Wal-Mart Names HD DVD the Winner

From: http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback184.html

There is one retailer that has the power to call the winner of the protracted Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD fight and that vendor is Wal-Mart. Over the weekend they apparently leaked plans to bring in a massive number of low cost (possibly sub $200) HD DVD players for Christmas.

The manufacturing side of this has apparently been in the works for a few years but this is the first time we have had projected prices for the result.

Why Wal-Mart, Why Now?

Wal-Mart uses DVDs to build store traffic. They tend to subsidize the price for the movies they feature to get folks into the stores and once there, these folks tend to buy other things. DVDs have been so effective for the company they threw their body at movie downloads initially and delayed the related services by several years. However, they have now realized that this kind of thing is coming regardless and have brought out their own movie download service to compete. But that doesn’t address the store traffic benefit that will be evaporating as people move away from DVDs for standard definition downloadable movies.

Wal-Mart sees the new high definition formats as a way to bring in store traffic again but they realized that won’t happen unless the players are affordable and there is only one standard. They recognized their own power in being king maker previously and are now using that power to drive the format that works best for them. They could care less about the technology as this is all about making money and they (like every other retailer in this space) know that two formats won’t allow the market to move outside of the fringes and the dual-mode players are simply way too expensive.

So they need one standard and a lot of players in market before their DVD customers wander off to download land and stops coming to Wal-Mart for movies.

Why HD-DVD and not Blu-Ray?

For Wal-Mart the only real metric is cost. Wal-mart doesn’t really make money off of the movies and do not sell high-end home theater equipment. They are known for aggressive prices and, as mentioned above, they subsidize their DVD sales. They needed something that could sell for under $200 soon and they needed the lowest cost of the new formats. This is where HD DVD shines, not only had Toshiba agreed to license to low cost manufacturers early on, but HD DVDs are pressed on the same lines that regular DVDs are, they require no major equipment change out and the blanks, when compared to Blu-Ray are less expensive as well.

This made the decision simple, Blu-Ray was just too expensive to make this work and any technical advantages were insignificant against Wal-Mart’s need for the lowest cost offering. For them it is about price and that is where HD DVD clearly has the sustainable advantage.

What does this Mean?

It means that any studio wanting Wal-Mart’s support after year end had better be selling HD DVD movies. Wal-Mart won’t be promoting Blu-Ray and, after year end, will increasingly focus their marketing on getting people to buy into HD DVD players and the related HD DVD movie from them.

In short, the Blu-Ray aligned studios will now have to either support both formats or risk losing much of Wal-Mart's business and given how material this business is to them, you have to think that an anti-Wall-Mart decision would have a material impact on their bonuses and career longevity. It certainly puts Columbia Pictures, which is owned by Sony, in a particularly uncomfortable position.

So, if this move by Wal-Mart is true , and it appears to be (but we won’t know for sure for a few months yet), the format war is likely over and Wal-Mart has declared the winner.

The real question is which format teh pron industry is going with.

Someone just told me they tipped the scales in favour of VHS when it still competed with Betamax.

I have trouble seeing how a company like Walmart will decide it. Aren't they only big in the US, like?

That source doesn't seem all that great either, but maybe that's just me.

It looks like the same as back when the battle was between VHS and Betamax.

The cheaper one wins even if it's not as good technically.

Porn industry months ago picked HD DVD the winner.

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Originally Posted by zapjb

Porn industry months ago picked HD DVD the winner.

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:dabs: That probably says a lot more, given the precedent.

I can see why they, and (much less important) Walmart (if that guy in the article referred to in this thread didn't pull that out of his arse), did it (a matter of economy) but it still seems like a shame.

The current HD-DVD-discs hold like 40% less data than the current Blu-ray-discs. And the latter seems more technologically advanced to boot.


It seemed as if they might go Blu-ray last year as well, saw some article about some company in the business picking it for the greater capacity, but I guess the bulk of them went the other way, then.

Too bad.

HD-DVD disks are also cheaper to produce and have a better interactive layer/feature. I think the capacity will increase sufficiently to enable anything to be put on it, just as long as they don't double sided - I hate that sh*t.

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Originally Posted by Snee

I have trouble seeing how a company like Walmart will decide it. Aren't they only big in the US, like?

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Wal-Mart also ASDA in the UK, which is the 3rd(?) biggest 'supermarket' in the UK.

If Wal-mart offer a High Def player of whatever flavour for under $200 (or the local equivalent) then the other supermarkets will have to follow suit or lose out. And since it doesn't look like Blu-Ray will be available at that price for some time it is going to be HD-DVD.

It wouldn't really matter if some other chain decided that Blu-Ray at about $300 was the way to go, as long as there were sufficient titles for HD-DVD then price would still be the deciding factor. You would still get some people going for Blu-Ray, but not enough to satisfy the "pile it high, sell it cheap" philosophy of the modern chains.

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Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

It looks like the same as back when the battle was between VHS and Betamax.

The cheaper one wins even if it's not as good technically.

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VHS has longer record times then Beta at a similar price point. That could be considered technical.

Ultimately better tech means shit if it the real world benefit is neglible.

I've seen pictures from both players and they look basically identical so why would I want to pay much more money?