Sony HD: Blu-Ray or Nothing

You could have something there. A few weeks ago I was very excited to see "A Knight's Tale (HD)" show up in the guide (CityTV-HD in Canada). Unfortunately when the movie started it ended up being Ladder 49 instead. A Knight's Tale ran on the CityTV-SD channel. I was pretty sure that it had to do with not getting the rights to broadcast in high-definition.

I've seen the fifth element broadcast on cable HD as well as layer cake, monster house, stranger than fiction, final fantasy, hell boy and I'm sure plenty other.

Well apparently they do offer movies on HD cable as other posters have stated. But Sony traditionally does not offer anything except in its chosen format. In the betamax vs VHS war they didnt offer their movies in any other format but beta until it was totally dead. I dont see them acting differently this time.

That is HIGHLY unlikely. Sony Studios has far more to gain by taking the money today, from multiple sources, than restricting even a single property to Blu-ray.

Comcast in my area had Underworld and Ultraviolet OnDemand for free if you had Encore last month or the month before and Monster House HD is available now.

I don't think so. Sony didn't own a movie studio until 1989. By that time Betamax was dead and even Sony was selling VHS players.

I watched Ultraviolet in HD from my DVR, from either HD-NET or HBO-HD a long while ago. I was trying to buy it (it's so bad it's good) when I realized it was BluRay only.

Oh well, another lost sale of HDM.

I'm sure Sony will have their movies available on VOD when they launch their service on the PS3.

Microsoft should just buy a movie studio or 2, IMHO a move like this would make business sense with all the download stuff.

I worked for Sony when we bought Columbia Pictures and proceeded for the first time in Sony's history, to lose $2B or something like it. Suffice it to say, I am not alone in feeling like making technology work is not the same as making movies.

Couldn't MS buy in and provide backing w/o having technical guys actually making movies?

After all they are already collaborating with Peter Jackson and there are smaller studios like Weinstien doing a creditable job that shouldn't require a massive investment to start owning some properties.

It's been rather odd to see on again off again status of a major property like Halo when MS could have done the movie themselves.

Sony started out losing money but seem to have bounced back very nicely to build a very strong studio.

It's only a major property as a video game. The movie version is not going to be setting any ticket sales records.

Isn't Lawrence of Arabia Sony's?

That's been on SKY HD in the UK.

Steve W

Sony probably starts their video store next year.

I think the OPs point is he can't find Sony Pictures movies On Demand for rental purposes. Come to think of it, I can't remember being able to find Sony Pictures movies anywhere other than Starz/Encore channels after cable release. In fact, I don't see Spiderman available anywhere for OD rental on Comcast right now.


If there intention truly is to only offer their HD on the future PS3 store and Blu-ray I think it's a boneheaded move. They could clearly make money by offering these for rental On Demand and through the 360 Video Store.

It's also bad for consumers because it limits their choices of getting Sony Pictures content.

Disney and Lionsgate Studios have seen quite a bit of traffic on the service.

Sony's slitting their own wrists here,

What you write sounds convincing on paper, but how does it limit consumer choice? Online download stores are online, accessible from anywhere. You don't need middlemen, it is the biggest win of online distribution. You may like the idea of more choices, but it also means more middlemen.

I can only imagine the headaches involved for a software or electronics company to own a movie studio. I am sure there can be rewards but if you make a few cruddy movies millions of dollars are at stake. By the way, Amir, I didn't know you worked for Sony. You must have had an interesting ride in your life so far! I don't know if you've mentioned that before, but I'm surprised a lot of people don't take that into account when you write on here, maybe they will now.

Amir has mentioned that he worked for Sony several times before.

Even though I dumped Comcast for D* a few months back, I still get Comcast junk mail.

Got their December programming mailer. Listed the OnDemand movies coming this month & into January, and denotes each one that'll be available in HD. Of the "biggies", POTC:AWE (Disney/BD) is available in HD OnDemand, Sony's SpiderMan3 will be On Demand as well, but not in HD. Could be a typo (this is Comcast, ya know) or the OP is onto something.

While I have seen older Sony-owned titles OnDemand in HD (but almost never OAR), maybe w/ the newest titles, they'd rather sell you a BD disk instead.

House of Flying Daggers, Resident Evil, XXX, Black Hawk Down,
Kung-fu Hustle, etc. were running on PPV HD here in Canada for a while.
Casino Royale probably for at least 2 months.

Diogen.

Different service, but the movie server at the hotel I stayed at most recently had only Universal and Paramount titles in HD (and maybe Warner I forget). There were other studios' films in SD, we ended up watching POTC3, but I thought it was interesting the particular mix.

How can anyone know that?

At one time not actually so long ago for instance comic books were major property's in the comic world but consistently came out as movie duds. Now comic book characters are some of the hottest properties in film, just ask Sony about that.

In the age of CGI effects, video game characters by right should be able to break out similar to comic book characters with the proper financial backing and quality releases. So far though that financial backing and quality has been lacking.

Wasn't Microsoft involved in the movie "Wing Commander". It was silly at times, but I did like it.

Nope, they had nothing to do with it. They did however buy Digital Anvil, the company founded by the creator of Wing Commander that was responsible for the movie, the following year after the movie tanked.

Comic books also have a much longer history and appeal to a larger fanbase, as far as nostalgia goes.

I just don't ever see a video game-based movie being good. Every one up to this point justifies my feeling.

Not at all. All of the longstanding history of comic books didn't keep them from tanking as movies for a long time until the modern era of special effects kicked in and Hollywood decided to put 1st class budget and promotion behind comic characters.

Marvel comic characters did especially pathetic in movies and movie attempts before Sony in fact put a 1st class budget behind Spiderman and it proved a smash hit. Of course X-men also got a class A treatment and proved there was in fact a major movie market for modern comic characters. (not just the ancient Superman and Batman of DC)

Now many Marvel comic characters are huge in movies with more coming and they don't have the history of Superman and Batman. If anything the very young theater going demographic these days is quite familiar with video game characters.

Tomb Raider and Resident Evil have shown some market just as Superman and Batman did when most comic movies were bombing or failing to even make it to market. (Note the the big name Hollywood leads in those movies)

Video game movies have generally gotten the same tentative low budget and low promotional treatment that comic book movies used to get. Basically the issue is that they have been poor movies with cheesy scripts and production values. Microsoft could make sure that fate doesn't fall on a Halo movie.

All it will take is Hollywood studios to get a few break out video game properties turned big movies to change the trend very quickly. Sony may be such a studio again as they were with Spiderman since they have such strong presence in gaming. Aren't they working Namco on a Tekken movie?

Lawrence (albeit cropped) was one of the first free HD OnDemand offerings on Comcast's service.

I see an occasional Sony film on HD Net Movies. They've never managed to get Glory out the door on BD but they leased it to HD Net for a couple of plays.