Best Buy, Netflix Both Shun HD DVD

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
From our front-page news:
If you happened to have thought that things couldn't have gotten worse for HD DVD, then think again. Yesterday, there were two rather sizable announcements, both favoring big Blu.

First is Best Buy, who've just made the decision to go pro-Blu-ray, but there's a twist. While they don't mention clearing out HD DVD (and they shouldn't), they plan to begin telling customers that Blu-ray is the future, because as we all know, Blu-buy knows what is right for us, as consumers. We can all be sure that this has absolutely nothing with wanting to make things easier by dedicating floor-space to a single high-def format. That would be foolish thinking.

As if Toshiba needed more to worry about, Netflix also decided to jump the HD DVD ship and begin renting out Blu-ray format movies exclusively. These two companies pairing their decisions is yet another major blow to HD DVD, and if things didn't look grim before, they are looking a whole lot worse now.

<table align="center"><tbody><tr><td>
hd-dvd_full_news_logo.png

</td></tr></tbody></table>
"We believe our move to feature Blu-ray should help consumers feel confident in their hi-def content choices," said Best Buy Home Solutions Senior VP Mike Vitelli. "We are excited about helping customers find the right mix of products and services to make the next generation of high definition entertainment technology come alive for them. We believe that Blu-ray is the right solution for consumers."

Source: DailyTech
 

slugbug

Coastermaker
In my opinion the HD-DVD camp gave up too easily. They should have released the HD-DVD burners(they announced 2 yrs ago) at a bargain price along with inexpensive media. Also Microsoft should have integrated HD-DVD into its XBOX 360 at release.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
I think it was doomed from the get go, and a lot of the "winning" for Blu-ray came from the PS3. If no consoles were in the scheme of things, we would have seen a completely different war. When anyone picks up a PS3 and has Blu-ray, why would they then go out and pick up an HD DVD player?

Had the Xbox 360 included HD DVD functionality from the start, like it should have, then they'd still have a chance. Of course, this was an easier risk for Sony to take, given that Blu-ray is their technology, so tossing it into the PS3 was no big deal. It was a damn smart move, to say the least.
 
Top