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Universal Drop HD-DVD Exclusivity

February 11, 2008 in News comments 19

It was stated by Universal previously that they would not support blu-ray anytime soon. However, the time has now changed, and it appears as though they have done a u-turn, and have decided to finally support Blu-Ray as well as the HD-DVD format.

As seen in this month's EGM (attached below) it seems to be a move many knew would happen sooner or later. 2008 sure isn't looking to be very good for Toshiba and those in the HD-DVD camp.

In EGM's March 2008 Cover Story, EGM clearly signals what every Blu-ray fan has been waiting for: Universal Studio's exclusivity drop from HD DVD.
Krunal via thegamersthought.com »
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  • 0
    Blackfalcon Feb 11, 08
    Hehehe- U turn: Universal! Get it?

    Anyway, why wouldn't they support Blu Ray? It's the way to go; the future, the next big thing, etc.
  • 2
    VeGiTAX2 Feb 11, 08
    Or it's just more money for them, it doesn't benefit any company to be exclusive to just one format, if they cared about the future, the next bnig thing or whatever other buzzwords you could think of they would have dumped DVD already.

    The fact is, they want to scrape up money any way they possibly can, thats why even when UMD came out, the studios rushed in to get yet another source of revenue for age old movies.

    $$$ is what they want, they don't care about the features just as long as they have DRM so heavy you can't breathe.
    • 0
      jmac353 Feb 11, 08
      They do, however, lose money if they produce a bunch of HD-DVD movies that no one buys.

      Also, Netflix has gone Blu-Ray exclusive.
      • 1
        VeGiTAX2 Feb 11, 08
        Actually, they don't. Understanding units sold to retail vs units sold to consumers would inform you of that basic fact.

        Such reason is why companies can skew the units sold to retail vs units installed in homes.
        • 0
          jmac353 Feb 11, 08
          What I meant was that if they make a bunch of HD-DVD movies and no one buys them then the stores all stop buying them from them they are left with a bunch of worthless copies that no one wants. Money wasted on materials, factories, etc.
        • 1
          VeGiTAX2 Feb 11, 08
          Your thought is flawed, there are shelves loaded with bad movies on them, movies that failed as content. Yet the stores still supported the studios on other flops and they will continue to do so, pushing the losses off in bundle packs and exclusive offers.

          How does the store lose money on materials, factories and etc? Unless you're trying to say Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, Bestbuy and etc all press HD-DVD's, if so thats grossly inaccurate. Try to make sense before you assume retail chains are responsible for disc production.
        • -1
          jmac353 Feb 12, 08
          I wasn't talking about the stores, I was talking about the companies actually producing the movies. Universal and Paramount pressing a bunch of HD-DVDs only to not be bought by the stores because of them choosing to go Blu-Ray exclusive.
  • 0
    Slumpy monkey Feb 11, 08
    hd-dvDEAD

    Poor toshiba
  • 0
    iLLmatic Feb 11, 08
    I wish they would just kill HD-DVD already. Its just not happening for the format and I'm tired of hearing about the format wars. Blu-Ray got it locked. Just fold.
    • 1
      VeGiTAX2 Feb 11, 08
      I wouldn't get comfortable then, if you can't take this then turn away from tech news since digital media delivery battles aren't falling in numbers.

      Exclusivity loss doesn't mean much to either camp, it just means that they get to brag about one less title being theirs. They still get the same releases though in the meantime. It's only really news if a camp breaks and completely re-tools their factory to do Blu-Ray.
      • -1
        jmac353 Feb 11, 08
        Digital Media delivery services like iTunes you mean? The HD content available on iTunes and other digital delivery services comes no where near close to the HD quality of that on Blu-Ray or even HD-DVD. While the number of movies being downloaded off iTunes and the like is higher than that of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD it's simply because there's a larger install base. Anyone with an iPod has iTunes and even people that don't use iTunes. The fact is though, that out of all the people that actually have iTunes only a small fraction of them make up these people that are actually getting this digital content which means in comparison to the install base of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players it's actually not doing better than either.
        • 0
          VeGiTAX2 Feb 11, 08
          itunes? *laugh* most people with reasonable taste in compression don't use itunes. I'm actually offended at the assumption.

          There are other streaming services on the rise lending the ability to view content at higher resolutions. With x.264 on the rise HD content will be arriving without so many bandwidth hitches as it previously faced.

          Netflix, Amazon, and others are all in the digital video systems, check into other growing services like Hulu and realize that flash based 320x240 movies are not the focus of the industry anymore.

          Using itunes as a base is laughable. If you plan to talk about quality then do so, don't bring laughable quality into it though. God anyone who saw AppleTV when it arrived would know better.
        • 0
          jmac353 Feb 13, 08
          Well you couldn't be more wrong because iTunes is doing fairly well numbers wise. Good call.
      • 0
        iLLmatic Feb 11, 08
        Vegita, in this type of situation, it is really news. Complete exclusivity isn't necessary, because you can only get all your other movies on Blu-Ray also. Now, with maybe only 1 or 2 studios completely HD-DVD, there's not much reason to get an HD-DVD player, because you can only watch movies from those specified studios. Its like how many people used to say the PS3 wasn't worth the money, based on the few exclusives it had, whereas you could get all of the other games on the cheaper 360.
        • 1
          VeGiTAX2 Feb 11, 08
          Actually I mean it in terms of people getting riled up for something large to suddenly happen, going multi-platform is in their best interest to sell units right now when things are in a slowing trend. Having a multi-format producer is news, but it's not epic "this is the end of days" news that people like to make it. You don't call something dead just because it shares titles with another company, just as you don't swap from one format to another because they have the same titles that you can rebuy on it.
  • 0
    Kinetic Feb 11, 08
    Great! I can't wait to get some Universal movies to play on my PS3.
  • 1
    Final Blade Feb 11, 08
    Interesting, still the format war is far from over, i said this multiple times and will continue to say it til a year or two from now.
  • 0
    Bale Fire* Feb 11, 08
    The war is over. Universal changing such a adamant stance against Blu-ray is surely a indicator of just how one sided it is. I'm surprised they didn't announce Blu-ray exclusive though. But that will probably happen sometime in the next year
    • 0
      VeGiTAX2 Feb 11, 08
      As long as there is room to milk things out they wont call exclusivity, if they have a strong selling trend with their titles then they'll most likely run it out until the end. Given that existing DVD pressing systems could be modded to support HD-DVD it might not be costing them all that much at the moment.

      Blu-Ray on the other hand is an entire re-tooling of their factory for the spec.

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