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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
wreckedchevy @ Mar 7th 2008 5:08PM
sony wants to monopolize bluray? keep prices high by controlling the players in the game? never would have seen that coming
DrXym @ Mar 7th 2008 5:13PM
There are over 10 major CEs producing players so I fail to see your point really.
It is disappointing if no Chinese manufacturer is allowed to produce Blu Ray drives. They do drive the prices down and I'm sure there would be a way to enable them to manufacture while protecting patents if that is what the BDA is worried about.
Gus @ Mar 7th 2008 7:02PM
xym
I see the BR fanboys are still at it.
As if the CE producers are going to drive prices down,good luck clinging to that wet dream, this is a blu ray cartel, always was, and it will be until the Chinese are allowed on board.
You are a muppet if you think the Japanese cartel are going to drive prices down, this ALWAYS was the plan. Kill HD DVD and then maintain high prices and cream the market place.
Hahahahahahaha, shite profile BR players at ridiculous prices, you BR zealots are now seeing what the HD DVD crowd has been arguing about for months, a sony dictated cartel with a monopoly designed to the rape the market, 2 quote another, 'reap the whirl wind blu fools', the consumer friendly product has been dorked by your cartel of choice, i hope you enjoy your over priced niche market format,any BR bogos this week?, lofl!, you are now getting what you all deserve!
minimalist @ Mar 7th 2008 7:55PM
Yeah, that makes total sense. Artificially keep the prices high and the adoption rate low. Spend hundreds of millions developing a format and then only sell it to 1% of the population. What a freaking great business plan that would be.
Of course it makes a great conspiracy theory for bitter fanboys....
Gus @ Mar 7th 2008 10:02PM
Yeah, so whats the plan then genius, fight amongst themselves instead of the Chinese, lol.
Keep the market small but very profitable as long as possible, then hand it over to the Chinese in 3 or 4 years after you have stuck it into every early adopter on the planet.
Sony, the benevolent CE manufacturer, known for its great customer relations, lol
aplen22 @ Mar 8th 2008 3:35AM
@ minimalist
umm, you do realize that this is exactly what most of us said would happen. This is called Sony proving that they don't know how to handle distribution and manufacturing of a mainstream media format. This is exactly what I was afraid of, if they don't smarten up, BD will remain a niche format until the next medium comes along.
This is exactly why I say Sony should NEVER have control over a media format, they just don't know how to handle it, and it's the consumer that gets f***ed over in the end as usual. That is the definition of bad business, but hey, enjoy you PS3 because BD is the only thing keeping it afloat right now! Oh yah, they screwed you on that one too.
DrXym @ Mar 8th 2008 4:36AM
Gus, the operative word in my comment was "if", "if" that was what was happening. And indeed it seems to be BS.
Either way, you claiming a cartel is simply ludicrous. The ENTIRE CE industry supports Blu Ray now, including Toshiba through its Samsung partnership. There are or soon to be players from Daewoo, Denon, Funai, JVC, LG,, Lite-On, Loewe, Marantz, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sigmatek and Sony. To name a few. Toshiba won't be long off either I'm sure.
These manufacturers want to make a profit and their prices will reflect that. Toshiba massively subsidized its HD DVD players to make them appear cheap. Blu Ray players will become cheap through economies of scale and competition. There will be plenty of sub $300 players this year, possibly even a few under $200. All through competition.
It shouldn't be hard to understand this concept.
minimalist @ Mar 8th 2008 9:40AM
@Gus
Uh, if you purposefully keep the market tiny for 3-4 years their will be no market. Any sane businessperson realizes this. Thinking that any of the members of the Blu-ray Association (BDA) would throw away the chance for that kind of profits is absurd. Stockholders just LOVE it when companies have slow or no growth.
@aplen22
Sony is not driving this boat. The BDA is in control of these decisions. The BDA board of directors is controlled by 18 CE companies, all of whom are in this business to make maximum profit, not to make bad business decisions. Maximum profit comes from major market penetration, not selling expensive boutique players to 1% of the market while downloads quietly take over their market. Not to mention, the real money is in movies and licensing fees for them. No players in the wild means movie sales remain pathetic meaning nobody, the licensees or the movie companies make any significant money. Again sounds like a great business plan.
aplen22 @ Mar 8th 2008 9:01PM
Okay first, if they're making "good business decisions" in the first place, show me these good decisions. Thought so, the players are still priced ridiculously high and it's been two years! Not to mention the price of media is sky high. They are only after high mark ups, and now that they have successfully bought out the studios and drove Toshiba into the ground I don't see prices going down anytime soon.
What's putting a bug up my butt about this article is that by keeping the Chinese manufacturer out, the prices will stay high, so it is a good business decision for the BDA, but not for the consumer. But if the BDA keeps pissing off the consumer this way, this format will remain niche until the tune changes otherwise.
There, I wrote this comment reply without saying it's Sony's fault but we all know who's at the helm on this one, considering the actual article was quoting from the president of Sony, so get you head out of the ground and realize SONY is screwing us over. Any questions?
minimalist @ Mar 9th 2008 12:56AM
Thought so, the players are still priced ridiculously high and it's been two years! Not to mention the price of media is sky high.
Need I remind you of the history of DVD development? In 1998 (two years after DVD's introduction... the same point at which we are currently at with Blu-ray) I bought one of the cheapest DVD player available. There were no cheap Taiwanese DVD players on the market at the time. The player I got was 350 dollars. DVD's ranged from 30-40 dollars. Adjusting for inflation that is 450 dollars and 38-50 dollars respectively. What a niche market DVD proved to be!
It seems lots of people are confusing the tail end of DVD's reign with the way things have always been.