Tim Fisher - Firmware updates for players that are not connected to the net are/can be performed using firmware on the actual disk. PS3 games for example all carry the latest firmware at the time of release (PSP started this practice). So every BD player that is capable of profile 1.1 or 2.0 and yet needs a firmware update can get one via the movie discs themselves.
Regarding the whole WB thing. Sorry folks but all the crap argued about PS3 is just that, crap. Propped up by PS3? There are more or less as many stand alone BD players as there are HD-DVD players, if you remove the game consoles from *both* sets of umbers. So let's not blather on and on about how BluRay relies on gamers, it's as viable as HD-DVD is you remove gamers from both. If on the other hand you simply take the view that an HD capable player is an HD capable player, then you include both console types and suddenly there are something like 6.5-7 million BluRay players in the world compared to about a million HD-DVD players. OOps, I guess that would mean that HD-DVD is dead in the water.
You wanna argue disc sales? Go for it, HD-DVD has not once led the disc sales numbers since both formats were launched. Not once. I'm sorry, but on pure business grounds the format war is over and BluRay has won.
However should Microsoft wish to pay the HD-DVD forum or whatever they call themselves some kind of special marketing fund. And should that fund get funneled to WB for some exclusive character rights for HD-DVD (i.e. WB gets paid off by Microsoft just a Paramount was). Then I could see WB 'choosing' HD-DVD over BluRay because at this point the HD business doesn't make that much money and $150 million is a lot of disc sales to make up.
That said, if that happens again, there will be a very bad taste in the mouth of many in the industry, remember all but one of the major CE companies in the world are backers of BluRay. If Microsoft manages to engineer HD-DVD as a winner here, those companies are going to find a way to have the whole deal analyzed to the nth degree.
If Microsoft would keep it's fat nose out of the format war and it's slush funds under better control, then a format war on the merits would have been over already.
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Firware updates and thoughts on WB
Tim Fisher - Firmware updates for players that are not connected to the net are/can be performed using firmware on the actual disk. PS3 games for example all carry the latest firmware at the time of release (PSP started this practice). So every BD player that is capable of profile 1.1 or 2.0 and yet needs a firmware update can get one via the movie discs themselves.
Regarding the whole WB thing. Sorry folks but all the crap argued about PS3 is just that, crap. Propped up by PS3? There are more or less as many stand alone BD players as there are HD-DVD players, if you remove the game consoles from *both* sets of umbers. So let's not blather on and on about how BluRay relies on gamers, it's as viable as HD-DVD is you remove gamers from both. If on the other hand you simply take the view that an HD capable player is an HD capable player, then you include both console types and suddenly there are something like 6.5-7 million BluRay players in the world compared to about a million HD-DVD players. OOps, I guess that would mean that HD-DVD is dead in the water.
You wanna argue disc sales? Go for it, HD-DVD has not once led the disc sales numbers since both formats were launched. Not once. I'm sorry, but on pure business grounds the format war is over and BluRay has won.
However should Microsoft wish to pay the HD-DVD forum or whatever they call themselves some kind of special marketing fund. And should that fund get funneled to WB for some exclusive character rights for HD-DVD (i.e. WB gets paid off by Microsoft just a Paramount was). Then I could see WB 'choosing' HD-DVD over BluRay because at this point the HD business doesn't make that much money and $150 million is a lot of disc sales to make up.
That said, if that happens again, there will be a very bad taste in the mouth of many in the industry, remember all but one of the major CE companies in the world are backers of BluRay. If Microsoft manages to engineer HD-DVD as a winner here, those companies are going to find a way to have the whole deal analyzed to the nth degree.
If Microsoft would keep it's fat nose out of the format war and it's slush funds under better control, then a format war on the merits would have been over already.