Mr. Kazuhiro Tsuga, executive officer of Matsushita's Panasonic briefed reporters recently at the CEATEC Japan 2007 last Tuesday, his responses give an insight to the mindset at Matsushita regarding the Blu-ray format struggle. Reminded by reporters of a remark he said in the past regarding dual format players: "Panasonic would never introduce such a stupid product," asked if LG and Samsung's foray in the combi players would have an effect on Panasonic, he jokingly replied "they haven't, like those stupid companies."
He then got serious and candidly put forth Panasonic's view on the state of Blu-ray. "Fortunately we haven't changed our mind, we believe that movie studios will select one format, namely Blu-ray sooner than later. When reminded that Paramount has decided to carry HD DVD, Tsuga was adamant, "Everyone knows that big (promotional) money from Toshiba or Microsoft has gotten backing for HD DVD." "Major studios backing Blu-ray want us to put more money behind promoting the format and it's features, expanding the market," said Tsuga.
Mr. Suga and the brass at Panasonic believe that the fourth quarter and the first quarter 2008 will be "critical" for Blu-ray, and more importantly to Audioholics wanting to get into a format, he believes the war will go on for at least one more year. They even plan on taking losses to promote the format.
Fumio Ohstsubo, president of Matsushita Electric Industrial, gave an eye opening answer that alludes to Panasonic's intent with Blu-ray recording decks in the US, the vision that he sees is "the immediate future for Blu-ray is home players and not recording decks, there is so much software in the US (movies) that Blu-ray recorders will take time to be accepted, unlike Japan."
Toshihiro Sakamoto, senior managing director, member of the board and president of Panasonic AVC Networks company agreed with Mr.Ohtsubo's assessment and further added that in Japan, "We already won the war there is no question about it, but Christmas will be critical in the US market."
Regarding the move by Sharp and Pioneer to collaborate in research, Mr Ohtsubo gave a side-stepped cryptic answer, "As you know competition in CE is very, very, very severe. In Japan there are eight major players. Recently these players are focusing on their strong points, focusing on what they do best....which is good." Now that is a non-answer.
An interesting point and one with a lot of wishful thinking behind it, Hitoshi Otsuki, managing director of overseas operations said that, "In general I don't see much in the way of low prices in the US like last year. Hopefully the industry can make more money than last year during the quarter."
Mr. Ohtsuki should be mindful that certain segments in our economy were not in play last year in the same quarter, recession is nearly upon us and Christmas as pointed out before is expected to be dismal for retailers. Though Panasonic's view of the market is bullish, my opinion is that this was an optimistic facade put on for the press, reality will force the CE industry to reassess their positions come Black Friday, given the concessions they're willing to make it might turn out to be Red Friday, bad for them good for us.
