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NEWS: Sony boss says Blu-ray/HD DVD battle in 'stalemate'

Andrew Everard 12 November 2007 14:50

The head of Sony, Sir Howard Stringer, says he considers the 'format war' between Blu-ray and HD DVD has reached stalemate, adding that before becoming CEO of Sony he'd believed there was an opportunity for the two formats to have been united into a single system.

Now, Stringer says, the battle is mainly a matter of prestige between the two sides, but 'It really doesn't mean as much as all that.' However, he says the fight remains 'difficult', adding that 'We were trying to win on the merits [of Blu-ray], which we were doing for a while, until Paramount changed sides.'

In the interview, given to Associated Press, Stringer is bullish about what is probably the best-known Blu-ray player in the world, the PlayStation 3: he says the recent price-cut has seen it become the fastest-selling console in Europe. The company aims to sell 10m units by the end of its financial year in March 2008, bringing it closer to the 13.2m sales to date of Nintendo's Wii.

Technorati Tags: Blu-ray, HD DVD, PS3, Sony

Comments

basshound November 15, 2007 21:15

It`s kind of refreshing for a bit of honesty from the corporate types rather than the usual "mine is better than yours" stuff.Just a pity that it was allowed to get to this mess in the first place,if there had been a single format agreed upon I think there would be a lot more High Def players sitting in that space in our equipment racks!

kdz71 November 18, 2007 10:46

At the moment it looks like Blu-Ray has the upper hand at least in terms of availability of titles on the high street. You can rent these at Blockbusters, even buy them at Sainsburys! No sign of HD-DVD at either of these, and the other day I was flying from Heathrows Terminal 1 the HMV outlet only had Blu-Ray titles on display.

And LOST is coming out on Blu-Ray only I think....

MacUsers November 18, 2007 17:51

Where did you get this info? I'm a Lovefilm subscriber and there are a lot of HD titles available. Search for HD titles in play.com or hmv.co.uk etc. and see what you get. I can find a number of HD-DVD in my local HMV store as well, though I never compared the number with HD-BRD. The movie houses are not really a very big issue i think, but the companies, those who replicate the DVDs for the consumers and all of them are not really very keen to setup a blu-ray line-up yet, because the cost is way too high and the production per day is less compared to the HD-DVD line-up. I read somewhere that, 94% of the Blu-Ray players in our living rooms are still the Sony PS3, which is not really a "DVD player" to be considered as. It's not the Europe to decide who wins; it's mostly the N. America and Asia who fix this up. I don't think no one is winning yet - maybe another two years the fight will continue. Cheers!!!

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About Andrew Everard

Andrew Everard, Audio Editor of Gramophone since November 1999 and What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision's Consulting Editor, read English at Queens' College, Cambridge a very long time ago! He started his journalistic career in 1982 on Haymarket's photographic magazines, and subsequently worked on What Hi-Fi?, High Fidelity, Audiophile and Home Cinema magazines, as well as contributing a monthly column to Japanese title HiVi.