Gizmodo
With the HD DVD ship sinking fast in the fickle minds of press and public, the assumption is that everyone left on board is lining up to jump. Reuters had a story that played like Microsoft—one of HD DVD's biggest backers—is on the verge of doing so, based on a quote from Albert Pennello, marketing manager for Xbox hardware. Let us count the ways he told us in a sitdown that the story was wrong, and when HD DVD really is buried in Microsoft's mind.
1. The "headline misconstrued the context of what I said."
2. Microsoft is "not thinking about it."
3. It is "fairly definitive" Microsoft is not doing it.
4. Microsoft has "no plans" to build anything Blu-ray.
5. Microsoft is "totally committed to HD DVD."
So just when is HD DVD dead in Microsoft's eyes? It's "over when Toshiba says they're not doing HD DVD anymore." And despite the typhoon slamming their sails this week, we're pretty certain Toshiba is staying on on the boat until it hits the sea floor. [Giz's HD DVD Coverage]
Comments
Huh... I wonder how long this will last? I mean are they seriously going to ride out HD DVD until it has been completely abandoned? I suppose I can see a use for it strictly for archival/storage. Meh whatever....
So let me get this straight: Microsoft is not abandoning HD-DVD?
Who Cares! Here is something Funny and alot to to do with nothing! But you go tto look!
[blog.oregonlive.com]
I hope microsoft doesn't take the Moneysoft approach and pay up like a billion dollars to bail HD-DVD out of it's sinking ship :\
When they first put out the HD-DVD add-on they said that if Blu-Ray won the format war, they would make a Blu-Ray drive.
All boils down to MS wants to wait as long as possible before paying Sony for blu ray rights.
Can't hold out much longer or they risk appearing like the dinosaur in the console war
microsoft should switch while the iron is hot, or at least offer dual support. It could help drive xbox sales if people knew that they'd have the option to watch high definition movies that weren't in an obsolete format that was destined to tank from the start
I'm with 12TREVER...underwear lady mayors are much more nice to look at than HD media players. Anybody want to 1-up 12TREVER and find a naked lady mayor?
Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
@OldSchoolGadgetLover: Um.... The germans didnt bomb Pearl Harbor... The Japanese did... And yes, this war is basically over other than for computer based media
@OldSchoolGadgetLover: Wasnt it the Japanese that bombed Pear Harbor? Im gonna have to ask my history teacher tommorrow. =/
@ SIMPSONS-MOVIE-RULED
Pearl Harbor thing is a movie quote.
@soulfinger: hmmmm well its been forever since i've seen the movie(the only awesome parts were the bombing)well it was a Michael Bay film after all.So it sucked, lol
@simpsons-movie-ruled: Man, I'm getting old. Animal House. John Belushi. He's... been dead awhile.
@soulfinger: hmmm im starting to think u werent talking about THE ACTUAL PEAR HARBOR MOVIE. yea i'll go with this theory
I'm telling you ... Next gen Windows HD DVD, home movies HD DVD. Microsoft flexes its gigantic muscles and everyone falls into line. Everyone better start getting dual format drives.
Just another of the many reasons for people to switch to Mac (once BD support is announced next week).
@OldSchoolGadgetLover: damn im sorry for posting so much, but ur comment wasnt there wen i was typing, anyway, yes you probably are getting old ;P
I think if MS wants to get an edge in on PS3, dual support of Blu-Ray and HD DVD would certainly give them an advantage. Then again 360 has poor video playback in terms of DVD and HD DVD (which in turn could be fixed with a software update) and sales of the HD DVD addon haven't been all that great if you compare the number of xbox 360 HD DVD drives sold compared to the number of PS3s.
Quote in question is from Animal House, come on now Simpsons-Movie-Ruled...
Next gen Windows on HD DVD, home movies on HD DVD, MS flexes its muscle and everyone better fall into line. Dual format players for everyone! I know Sony hates this! Having a HD DVD player (dual format) in a VAIO, how ironic is that!
@thechansen: well the only time i only heard about this Animal House movie is when Homer Simpsons is singing the theme song, im only 15 SO LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!
who cares what microsoft is supporting. They chose to go with a failing technology, and thats the end of the story.
@CYRU5
Thank you, i knew i wasn't the only one that heard them say that, i believe it was Peter Moore, in a podcast with Major Nelson.
@ImTheKing:
Well it wasn't really failing at the time the introduced it, but if you look at the proliferation of DVD PS2 did play a major role in it. Microsoft shat the bed when they made it a $200 add on. PS3 has bluray built in. Needless to say, that is giving BluRay a huge boost in total number of players on the market. Hell I forget the one survey but most 360 owners didn't even know they could play regular DVDs on the system.
@simpsons-movie-ruled:
No worries, but it's a cult classic. Even if you choose to never actively seek it out to watch it, in your lifetime you will some how see it, at some point. Kinda like the Christmas Story.
I seem to recall Albert was great at backpedaling when we were at Electronic Arts (circa 2000).
Boy, this type of stuff gets me ANGRY. Butm maybe that's because I'm looking at a picture of the Hulk, and Hulk #1 just shipped today from Marvel. --Anywho... Microsoft said this a LOOOOOONG time ago. People started to make a big deal out of it then too, and they had to issue something that said, "No, no... you misconstrued what we said!" It's like the media is a pack of hyena's disparately trying to TRICK their "prey" into providing them with some "food", even if its FAKE food. It's really LAME. The so-called "confirmations" above are entirely unnecessary... but they *almost* go too far in the other direction too. Microsoft originally said, (paraphrasing) that IF consumer demand was there, they *could* always do a Blu-Ray player add-on. But, they NEVER, EVER EVER said that they "would", "are", "might", or "intend to". The comments above say the same thing.
The REAL question would have been to honor what they really said, and ask them for clarification AFTER showing you've understood them in the first place. Basically, IF a Blu-Ray drive is a theoretical possibility, THEN what kind of market trigger would Microsoft look for before they would begin to consider DOING one? From the questions/answers above, aside from horror for forcing someone to repeat themselves in multiple ways... one NEW thing, seems to be the implication that such a move would ONLY happen AFTER Toshiba has decided to END support for their HD DVD initiative.
Step back from a moment, and you'll realize the BOTTOM LINE of what Microsoft has intended to say since the beginning. Namely, "DON'T STOP BUYING XBOX 360's, because the hardware you buy TODAY could be made to work with ANYTHING." That is the ONLY... ONLY... I say, ONLY thing they've ever meant to imply.
@thechansen: Funny u should say that....I also havent seen that movie =/ im into like the current movies "yo". I feel like a total outsider =(
@OldSchoolGadgetLover
Sorry but thats the dumbest comment i'v heard, and 1st of all it was Japan and not Germany that bombed pearl harbor, you would think that even if you failed history, you might of caught it in a pearl harbor rerun, on tv or something lol. and if you want to bring that up. the war did end when the US bombed Hiroshima, yup i can hear all those xb hd-dvd's blowing up right about now. bamm!
Though "I'm siding with HD-DVD" is becoming an increasingly reliable indicator of ignorance, it will never come close to folks who think they're helping out by "correcting" the "was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor" quote. Animal House, folks.
I can't believe sony is finally winning a format war. This hasn't happened in a long time(?)
GIZMODO SUCKS
woopt tee doo.
@bobdobbs: thanks, non sequitur.
Does it really matter if Microsoft doesn't "support" blu-ray?
If Paramount/Dreamworks switches to Blu-ray, that means there's way more movies available there than in HD-DVD. If Microsoft switches it means, well, it means jack shit.
@kitt2112: Um. wow. 1: He was quoting a movie, and it was funny. 2: One word: Nagasaki.
MS are fools for not supporting Blu-ray on Xbox. Now that a clear winner has emerged, *everyone* is going to buy a blu-ray player for movies and microsoft won't get any of that action. Think of all the sales they could make with 360 owners if they decided to build a blu-ray drive for the 360. With the 360's built-in parental settings too it would have been perfect.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
@thechansen: Comparing XBox 360 HD DVD unit sales against the PS3 is an apples to oranges comparison. The PS3 offers gaming and movie capabilities whereas the HD-DVD add on for the 360 is simply for movies. It's impossible to quantify sales of PS3's based on the buyer's desire for gaming only, Blue-ray movies only, or both. Now if the 360 came with HD-DVD native, it'd be a different story...
@kitt2112: Seriously, you do realize OldSchoolGadgetLover was quoting the movie 'Animal House'?
i really don't think not having blu-ray (assuming ms never makes the switch, which seems unlikely) would hurt the 360/ms that much--it stands on its own as a GAMING console. with the halo franchise and xbox live (for instance) to differentiate it from the ps3. if people have enough money for an hdtv and to start a movie collection in a new format, i doubt their choice of gaming console will hinge on which movie format it plays... more likely, they can afford whatever player they need.
I have the HDDVD player for the X-Box. I'd definitely buy a BD drive if I wouldn't have to unplug the HDDVD player to use it. A ZIP drive would be nice too.
@manguero: I can see your point but even if 360 console sales are not hurt by this, MS is still losing out on potential money they could have made on the blue-ray drive itself!
And furthermore, part of MS's focus for atleast the last 7 years has been to get into people's living rooms (in the form of media centres & xboxes) and now they're not going to support THE format for the next generation of movies?!!
What? The Zune supports ATRAC?
@Ben: Don't worry, it's all just face saving maneuvers until Paramount, Dreamworks and Universal can figure out how to EOL HD-DVD without completely pissing off their customers.
Most likely they'll announce that they will ship all their movies in both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray for the foreseable future. Meanwhile, stores like best buy will stop carrying HD-DVD movies and players (they want a single winner probably more than anyone else), Toshiba and the rest of the HD-DVD-only player Mfg. will announce "Dual format Machines" quickly followed by blu-ray only machines, and the format will slide into obscurity.
Um, I seriously doubt that Microsoft is going to admit ANY plans to go Blu at this point in time. The closest we will come to any suggestion of that is Pennello's vague comment. But the media ran way too far with that and now they have to backpedal, partly because they have agreements and relationships with Toshiba, and partly because they simply haven't had time to figure anything out yet.
I do believe that, once the dust settles and the winner is clear, they will start thinking more about it because they HAVE to. But I don't expect them to rush into it at all. We'll know once they know for certain, and that's gonna be a while.
Man I got timed out before I could post a novel on Sony's trojan strategy working and how HD DVD could have benefited from a similar situation. Long story short there is about 1 million combined HD DVD players (stand alone and 360 addon) and there is about 3.7 million Blu Ray players (PS3 and stand alone) in the US. Plus this other really big tech blog named In Gadgets (or something like that, the whole operation over there seemed a little shady) is reporting Universal, the only tangible company keeping HD DVD alive may be switching teams.
@neekap:
I don't think that last one is too clear but I meant to say people have the BluRay player built in to a PS3, when people go to buy they will take that into consideration. People having going to crazy over the actual HD DVD hardware where I've read on industry news sites that internationally BluRay is killing in hardware sales thanks to PS3 and actual disc sales back that that up.
damnit! people haven't been going crazy of HD DVD hardware and with this last clarification I'm out of juice
The weird thing is, all the way up until CES, every site was talking about how those cheap Funai blu-ray players would end the war, but all of a sudden, there is too much news flying around to even mention it.
@simpsons-movie-ruled: lol you're into current movies...that's funny, I'm not anywhere near old i don't think...(23) but seriously, animal house, the christmas story, these are movies you have to see at some point in your life... it's just part of growing up. am i right guys?
Yeah your right see them HDDVD
The sheeple factor around here is just amazing. One studio announces support as part of the CES hype and people are acting like everything has been decided for them when, in reality, all HD discs are still selling like crap compared to regular DVDs. What's even funnier is that everyone is acting like, oh, Paramount and Microsoft could switch at any time, yet it's just as likely that someone could announce HD-DVD exclusivity. I'll keep laughing, too, if all you sheeple get amazed when that happens and suddenly think that, whoa, it's on again!
@rudeadly: I can't believe people are cheering for Sony to win a format war. Enjoy your rootkits, fanboys.
@Empire: Can you believe that we're cheering for this damn format "war" to be over one way or the other?
Hmmmm. One of two things:
1- MSFT is just missing the boat on this
2- They want to drag it out as long as possible until their braodband HD distribution services is online.
I suspect (1) but hope for (2). Physical media is weak. I got teh FIOS. Gimme legal 1080p/24 online.
Microsoft should just 'buy' Sony and kill BR at the source. Billy can afford it himself.