What if, Just WHAT IF? Paramount/DreamWorks are telling the truth?
First off I apologize. This got way long.
Well I was hesitant to throw this on the HDTV Software Media Discussion page because in the end I predict more bad news for BR, but since it seems that everyone has posted their half baked theories here on this topic here is mine hahaa.
I would like this thread to explore the business bigger picture of likely events that drove this decision and the types of things IMHO that Para/Dream has to know or strongly believe will happen in order to support them making this decision.
While it is really meant as my neutral analysis of the situation beyond what is visible some of the logic and reasoning accept fundamental issues with BR that are generally not accepted and looked as as FUD or trolling if placed in the wrong forum. This is not my intent.
My assumption is that regardless of any $$$ changing hands (which has enough of the typical conflicting sources that we may never know and I do NOT want to debate that here. There are plenty of other thread for that.
In my opinion even the numbers talked about would not be enough to offset the risks and opportunity cost that staying neutral (given what we currently believe is the status quo) provides them now. This includes:
• Consciously putting themselves into a minority slice of the market (an extreme minority if UNI were to go neutral)
• While at the same time pissing off a lot of customer (which they clearly have). Which if this were a temporary for the money thing they are hoping to win back while trying to explain why they jerked them around in the first place… Somehow I think they may be smart enough to know this wouldn’t be a sound plan.
So if you believe that the only reason they did this was because of the evil MS or HD-DVD empire throwing money at them or some such then please in consideration of this threads intended discussion points either don’t bother responding or simple say”$$$” and we will know where you stand.
What I hope against hope is that people from all three camps (BR, HD-DVD and Both) will take a look at the assumptions I am making below regarding what I think Paramount MUST know or they would never have made this move.
Is it possible we are all so caught up the great debate, where facts are attacked and misdirected and everyone is pretty much is having a wipe out your spin to see who’s is biggest contest that we can’t see it.. Is the fog of war so darned instilled in us now that most of us can’t or won’t even entertain the idea that this was an honest business decision by these studios?
It must be hard to actually hear a studio come out and say that it is dropping BR for all the reasons that everyone on the HD-DVD side has been driving as reasons why not to buy or support BR. That has to pretty much be BR’s worst nightmare. If believed it basically in one big bang kind of swoop, invalidates their format superiority stance.
Put yourself in their shoes with even just the profile issues. How keen do you think they must have been to take on all that bad press and customer sentiment that is going to be unavoidable from people trying to work the extras on their shinny Paramount BR that won’t work in their $1000+ first gen player (Assuming the PS3 works that only leaves the nice expensive ones that do not). Telling the customer that it isn’t there fault it’s the player just isn’t going to cut it from a customer support/relations perspective. Can you say refund… credit… OUCHY.
They have to look at it from a big picture perspective. Sure lots of us may not care much for extras, but clearly Paramount does and even more importantly does not want the Customer relations headache.
The fact is people they may just be telling the absolute truth, but I don’t think that even what they are saying in the surface is enough. I think this move can only have been made if there is far worse news in store for BR in the near future.
So all the above being said, given the information we have this still may not make that much sense given the status quo and BR’s media sales lead for example. On the surface it seems that if anything they could have dropped HD-DVD and stayed with the bigger slice of the pie. I am sure they could have pretty much asked Sony/BDA for just about anything and yet they didn’t and chose what appears to be the much higher risk path… Or is it?
I would be willing to bet a lot that at least some of the following if not either are already or are coming as they pretty much have too to make this a sane decision.
• UNI is not going neutral any time soon. No way would Para/Dream risk simply replacing UNI as the sole torch bearer for HD-DVD. They simply would not have done this if they were not pretty darn well assured that UNI was standing pat for the long term.
• UNI must also have also known for a while that this was coming in order to help them internally support staying exclusive. UNI also cannot/could not risk long term sole support if HD-DVD.
• Others are following or at least going neutral. How do I know this? Because on its own this move pretty much splits the pie in half or even puts Para/Dream in a lesser position with UNI as the sole exclusives plus the other neutrals. I just cannot see Paramount making a conscious decision to limit itself to what on the surface looks like < 50% of the market which would be the case if they didn’t think other studios where following.
• There will be a lot of $199 or cheaper players in the retail chain very soon. They could not be thinking to make a market with a few hundred thousand players and some Xbox add-ons against even just the PS3 alone. Something is happening here. Maybe not exactly the Wal-Mart thing but something is out there.
So what do you think? If you were the Paramount/DreamWorks presidents standing in front of the board of directors needing to make your argument stick to people who only care about the stock price, do you think that you must be able to ensure them of some of this or similar to justify your business plan?
If you think the business move has other supporting reasons lets here them. If you think parts of my theories and extrapolations are flawed then lets here why you think so with a reasoned out argument. I may be wrong about some, but they would make business sense if they were true.
Cheers,
Richard
First off I apologize. This got way long.
Well I was hesitant to throw this on the HDTV Software Media Discussion page because in the end I predict more bad news for BR, but since it seems that everyone has posted their half baked theories here on this topic here is mine hahaa.
I would like this thread to explore the business bigger picture of likely events that drove this decision and the types of things IMHO that Para/Dream has to know or strongly believe will happen in order to support them making this decision.
While it is really meant as my neutral analysis of the situation beyond what is visible some of the logic and reasoning accept fundamental issues with BR that are generally not accepted and looked as as FUD or trolling if placed in the wrong forum. This is not my intent.
My assumption is that regardless of any $$$ changing hands (which has enough of the typical conflicting sources that we may never know and I do NOT want to debate that here. There are plenty of other thread for that.
In my opinion even the numbers talked about would not be enough to offset the risks and opportunity cost that staying neutral (given what we currently believe is the status quo) provides them now. This includes:
• Consciously putting themselves into a minority slice of the market (an extreme minority if UNI were to go neutral)
• While at the same time pissing off a lot of customer (which they clearly have). Which if this were a temporary for the money thing they are hoping to win back while trying to explain why they jerked them around in the first place… Somehow I think they may be smart enough to know this wouldn’t be a sound plan.
So if you believe that the only reason they did this was because of the evil MS or HD-DVD empire throwing money at them or some such then please in consideration of this threads intended discussion points either don’t bother responding or simple say”$$$” and we will know where you stand.
What I hope against hope is that people from all three camps (BR, HD-DVD and Both) will take a look at the assumptions I am making below regarding what I think Paramount MUST know or they would never have made this move.
Is it possible we are all so caught up the great debate, where facts are attacked and misdirected and everyone is pretty much is having a wipe out your spin to see who’s is biggest contest that we can’t see it.. Is the fog of war so darned instilled in us now that most of us can’t or won’t even entertain the idea that this was an honest business decision by these studios?
It must be hard to actually hear a studio come out and say that it is dropping BR for all the reasons that everyone on the HD-DVD side has been driving as reasons why not to buy or support BR. That has to pretty much be BR’s worst nightmare. If believed it basically in one big bang kind of swoop, invalidates their format superiority stance.
Put yourself in their shoes with even just the profile issues. How keen do you think they must have been to take on all that bad press and customer sentiment that is going to be unavoidable from people trying to work the extras on their shinny Paramount BR that won’t work in their $1000+ first gen player (Assuming the PS3 works that only leaves the nice expensive ones that do not). Telling the customer that it isn’t there fault it’s the player just isn’t going to cut it from a customer support/relations perspective. Can you say refund… credit… OUCHY.
They have to look at it from a big picture perspective. Sure lots of us may not care much for extras, but clearly Paramount does and even more importantly does not want the Customer relations headache.
The fact is people they may just be telling the absolute truth, but I don’t think that even what they are saying in the surface is enough. I think this move can only have been made if there is far worse news in store for BR in the near future.
So all the above being said, given the information we have this still may not make that much sense given the status quo and BR’s media sales lead for example. On the surface it seems that if anything they could have dropped HD-DVD and stayed with the bigger slice of the pie. I am sure they could have pretty much asked Sony/BDA for just about anything and yet they didn’t and chose what appears to be the much higher risk path… Or is it?
I would be willing to bet a lot that at least some of the following if not either are already or are coming as they pretty much have too to make this a sane decision.
• UNI is not going neutral any time soon. No way would Para/Dream risk simply replacing UNI as the sole torch bearer for HD-DVD. They simply would not have done this if they were not pretty darn well assured that UNI was standing pat for the long term.
• UNI must also have also known for a while that this was coming in order to help them internally support staying exclusive. UNI also cannot/could not risk long term sole support if HD-DVD.
• Others are following or at least going neutral. How do I know this? Because on its own this move pretty much splits the pie in half or even puts Para/Dream in a lesser position with UNI as the sole exclusives plus the other neutrals. I just cannot see Paramount making a conscious decision to limit itself to what on the surface looks like < 50% of the market which would be the case if they didn’t think other studios where following.
• There will be a lot of $199 or cheaper players in the retail chain very soon. They could not be thinking to make a market with a few hundred thousand players and some Xbox add-ons against even just the PS3 alone. Something is happening here. Maybe not exactly the Wal-Mart thing but something is out there.
So what do you think? If you were the Paramount/DreamWorks presidents standing in front of the board of directors needing to make your argument stick to people who only care about the stock price, do you think that you must be able to ensure them of some of this or similar to justify your business plan?
If you think the business move has other supporting reasons lets here them. If you think parts of my theories and extrapolations are flawed then lets here why you think so with a reasoned out argument. I may be wrong about some, but they would make business sense if they were true.
Cheers,
Richard
