a blockbuster like Transformers is possible, and good, it realistically may be closer to 10 or 20K copies - which is almost meaningless to studios who sell millions of copies on DVD.
I'd love to be a fly in the Disney board room. Little questions like "Why are we settling for selling a couple of thousand copies of Cars in BD only and blowing off sales of hundreds of thousands of copies to customers with dedicated HD DVD players?"
If you read the above information, and put it in perspective, you will likely agree that Disney is most definitely NOT asking this question for the reason listed. They may be asking for other reasons, but, until HD DVD actually starts having more titles, with more significant sales figures, it is unlikely that any studio will change sides based entirely on the merits of the format alone.
And you know darned well that question
is being asked.
No, I don't think anyone knows if that question is being asked except some studio execs.
Likewise, it could be claimed that throughout this year, HD DVD hasn't sold enough discs to outsell Blu-ray one week of the year. Do you think this has passed by WB, Paramount, Dreamworks, or Universal?
The price of the players, for the one day sales, is excellent. But, it still remains a question as to whether or not Toshiba player pricing can stay significantly lower than Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, etc. pricing long enough to win, or maintain survivability, in the long run. In two years (or so) standard pricing will be 100 bucks for these players, from both sides, but then it will be 4+ major CE manufacturers vs. Toshiba. At that point, the war may be decided by consumers, while right now it seems to be salvos that hit a target, but may not truly be affecting the 'war' in the least.