Wensday, October 18, 2007, 12:14 a.m.
Gary Gentile, and AP Business writer wrote how consumers will soon have to decide between two different formats of DVD’s in order to watch their favorite movies. While any movie made by Sony Pictures will only be sold on Blue-Ray discs while Universal movies will be sold exclusively on HD DVD. “People are still frustrated there is a format war to begin with,” he said. “The studios are making people choose. What consumers want is something that will play everything so they don’t have to choose.” In the US market, HD DVD’s hold a higher percentage of units sold with 61%, while Blu-Rays hold 36%. I think that the undustry needs to pick one format and run with it, make the units and discs a reasonable cost so there isnt a battle over which to buy, the better one stays.
Analysis
But Blu-ray, backed by Sony and a majority of Hollywood studios, got a big boost when Sony introduced its PlayStation 3 game console, which comes standard with a Blu-ray drive. Counting those machines, there are more Blu-ray players out there.Although Microsoft’s Xbox 360 can play HD DVD movies, the drive has to be bought separately. Only 160,000 drives have been sold so far, compared with 1.5 million PS3 consoles, according to NPD.
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