Blu-ray climbs to the top

• Author: reemixx
• Filed under: Technology
• Date: Feb 25,2008

Over the last couple of weeks, several events have occurred concerning the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD format war, and it now appears a clear winner has surfaced.

First, Sony made an announcement claiming that Blu-ray had won the format war. Whilst Sony was just spitting out the number of sales on their Blu-ray discs and players, and HD-DVD was still very much alive and available, the announcement signified a major turning point and a possible (and probable) end to the format war entirely.

Then, Netflix announced they will only stock Blu-ray in the future, with a limited amount of current HD-DVD titles still being available until they are phased out at the end of the year. With the amount of customers using Netflix now, this is a pretty big deal.

From the Netflix website:

Netflix carries hundreds of high-definition movies in the Blu-ray format, and adds more every week. You can browse Blu-ray titles in the Blu-ray Genre. Because most of the major studios release their high-definition titles exclusively on the Blu-ray format, Netflix no longer carries movies in the HD DVD high-definition format.

Then Microsoft bit the bullet and announced that the Xbox 360 add-on HD-DVD player has been officially discontinued. It was a predictable move, one that we were all waiting for, but I’d imagine it would still make a lot of people quite angry that their HD-DVD add-on players no longer have much of a future, if a future at all.

Then came the major turning point. Toshiba announced it would no longer be producing HD-DVD products. It didn’t take long after that for the movie studios who had originally backed HD-DVD to switch over to Blu-ray.

Now, it appears there’s a Japanese electronics store that is so ashamed of selling the losing HD-DVD format player to its customers that it’s allowing them to trade their HD-DVD players for Blu-ray players over the month of March.

Despite all of this, I still can’t help but wonder if the reason why Blu-ray won is because of the name. ‘Blu-ray’. It rolls of the tongue. People like it. It’s easy to say.

One thing’s for sure though; even though there might be a few angry people around for a while, it’s good that the format was is finally over. Having to purchase two separate players, fork out the cash for a combo player, or choose between them both was beyond ridiculous. When it comes down to it, people just want to watch their movies and not have to regret a purchase decision. Many of us had avoided hi-def discs and players completely until a format had finally come out on top. It was only a matter of time, and it couldn’t have come any sooner.