Haha, who are they kidding!
.
you know, which is more important than all the gadgetry awards.
Sony has completely forgotten this genre. It's like a blind spot for Sony.
I have never even heard of Doupe.cz or PSW*Uk mag. (Oh yeah, as if the ghetto-sounding name gives me a whole lot of confidence in the mag/blog/whatever.)
PSXtreme is hardly a neutral party.
All the Blu-ray business from all Sony fangirls combined do not make up $150 million.
If you live in the USA and you get a Blu-ray disc from Japan, it will play just fine because both the USA and Japan are in Region A.
On the the hand, if you live in, let say, the USA and your company sends you to China or Europe on assignment, then you can't bring your Blu-ray collection because China and Europe and have different regions. The USA is Region A, Europe is Region B, and China is Region C.
Of course, we all already know that the PS3 in USA does not ...
Different countries use different voltages, "genius".
You will have to buy a new Blu-ray (or HD-DVD) player when you move because the power standard is not the same: the power plug won't even fit into the outlet because it's shaped differently.
The good news with HD-DVD is that you will ONLY have to get a new player. You will be able to keep all the HD-DVDs you already have. On the other hand, if you have Blu-ray discs, you will have to get a new pla...
HD-DVD is region free.
I will be able to decide to move to Europe or Asia someday and take my entire HD-DVD collection with me because all the discs will work overseas. I will be able to go on trips overseas and buy some obscure foreign-language HD-DVDs that are not available in the US, and they will play just fine back in the USA on my HD-DVD player. My friends in China, Netherlands, Sweden or Australia will be able to mail me a HD-DVD, and it will play on my American HD-DVD p...
HD-DVD is region free.
I will be able to decide to move to Europe or Asia someday and take my entire HD-DVD collection with me because all the discs will work overseas. I will be able to go on trips overseas and buy some obscure foreign-language HD-DVDs that are not available in the US, and they will play just fine back in the USA on my HD-DVD player. My friends in China, Netherlands, Sweden or Australia will be able to mail me a HD-DVD, and it will play on my American HD-DVD p...
HD-DVD is region free.
I will be able to decide to move to Europe or Asia someday and take my entire HD-DVD collection with me because all the discs will work overseas. I will be able to go on trips overseas and buy some obscure foreign-language HD-DVDs that are not available in the US, and they will play just fine back in the USA on my HD-DVD player. My friends in China, Netherlands, Sweden or Australia will be able to mail me a HD-DVD, and it will play on my American HD-DVD p...
HD-DVD is region free.
I can decide to move to Europe or Asia or retire to New Zealand or Iceland, and keep my entire HD-DVD collection because they will all work overseas. I can go on a trip on Asia, Europe, or Australia and buy some obscure foreign-language HD-DVDs that are not available in the US. Those HD-DVDs will play just fine in the USA. My friends in Singapore, Netherlands or Australia can mail me a HD-DVD. It will play on my American HD-DVD player without a hitch....
HD-DVD is region free.
So. I can move to Europe or Asia some day and keep my HD-DVD collection. I can go on a trip on Asia, Europe, or Australia and buy some obscure foreign-language HD-DVDs that are not available in the US, and the HD-DVDs will play just fine in the US. My friends in Singapore or Netherlands can mail me a HD-DVD and it can play on my American player with no problem. I have a HD-DVD player, and it can play every HD-DVD from every single corner of the world....
Given Sony's "track record", I'd say that's the most likely scenario, the one we don't hear about.
Having dealt with Sony on numerous occasions, I have one word to describe Sony's corporate culture: Hubris, even by industry standard. Sony (or Sony's arrogance) is its own biggest enemy. It's not making too many friends with that attitude.
and I don't know what's going into their decision to go HD-DVD. But very likely there's some ego involved other than the money part. Maybe Sony has said or done something that offended some big gun in Paramount or Dreamworks - not unlikely given Sony's track record. There's always ego involved or someone's toe got stepped on in a drastic turn of event like this. It's just delicious.
(or it could be some big gun at Paramount really, really like the someone at Toshiba/Micros...
On the rumor that Disney, or more specifically Pixar, will probably go HD format neutral...
Here's a little bit of juicy "tabloit" that you don't read in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter:
Howard Stringer (Sony CEO) publicly attacked Steve Jobs (CEO/Chairman of Apple and Pixar) over iPod and iPhone, and criticized that Jobs is greedy (and more.) Stringer actually made the personal attack in a panel in front of other big guns (Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sergey Brin o...
Here's a little bit of juicy "tabloit" that you don't read in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter:
Howard Stringer (Sony CEO) publicly attacked Steve Jobs (CEO/Chairman of Apple and Pixar) over iPod and iPhone, and criticized that Jobs is greedy (and more.) Stringer actually made the personal attack in a panel in front of other big guns (Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sergey Brin of Google, etc.) That's just very "not cool". I almost fell out of my chair when I read ab...
Here's a little bit of juicy "tabloit" that you don't read in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter:
Howard Stringer (Sony CEO) publicly attacked Steve Jobs (CEO/Chairman of Apple and Pixar) over iPod and iPhone, and criticized that Jobs is greedy (and more.) Stringer actually made the personal attack in a panel in front of other big guns (Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sergey Brin of Google, etc.) That's just very "not cool". I almost fell out of my chair when I read ...
But don't be surprise to see the Warner drops Blu-ray for some titles and/or gives HD-DVD a lot more special bonus features than Blu-ray sometimes later this year.
Please, no more stupid predictions. They always miss.