Quote:
Originally Posted by
AnthonyB 
Rhetoric is not going to "save the day". Sony wants BDA to succeed and not hd-dvd.
Anthony...
I'll tell why it is ok to [not to think nice things from] Sony.
Their venture into the film business when they bought Columbia Pictures (and its subsidiaries like Tri-Star Pictures and Orion Pictures) is just a way for them to have enough content in order to push whatever format they want.
Their purchases of important film and music libraries and catalogs are an important step that makes them virtually impossible to beat.
Now... having both content and the equipment necessary to use that content, Sony is in a position never before seen in the History of recorded media. Why? Because it nearly gives them enough power to dictate the consumer's necessary purchases in the short to long term.
How does that happen? Well. That's quite easy: they project in time the sales numbers of any of their formats and just get ready with another format the minute the current format's sales become flat.
This way, Sony is in the position of being always on the boom of something. Consumers have no choice but to buy whatever Sony tells them to (every 15 years or so) ...or go obsolete and unplayable in an universe of products that last less and less longer.
Software (content) and hardware in the same company (like Sony) means that if they can force us to buy the same movie ten times during your life time, they will. Obsolence and incompatibility are the excuses.
Look... Super-8 lasted 40 years... VHS lasted 25 years... DVD has been going on for 10 years... and Sony wants to have it retired by the time it reaches 15. Why? Because they want their content always being sold again and again. While VHS was at its height, Sony tried to release movies in Hi-8. Why? The CD has been good enough for everybody, right? So, Sony tries to release albums in MiniDisc. It obviously failed. This only shows that Sony is always trying to use content in order push something we dot really need.
Other CE companies also have a content branch... but none are as gigantic as Sony, who, alone, moves a huge amount of content with their electronic products.
Paramount, Warner, Disney, Universal and Fox... none of them are for any other company what Columbia is for Sony. Even almighty General Electric does not uses its content branch to push anything the way Sony does.
Movies suffer from that because, for Sony, they are just a way of pushing their technology (look at all the pointless Sony product placement they make on their films - like the most recent 007).
Technology also suffers because it has no competition... it does not really have to be good. As the BDA keeps saying: the victory is innevitable.
So why make good products? Why make a trully robust format?
In 15 years, when sales become stable, they will kill their own format and make you buy the next best thing - so a new boost is on the corner.
The Hollywood studios were once forced to break because of almost the same reason: they had production, distribution and exhibition at the same time (making them free to push whatever to whoever).
Someone should do the same to Sony.
That's my oppinion.
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