(via Kotaku)
I know I often link to other stories and mention that the article is interesting or well written, or something like that. The article mentioned below is interesting, well written, and certainly thought-provoking. At least, it is to me. I’m no fan of Microsoft, but folks at Microsoft do understand things better than people give them credit, quite often. This article at Gamerscore blog has some information from an interview with Microsoft’s HD DVD drive developers.
From the Gamerscore blog article:
I found out a few interesting things on why we’re so confident of HD DVD:
Price. One company out there has a $1,800 Beta-ray player (no release date) – one that doesn’t even play CDs! For 1,800, you could get a $500 Toshiba player, and about 40 HD movies.
Industry support: Looks like the pendulum is swinging back in HD-DVD’s favor. As an analyst quoted in the article says: “It’s only a matter of time before people start backing out of the Blu-ray camp.” If that’s the case, it might be because of. . .
Beta-ray’s own difficulties: Microsoft had serious doubts around the technical feasibility and pricing of Beta-ray for some time and our fears now seem well founded. Sony is hinting PS3 will be delayed because of Beta-ray, and that’s with Sony driving the Beta-ray standards. If even Sony can’t get it to work right, it raises lots of questions. A little reported fact (and one that the New York Times was confused about) is that the first Beta-ray discs will actually hold less: only 25GB compared to HD DVD’s 30GB. That means less room for high definition extras and interactive features, which HD DVD says they fully intend to support.
So there you have it. A few more reasons why HD DVD is poised to win.
We’ll see what Sony has to say about this. Actually, I expect Sony to say nothing. But we’ll find out very soon if there is any truth to this, as Sony is just about out of time on meeting a spring launch. We’ll have to hear some details soon if the PS3 really is going to launch in the spring.
[tags]HD DVD, PS3, Microsoft, Blu-Ray[/tags]
