Bad news for the PS3 – Sony admits loss, sorry, ’stalemate’ in format war with Microsoft
Sony CEO Howard Stringer admitted that their Blu-Ray format is in a ’stalemate’ with Microsoft endorsed HD-DVD. And when a company as psychopathically unable to admit defeat as "I’ll give you $2000 for any PS3 you find on the shelves" Sony confesses to a draw, the reality must make a cruise on the Titanic look like a success story.
Things have been looking grim for Blu-Ray since August when Paramount Pictures, who you might know as "those guys who make most of the DVDs people buy", switched to HD-DVD and left the Sony camp looking rather cold and lonely. Toshiba’s HD-DVD has also been striking hard at Sony’s famous weak spot, reasonable pricing, selling players at half the price of the Blu-Ray.
This loss most severely affects PS3 owners, a product marketed not only as a powerful games console but an all-in-one media center. If the Blu-Ray players ends up as this generations Betamax, Playstation owners will be forced to shell out yet again on a HD-DVD player (after already having to buy proper HDMI cables, a headset, the Dualshock controllers (again), and all those other things that the PS3 didn’t include despite costing more than my first car). That, or end up watching Spiderman 3 on repeat for the rest of their lives.
The most damning evidence in the talk, reported by Yahoo, was the claim that "It doesn’t mean as much as all that". When the chief of a major media corporation starts claiming that the result of a major format war, a format war they invested huge amounts of time and money in, isn’t important then that’s a great big blu-ray-tinted white flag right there. When he does it eight months after declaring victory it’s an embarrassing blu-white flag that says "Yeah, that disc reader we put in the PS3 isn’t going to be as useful as we thought".
Mr Stringer continued to paint a bleak picture for the Sony-specific technology, wishing that it were possible to travel back in time and not have entered this media war. It generally isn’t the winning side that starts daydreaming about wishing the whole thing never happened. In front of a crowd of reporters and investors.
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40 Responses to “Bad news for the PS3 – Sony admits loss, sorry, ’stalemate’ in format war with Microsoft”
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November 11th, 2007
The only reason that HD DVD is winning is because of Paromont, if the were not bought out by Microsoft, Blu-ray will still be winning. Sony knows it cant compete with $99 players, they had ivested way to much money on that stupid Playstion 3. They keep saying that the PS3 will win the format war but when are they going to reilzed that plepole are not buying the PS3 for Blu-ray movies, thats why I just bougth a stand alone player . I dont play games so why in the HELL would I buy one? I love blu-ray but sony NEEDS to drop Prices On ALL Blu-ray players! At this point I’m just saying the HELL with all of it altogether, includeing HD DVD. I feel like i just wasted to much time and MONEY and these two copmenies that dont give a DAM, so why the HELL should I give them any more of my hard earend dollars. I just wish that maybe now that they can see what they need to do and that is work together.
November 11th, 2007
VERRY GOOD JOB!! I change side to hd dvd which is better ,pip in pip two tunners and plays and upgrade better than any blueray players costing up to four times,after fantastic 4 did not play i return everything i could!
November 11th, 2007
Sour grapes. I highly doubt that Sony would be saying “It doesn’t matter that much” if it were actually winning the DVD war.
November 11th, 2007
In your continuing quest for being the most idiotically anti Sony site on the net you are doing very well.
If you had a brain in your head and any grasp of the situation at all you would be aware that when Howard Stringer said he wished they could go back and join up with Toshiba he was referring to when Toshiba broke away from negotions to go off with HD-DVD on their own instead of joining every other electronics manufacturer who were backing BluRay. He is not saying he wished they could have gone with HD-DVD you idiots he is saying he wished Toshiba had decided not to start a format war.
At the end of the day Toshiba are the reason for this mess because they were persuaded by Microsoft to keep going with HD-DVD despite the fact that every other electronics manufacturer preferred BluRay. The reason for that is because no one owns BluRay whereas Toshiba own the HD-DVD format 100%. BluRay was all set to become the industry HD standard which would have avoided all of this mess.
The situation at the moment is heavily in favour of Bluray despite what some may think. Sales of standalone players are split around 60/40 in favour of HD-DVD but there are over 10 times as many BluRay players in peoples houses because of the PS3. Most of those might not be getting used to play Bluray discs but that doesn’t mean they wont be at some point in the future. The fact that the household owns a PS3 also means they will almost definitely not buy a HD-DVD player.
If you still disagree ask yourselves these questions. If BluRay are doing badly why are they not selling their standalone players at a loss to drum up sales like Toshiba did last week? If HD-DVD are looking like the winners why did they have to pay Paramount to join them exclusively and why did they only agree to go exclusive for just 1 year?
BluRay are storming ahead with getting the format in homes in the PS3 and when there is serious demand for standalone players there will be significant price-cuts and HD-DVD will lose their only real selling point.
November 11th, 2007
Bluray is winning..end of story.
Stringer made a mistake at an attempt to sound ‘humble’….Howard, theres no need lol, Bluray has won it’s fine!
November 11th, 2007
lol
if HD-DVD were endorsed by microsoft, why they dont include one with each xbox 360?
lol
Paramount Pictures DONT MAKE most of the DVDs people buy
lol
“left the Sony camp looking rather cold and lonely” Sony camp has hundreds of members, the toshiba camp is the lonely with just microsoft as their lovely partner
lol
“selling players at half the price of the Blu-Ray” and yet they are losing
lol
by the way im sorry for your first crappy car, that cost less than basic pc
November 11th, 2007
is to early to know who will win,blue ray is still winning in world wide.
Luke McKinney is a M$ lick ass.
November 11th, 2007
Blu ray will win… but who really cares?
November 11th, 2007
Well said Karl. All of these people love to jump on the anti blu-ray/sony band wagon with out even looking into the truth of the matter. For the month of October, Blu-ray still had the most sales over HD-DVD which included the HD-DVD exclusive release of Transformers. So with Paramount exclusive to HD-DVD, it didn’t help them win last month. What other movie does HD-DVD have exclusive to them that will sell as well as Transformers??? That’s it folks. Please don’t mention Shrek the 3rd.
Also, to say that Things have been looking grim for Blu-ray because of the Paramount and Dreamworks animation switch, is also false. Total movie sales are still 2 to 1 in favor of Blu-ray. Let’s not forget that Blu-ray still has Fox, MGM, and Disney just to name a few. This move from Paramount and Dreamworks animation in my mind was just plain stupid.
There are over 6 million PS3’s sold, so Toshiba will have to practically give their HD-DVD players for free just to catch up, which is what they kind of doing at the moment. This is making Toshiba is look really desperate. One other thing you have to think about is all of the people who went out and bought an HD-DVD player for the bargain price of $100-200, do you think they be willing to spend $25-35 for a copy of a new movie like Transformers or Shrek?
“If the Blu-Ray players ends up as this generations Betamax, Playstation owners will be forced to shell out yet again on a HD-DVD player (after already having to buy proper HDMI cables, a headset, the Dualshock controllers (again), and all those other things that the PS3 didn’t include despite costing more than my first car).” – Luke McKinney
Does this make any sense?? This is how stupid these writers sound. What does buying a headset and Dualshock controllers have anything to do with watching Blu-ray movies? These are all used for gaming. Luke, do me a favor next time and write about something you know. I think we have enough idiots writing meaningless articles about Blu-ray and the PS3.
November 11th, 2007
Luke McKinney is incredibly misinformed and I dont really know why he is still writing for this site. First note that Sony said “Stale Mate.” that would mean that at the moment no one is winning. The war will continue onwards. It is foolish and horrible journalism to write such a poor article before the holiday season even begins. Especially when Sony just started advertising for the ps3 and dropped its price.
November 11th, 2007
“They keep saying that the PS3 will win the format war but when are they going to reilzed that plepole are not buying the PS3 for Blu-ray movies,”
Sorry but this is totally false. I am a PS3 owner and I only have two games yet I have 10 Blu-ray movies. A good friend of mine also has a PS3 and he has about twice as many movies as games.
November 11th, 2007
i don’t want to write much, I’m actually on the PS3 right now, but lets say blu ray fails bad and no more BR movies are sold, that doesnt make the PS3 as a GAMING machine a failure. BR would still be used because it holds a lot more data than dvds, they just created a 100GB BR disk. And more space will become necessary, says developers.
November 11th, 2007
I think blu ray will win but what evr happend to just 1 disc format. Why the hell are the now competeing in Video formats. what ever happend to the 1 simple DVD that work on Playstaion and xbox. evr company that made moveis made it on the DVD. now they made it harder and it pretty much much pick and side for ever thing you buy. like computers. Mac vs Pc. blu-ray vs HD dvd. Wii vs PS3 vs 360. y cant they all just combine make one thing and let it be easier for consomers to buy the 1 product. and Ps3 and a wii with a 360 combined would be a tuff console. combines games with game with extremmly good graphics fun power all under 1 console. That would be the best and i would mine pay $1000 for. Yaa $1000
November 11th, 2007
Well, i have got both HD-DVd and PS 3. I still find the picture quality for Bluray is much better than the HD-DVD for xbox 360. Because it make too much noise~~! the main purpose of buying the movie is to watch! Not doing any sort of interactive stuff…(for me anyway) They are mainly advertising for their products, that will show on the TV or magazine anyway. I have 2 HD-DVD(Tokyo Drift and KING KONG) at the moment and 25 Bluray movies. As a consumer in general, i think Bluray is better product.
November 11th, 2007
Ever read Google news? A lot of people are suggesting that HD-DVD might be doing better than blue-ray. Stop accusing only Luke.
November 11th, 2007
Blu-ray is no doubt going to win.
November 11th, 2007
Blue-Ray – 3 times capacity of HD-DVD. I rest my case.
November 12th, 2007
you are incredibly off the subject with a title like this one. blu ray hasnt loss you fucking fanboy. and the ceo of sony did not admit anything, he just said that right now both are the same. dont mislead people like this to try to spin your on views.
November 12th, 2007
you are incredibly off the subject with a title like this one. blu ray hasnt loss you fucking fanboy. and the ceo of sony did not admit anything, he just said that right now both are the same. dont mislead people like this to try to spin your on views.
November 12th, 2007
hd dvd is lots better than a 700 dolar crappy blu ray
November 12th, 2007
not true. hd dvd has to pay studios to back them up. if paramount hadnt gone do that, there would be no format war.
November 12th, 2007
Wow, this site is so biased… its just starting a flame war between blu-ray and hd-dvd.
What a pointless article Luke… I can’t believe you’re getting paid to write this stuff
November 12th, 2007
Luke go suck someones dick you fucking moron iv’e had enough of your stupid news..
November 12th, 2007
This article is pure propaganda. The truth, and anyone can get these cold hard facts, is that Blu-ray has been winning the Nielsen ratings this entire year, and the closest HD-DVD ever got to selling as many was in late October, when Transformers came out. Blu-ray had no new releases that week, and still topped HD-DVD. In fact, this year, Blu-ray owns a 65-35 average lead over HD-DVD. Last week alone, Blu-ray outsold HD-DVD 71% to 39%. Next week, figures are expected to be similar, or jump as high as 75-25 in favor of Blu-ray. Blu-ray has more 2 for 1 sales, like those on Amazon right now. HD-DVD has offered players as low as $99, and with the exception of the time around Transformers, they are STILL losing ground to Blu-ray. But don’t take my word for it. Look at the latest Nielsen rankings: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v451/CptGreedle/11-09.jpg
and
ttp://members.shaw.ca/rsb1/blu/week114.JPG
November 12th, 2007
Here is that last link again, as I didn’t post it right:
http://members.shaw.ca/rsb1/blu/week114.JPG
November 12th, 2007
I doubt Blu-ray will lose the format war. It’s sales of software are beating HD-DVD 2-1 and still has more support from coomputer manufactures and film studios. At my local HMV they supply 4x more blu-ray than HD-DVD and my local Woolworths only supplies Blu-ray.
300 sold better on blu-ray than hd-dvd (something Warner would have taken note of). Plus blu-ray has the combined force of Spielberg (Spielberg does most of his films with Dreamworlks and therefore Paramount, however come the 150 million payoff from Toshiba and Microsoft Spielberg just told them all to piss off and he now continues to support blu-ray as he was exempt from the deal, Paramount have effectively lost the only person movies they have worth seeing in HD) and Pixar who will both undoubtley use the new format technology better than anyone, except of course Lucas who will unleash the knock out blow with Star Wars on blu-ray.
November 12th, 2007
LOL. Wow, holy flood of BR supporter posts. Did you guys all get together and plan to flood the page with posts?
Isn’t it funny that Sony can’t drop the price of their players because of the other companies that they partnered with to produce BR players? It’s strange because one would normally think having multiple manufacturers would be a good thing. I guess we’ve learned that it’s not a good thing early on. I wonder how many more HD-DVD players will fly off the shelf on black Friday. You do realize that this proves the DVD forum’s price arguement completely, right? Do you really think Warner isn’t going to notice?
At what point do we go from calling the Paramount deal and the $99 sales “desperate” to calling them “brilliant moves?” I’m sorry you guy’s spent money on all that BR stuff, but when Sony goes from calling the war over in Janurary to calling it a stalemate in November… well… let’s just say its funny watching you guys try to put a positive spin on it.
Spin away! It won’t change reality!
November 12th, 2007
Sony has been saying for a long time this “war” was over, and HD-DVD was dead. In fact, Sony has been over-inflating everything lately, only to find out they are lying.
When I read a statement like the one Howard Stringer made, I can only think they must once again be lying to the public. Why would they lie? They need to keep their stockholders happy I guess.
I think the opposite must be true. If Sony is downplaying the format war now, it must be because they see something.
I think what they see is during the holidays, HD-DVD players are going to be selling at a price they can’t match, and that means there will be a much larger number of HD-DVD machines that are specifically bought with purchasing movies (unlike PS3).
Over the first few days of November, Toshiba sold 90,000 HD-DVD players at under $100, which represents about a 25% increase of machines currently in homes.
Now multiply that over the busiest time of the season by five, or six, and you have a victory in the format war for HD-DVD.
I think that is what Sony is seeing, since they have already said they weren’t going to have a major price drop on their players.
November 12th, 2007
I personally think this is so F&#%@ng stupid I want to boycott both. F them for having a war on our dime and time. When Blue Ray first came out I was fine with it, and considered the upgrade inevitable, but then HD-DVD came out and it started to piss me off! I dont want to have to choose between companies, and the movies that might be released on either or. I really hate the f*&$^@ng commercials for HD-DVD movies on every movie I rent. I want one upgrade from DVD and that is it. I will not purchase either until they stop their stupid fighting and provide an option that doesnt mean deciding what kind of movies you want to watch.
All I have to say is F microsoft, Toshiba and Paramount for thinking that this was a good Idea. I hope that all of their HD-DVD players are recalled and rammed right up their A$$#^$.
November 12th, 2007
It’s is likely that the format war will go on for a while, blu-ray will keep the upper hand and will slowly win so it’s likely Sony and Toshiba will make some kind of deal (they have shown willingness to work with each other on the cell) Blu-ray is likely to be the next format but Toshiba will get a good slice of the profits and perhaps a name change, blu-dvd anyone?
If only Toshiba decided not to get greedy and break-of from the blu-ray development group to make their own format(i’ve tested them both and Blu-ray is noticably better than HD-DVD) none of this nonsense would have happened.
November 12th, 2007
Agreed! I have 10 ps3 games, and 35 blu-ray movies. I had an Xbox 360 with the HD-player. At first the player went back after noticing that the only place i can get the f$%$ng films were places like virgin and gamestation, even in places like these there were only a few of them. In the time i had it i gotta say I saw no difference.
The major plus for Blu-ray is the size of the disc. Who said it would be useless if Sony lost the blu-ray format war, don’t you guys think that they have more than one purpose for the format. They have an entire gaming division, games now days are massive, take up huge amounts of space, this is where M$ went wrong by not adding an internal player in with the elite, on top of this i don’t think due to the amount of blu-ray players that have been sold and are still selling , they aren’t just gonna give up on the format blu-rays will still exist. anyway over and out.
November 12th, 2007
Hey Bob, I hope Toshiba keeps selling their $99 HD-DVD players at a loss, better for Blu-Ray I guess. Plus really anyone who really cares about HD probably isn’t going to settle for some piece of shit 100 player to hook up to their $2-3000 HDTV. (F M$: Buy a PS3 & a MAC)
November 12th, 2007
Wow. The guys is trying to be humble and not dance on HD DVD’s grave prematurely and someone writes a crap article like this.
“Watch Spider-Man 3 on repeat” Please Paramount can have Transformers and Shrek. BD has Disney and their massive catalog as well as Pixar’s
The guy who wrote this is an idiot.
November 13th, 2007
Karl
“If BluRay are doing badly why are they not selling their standalone players at a loss to drum up sales like Toshiba did last week?”
If standalone players are all that matter, we need to take away the PS3’s sold in all data we look it.
If standalone players AND the PS3 matter, why is bluray selling their PS3 and major bluray seller at a loss to drum up sales?
Either the PS3 doesn’t count or both sides are selling at a loss to drum up sales. You pick, but it can’t go both ways.
November 13th, 2007
I’ve just read an intresting article on some website, it suggests that the prolonged format war may not see much of a winner at all. Even if one format does win there won’t be much of a prize. Sony and Toshiba and all the blu-ray and hd-dvd fanboys have been to busy arguing with each other and using mis-leading numbers that they have missed something alot more sinister afoot. The customer confusion created by this format war has left many people waiting for a winner, however since it seems to be set to go on for even longer, it is now being suggested that cunsomers will skip this format war and go straight to downloads, and who has the most to gain from stunting the growth of the format war?, having prolonged use of ordinary dvd’s? and having customers start using downloads?, why it’s that’s little company called Microsoft. think about it, no one can deny that in the beginning of the format war blu-ray was close to winning not long after it started. then along comes Microsoft and supports hd-dvd and then helps Toshiba pay off Paramount to get them on the hd-dvd side, and what are we left with? bluray with the most support, but hd-dvd with enougth support to not be defeated for a long time.
Microsoft benefits from this because they still use dvd’s for the 360, thetriumph of blu-ray in the format wars early on would have been the end of the 360 before it could make a profit. Whilst Microsoft is of course getting started on downloads nice and early. Althought I predict that blu-ray will eventually win the format war, it won’t be for a long time and there may not be much of a prize at the end, other than the fact that it will be the format of choice for games consoles. Sony and Toshiba need to team up before it’s to late in order to get the best results possible for either company out of the format war.
November 13th, 2007
does anybody notice who is using blue-ray? i have, Disney!! not to say i watch disney movies, but disney has alot of influence on people, i dont think this battle is over. And why is it everyone side with the bad guy? Blue-ray flat out is better. Y?! because it holds more memory, it is fingerprint resistant. What more do you want!!!!! Its better OK???? slightly more exspansive, but better quality!
November 13th, 2007
I hav no idea why people are criticising Stinger’s comments, as far as i’m aware it was a rare bit of honesty in this mess of a format war.
Don’t forget Toshiba started this mess.
November 13th, 2007
This headline pretty much sums up how retarded this site is:
“Bad news for the PS3 – Sony admits loss, sorry, ’stalemate’ in format war with Microsoft”
Sony are not in a format war with Microsoft. The Bluray Association’s format which is not owned by any single company is in a format war with the HD-DVD format owned exclusively by Toshiba.
So your headline is complete and utter bollocks.
November 13th, 2007
Over and over, I hear people bragging about Sony having more space on their disk.
True, Sony has 50 GB–but have you heard of triple layer? HD-DVD is not far behind. Saying that Blue-Ray is better and will win because of more space is just as bad as saying GameCube should have won because of better graphics.
Oh, incidentally, I’m tired of people yelling and cursing–doing just about anything to try to convince people that Blue-Ray is winning. I have no problem with people thinking that Blue-Ray is “the best”, and I realize that Toshiba started the issue, but when it becomes so much of an obsession that people yell at each other, I just have to fight back. Check out these links:
http://www.mp3.com/users/AL13NK1LL3R/profile.php?action=show_blog&entry=m-100-25154565
http://blogs.msdn.com/steverowe/archive/2006/08/01/686068.aspx
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/hddvd_is_winnin.html
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/BuckF1tches/why-hd-dvd-is-better-for-now–36357.phtml
See, the point of this is not to prove HD-DVD is winning–it may be losing, just like you guys say. And it’s not to show my bias against Blue-ray–usually, I would post lists concerning both people thinking one way and people thinking the other way. But I get tired of people thinking one way and starting a war up about it.
November 28th, 2007
You all forget one important point coming from a wise man. I am sure everyone has paid the top dollars for there technology & we are sick of getting sucked in to pay more. You all get deceived by prettier picture Blue-ray or HD-DVD. The question you have to ask yourself is, when will you be satisfied with picture & sound. I don’t have Blue-ray or HD-DVD, I am happy enough with DVD & computer video files using TV Out. I will let all those suckers go out & pay the top dollar, while i watch the same thing being happy enough because i have drawn the line with picture & sound. Now when everything is nice & cheap like how DVD’S are now, than i spend $50au for a payer. If Microsoft or Sony think i am going to pay $5000AU for a better tv, cables, a new player & a new library of films than they are joking. I would consider a new TV middle of next year because i think they be a good price. I have spent too many thousands of dollars to start all over again, to watch the same thing with a different paint.