A while ago I wrote on my blog that I felt Sony had got it right with Blu-Ray and they would win the battle of the two high definition DVD formats.
Well as the battle has hotted up, it now appears that Blu-Ray really is beginning to dominate. According to reports Best Buy, which is the largest consumer electronics chain in the US, has stated it will not recommend HD DVD to its customers. It will still stock the HD DVD format but it will be given much less prominence.
Best Buy’s president and chief operating officer Brian Dunn said: “Best Buy has always believed that the customer will benefit from a widely accepted single format that would offer advantages such as product compatibility and expanded content choices.
“Because we believe that Blu-ray is fast emerging as that single format, we have decided to focus on Blu-ray products.”
Worse still the largest DVD rental company in the US, Netflix, has announced it is to phase them out too.
I think we can safely say this is the beginning of the end for the HD DVD format. Personally, I feel sorry for consumers who have forked out their hard earned money on HD DVD players. I really hope we don’t see it being completely wiped out as then they really will have been a waste of money.
The two formats (and companies) should have buried their differences and agreed to make players that used both formats from the outset. Then everyone could have profited and us (the consumers) wouldn’t have been out of pocket and wondering what the hell we could do with them once they stop making the discs.
I suppose if you piled 10 on top of each other they could make a useful coffee table – any other suggestions welcome…..
Chris Norton is the founder of Prohibition and an award winning communications consultant with more than twenty years’ experience. He was a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University and has had a varied PR career having worked both in-house and in a number of large consultancies. He is an Integrated PR and social media blogger and writes on a wide variety of blogs across a huge amount of topics from digital marketing, social media marketing right through to technology and crisis management.
