On Friday, January 4th 2007, the high definition DVD format war was won. And it was won by Blu-Ray.
On friday Warner Bros announced they would release their movies exclusively on Blu-Ray and Toshiba, the main backer of HD-DVD cut short their CES press event and ran and hid. This announcement leaves just Universal and Paramount as the only studios supporting HD-DVD. With all but two studios supporting Blu-Ray, I’m going to go on record and say: Blu-Ray has won the war.
Because the majority of movies will be released on Blu-Ray, more and more people will start to buy Blu-Ray players, and hold off buying HD format movies from Universal and Paramount. By the end of 2008, one of the two remaining hold-outs will succumb to consumer pressure and switch to Blu-Ray. Once this happens the last studio will be forced to switch, as there will be no market for HD-DVD.
In my 2008 Tech Predictions post I said the format war would be settled by one event, and only 4 days into the year, this event took place. I always felt like Blu-Ray was going to win, right from the start. Blu-Ray is technically superior to HD-DVD and seemed to have an edge on HD-DVD.
The outcome of the war has been decided, however the battle rages on. It’s only a matter of time before HD-DVD waves the white flag, and concedes defeat to Blu-Ray.