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Like many people, I have watched the HD DVD/Blu-ray battle with a mix of interest and contempt. One side of me says, “How dare they be so stubborn as to allow a format war to happen?” The other says, “Given how Sony’s entire corporate structure seems to be based on owning their own format, what happens when they finally have one they control?” [On a side note, Sony's lust after owning an industry standard format reminds me of a guy who completely obsesses over a girl who has no interest in him. It's creepy and usually ends badly.]
Initially I was going to sit out this format war all together, but I was lured in by what I perceived as a good deal. I bought into HD DVD first for the princely sum of $200, thanks to the add-on for the Xbox 360. I was amazed at the quality, even on my 720p HDTV. Things just seemed more alive. With that I was sold on high def video discs.
Now we are a year into this morass. Things don’t look very good for HD DVD, pretty much only because of the Playstation 3. We can charitably say the Playstation 3 has been much less of a success as a game console than it has as a (comparatively) cheap Blu-ray player.
All is not lost for HD DVD, though, if a few changes happen.
First, for combo titles, DVD-only SKUs must be eliminated, i.e. 300 doesn’t need to have a stand-alone DVD sold if there is a DVD/HD DVD combo disc being produced. By doing this, you force people to start buying an HD DVD library. Once they have a few key titles (the aforementioned 300, The Departed, and a few others), then they will lean toward HD DVD when they upgrade.
Second, because you are going to blast the sales of these titles through the roof, we need a reasonable price for them. As an HD DVD owner, I want to own Slither, but I am not paying $37.99 for it at Best Buy, period. Once you remove the redundant SKU and the sales surge, I don’t see why these would have to be priced any higher than $21 or $22.
Third, if you have combo discs, have a minimum of one killer feature on the HD side. Give people a compelling reason to upgrade. Make them want to play the HD side.
Finally and maybe most importantly, transition to twin discs. For those who don’t know, the DVD/HD DVD combo discs are dual-sided. That means you have to flip the disc. It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t always supplements you wanted to see on the standard def side, but when you make your consumers have to get up to continue watching their bonus features, you are turning people off. Twin discs remove this problem by having up to three layers glued together on one side. To my knowledge, the only twin disc released to date has been Freedom 1 by Bandai. Guess what else they did? That’s right, there is only one SKU for this title. If you want it, you get the HD version and the SD version, all without having to flip.
If these changes are made, software sales will go up immediately. Next thing you know, everyone has a few HD DVDs on their shelves. At Christmas when they are looking at things, they will see the HD DVD players and remember they already have a mini library of titles, and didn’t we want to see the blue screen version of 300?