James Delahunty
8 Dec 2005 11:16
Warner Home Video president, Warren Lieberfarb, has slammed the strategy used by Sony Corp. to help the Blu-Ray Disc optical format compete with Toshiba's HD-DVD format. Warner, like Paramount, is being safe so far by planning to release movies in both formats. However, Lieberfarb believes that Sony has brought the format fight into the next generation console fight. With Microsoft's support behind HD-DVD, he is sort of right and you have to remember that BD being used in the PS3 console is a main reason for content companies to support Blu-ray.
"If I put Blu-Ray in PlayStation and I don't license it to Microsoft for Xbox and I get all the studios to only publish in PlayStation, I'll beat Microsoft in the next-generation games market," said Lieberfarb, speaking at the European Video Perspectives conference in Biarritz, France. "Hollywood blew it. They got duped," he claimed. "They could have created the format that optimised their creative interests. It looks like we lost, because there are six studios supporting Blu-Ray and only three supporting HD-DVD. We've been sucked into PlayStation versus Xbox."
He also has called upon the video industry to back HD-DVD and not Blu-ray. "Convergence is here, everything is digital, the Internet is going to deliver video, you are going to want to pass information from one device to another, and HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray is really the first battle in the issue of who controls the home," he added.
Source:
The Register