The article talks about how Sony and Toshiba had decided to work together, the HD formats would have arrive to market earlier. Nobody is bashing Blu Ray.

By the way first big mistake is of MS, last big mistake is of MS. And if you feel the author is biased, well he is, about praising Apple and criticising MS.

Guys relax.

They're not directly bashing Blu-ray, but they are very much downplaying the progress that Blu-ray has made in the years that it has been around. No one expected HD to get as far as Blu-ray has, and everyone was talking about how it would win the format war in the end. Blu-ray is doing exceptionally well and having a faster rate of growth than CDs did over cassette tapes or DVDs over CDs/VHS.

"In 2008 Sony slipped the knife into Toshiba by paying one of its biggest backers, Warner Brothers Studios, a reported $400 million to drop HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray."

At first it looked like this was just another bitter HD-DVD fan crying over the death of his poor choice. But this clown is spreading disgusting lies.

Warner stated in public they would see how sales turned out over the holidays and then pick a single format to support. Not surprisingly with Blu-Ray's major sales advantage they dropped HD-DVD. Then stated this outright when they made their announcement.

He is repeating a known lie that was fabricated the day of the Warner dropping HD-DVD news a hardcore HD-DVD fan on one of the media news site forums.

First clue was the Blu-Ray disc being held up by the chick.
Second was the MSNBC source (which I noticed just as I clicked the link)
Third clue was the 11 page list filled with ADs and 1 paragraph per page.

I stopped at the first page and decided to assume RROD was not on the list as well as DVD9 on a HD console (MS really should have built HDDVD drives into the 360).

Basically more Propaganda to try and take out some of the thunder from consumers rushing to pick up a PS3.

Better luck next gen MS.

Edit:
Judging from the posts made since I started writing, I admit I was quick to prejudge this article. Therefore I will actually read it... although I wont like giving them so many hits for pages full of ADs.

Edit:
half truths and slanted commentary. I should have just walked away after reading the headline.

Eh, MSNBC has nothing to do with the content. The source is PC World. MSNBC has everything to do with the annoying goddamn one-per-page format though. The article is only two pages at the source.

If anything I'd say they're calling a race over before it even began in denigrating the winner of the HD format wars. It's not the overwhelming success the winner would have hoped for in either case, but there's some progress made.

As for number one, MS would have never given us those things if someone else hadn't brought them out first. They seemingly had no plans to sweep the MP3 player market or offer music services before Apple came along with it.

So you guys actually believe that if there was only one HD disc format as of 2002 it would not be standard by now and that the fight was actually worth it? And also, I want to hear predictions, how long till blu ray discs start selling more then DvDs?

Also, where is the story of Atari blowing off the NA distrabution rights to the Famicon, as the Nintendo Advanced Video Gaming System, that one is classic imho

"I want to hear predictions, how long till blu ray discs start selling more then DvDs?"

You don't need to predict. Blu-Ray is growing in the market faster than DVD was when it replaced VHS.

Go find the crossover point for the DVD vs VHS in old sales data and there is your answer:

Soon than that.

ok, I dont agree with you. 5 years from now, DvD will still be sold along side Blu ray. and thats at the very least. And since you said that the 400 million deal with Warner was an (absolute and utter lie) I think its safe to say that we should take your wisdom very very lightly.

And btw, grats on the new account! how many is it now?

a list of tech blunders...
Do you think you see the Microsoft/Toshiba decision to back hd-dvd? NO!
This MSNBC article tries to erase Microsoft from hd-dvd history. It doesn't admit that hd-dvd was the loser. It puts a spin on the format war and says that the tech blunder was "Sony and Toshiba agree to disagree over HD" and follows up on how Blu-ray is 'losing' to DVD.
Dear God, what happened to journalistic integrity?

Today, DVDs outsell Blurays... and Blurays outsell Digital Downloads. ^_^

Guess what will happen? Blurays will eventually replace DVDs. Sometime down the road, a better storage medium will replace Blurays.

All the while DD will continue to coexist with physical media.

Why? Because one is a service, while the other sells products.

I think you're missing the point that there are three parties in this "competition" of which you speak:

1) Sony and BR, which should have won based solely on the volume of stroage it provides.

2) Toshiba and HD-DVD, The lesser format based on the above reason which was rushed to market while criticizing BR for its waste of space, though the last thing that camp did was try and match BR's next to minimum size level.

3) MS and their agenda to branch out into other industries like game consoles and multi media in general. Sony's refusal to use a menu interface is why MS backed Toshiba, though in the end all they were really doing was trying to delay either format from becoming dominant so they could use the 360 to pimp DDL. Something else they haven't really succeeded with thanks to the console war with the PS3, and any number of growing box-top devices.

Yes Sony and Toshiba probably should have worked together, the only problem is that MS got in the way.

@Tony P:
Half remembered crap. John Paul's backup. The fact that HD-DVD was 15GB per layer, then 17GB just so there could be a three layered disk with 51GB.

Why?

Sources for that arguement, Godmars?

@Godmars: Because I have a hard time believing it, but would not call it untrue, and only facts would sway me either way.

damned sony ninja's

/shakes fist

How do you know that is a lie FlatulentGhost? got any proof? Maybe you can create another account to show it to us?

here, have fun

http://www.google.com/searc...

btw, I dont think its wrong, the sooner someone ended that stupid format war, the better is was for all of us.

@Montrealien:

all the "results" end up in forum posts as sources .. ain't that sad?
The only real source points to a clear press statement of the warner CEO "we decided solely by the performance of the two formats, there was no bidding war, no monetary incentives have been part of that decision" and remember that an outright lie to the investors is a federal offense. If there had been a money transfer he wouldn't state such a clear denial, he would try to elude the issue and do a "we won't comment on rumors and utter speculation" instead.

Compare that to the doggy elusive paramount statements when first asked about why they dropped BluRay and why there was a 250 million cash influx in their books suddenly, and then claimed its only a 250 million "advertising" incentive for the format and you see this is a completely different ballpark.

The ridicules 400 million claim was sourced to a FORUM post in the HD video forums, at that time STRONG HD-DVD supporters. It lacks any evident and HD-Fanboys claimed that the evil truth would come to the open when Warner had to release its numbers after the financial year ... guess what, no Sony $400 million payment in the books AT ALL. And hiding this amount of cash from the accounts would be a federal offense punishable by PRISON. It was a HD-DVD Fanboy made up excuse so they could believe in the lie that their oh so much better format was unfairly murdered by evil money grubbing people at Warner and Sony. HD-DVD lost when BluRay started OUTSELLING them in disk sales in early 07 and kept that margin at 60-40 to 70-30 throughout the year. While Toshiba claimed that their market share was slightly bigger by only counting standalone HD-DVD players and BluRay Players, completely disregarding the PS3 as legitimate Player, the real marketshare made a swing to BluRays favor with the huge amount of BluRay enabled consoles sold every month compared to the meager stand alone sales. Disk sales where the margin Warner decided by, and thats only natural for a company selling disks, not players.

Actually, the 400$ million thing was all sourced to an article from the Globe and Mail, one of the worlds oldest financial news papers. Btw, where is that Warner press statement from? I would be interested in reading up an it.

http://www.theglobeandmail....

You can actually get to the story if you are slick enough

the money quote which started this all was

quotes from (Stringer makes his mark
By BARRIE McKENNA AND MATT HARTLEY)

(Sony's CEO led his company to victory in the high-definition sweepstakes
by convincing the major studios to come aboard)

(Although celebrated yesterday, the victory was sealed last month when Sony swayed Warner Bros. to back Sony's Blu-ray technology and quit producing movies using Toshiba Corp.'s rival HD DVD format.
What remains a mystery is just how big a push Warner needed to pick sides. Analysts say Sony only prevailed following a heated bidding war against Toshiba, with the reward reaching as much as $400-million (U.S.). Neither side has confirmed the size of any bids or payments.
It was)

Fact of the matter is, Stringer negotiated some form of royalty deal with Warner Bros to end this once and for all, the blu ray camp seems to think they went the way of Blu ray because it was better, blah blah blah. At the end of the day, it was all about money, from both sides, and sony won.

Why do you even care if Sony paid or not? I think is was a brilliant move to end the whole format war once and for all. They have as much a right to open the wallet as MS does. Its business, its hard ball, and it aint black and white, like many of you seem to think.