I am sure that I am not alone in the never ending High Definition format war, but just as things begin to end the drama must start all over again. HD DVD and Blu-ray have reached what seemed to be an end to the battle as a death blow to the HD DVD camp was given at CES this year, but was it really the death blow? Apparently Warner Bros and Universal did not get the memo on Blu-ray winning the format war and HD DVD going the fire sale route, so instead of giving into Blu-ray completely they are going the Democratic way: let the people decide. Both formats will be used by both Warner Bros and Universal as they let the public decide for 2008 which technology to use and which president to vote for. I will now give the award for shape-shifting to Warner Bros for delivering the CES death blow by announcing they will back Blu-ray, but then continuing to release HD DVD.
Personally my take on things is that we must consider where Microsoft stands. With the potential acquisition of Yahoo which would send Microsoft into Debt, I believe they will want to be on the winning format since EA announced yesterday that it expects PS3 sales to top Xbox 360 sales in the coming year. Every PS3 sale is another Blu-ray player in the hands of the public and whether or not the buyer actually uses the device to watch Blu-ray movies really does not matter when potential Blu-ray movie sales are calculated. Although I would like the truth to be told strictly in the numbers of sales of actual movies and not impacted by potential sales of PS3 owners, this is the way things will be and rightfully so.
So how can Microsoft make a difference? Why not follow the pricing of the HD DVD players on the market and drop prices below the $100 price point. Even if Microsoft believes that HD DVD will lose the format war they still have the opportunity to drop the pricing of the HD DVD player add-ons before the damage is unrecoverable. So let’s see it Microsoft, I want that HD DVD player add on for 79.99 and I would consider making the purchase instead of buying another game for the 360 (Who really needs another game besides Call of Duty 4 though).
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