Spielberg has not said he will only release in BD. He has indicated (via Levy) that he wishes that when his movies are released in HD, that BD be included (which will likely result in HD DVD releases also).
I think this deal takes a lot of pressure off Universal, and they will NOT be going neutral any time soon. This marginalizes sales on HD and since there won't be a ton of money to be made in HD, there is no big pressure to go exclusive or go neutral (depending on where you already are).
M$ can continue to buy off studios in this manner, since they have a warchest that the BDA will be unable to match. Toshiba won't complain much because they continue to rack up royalties for dvd.
Sucks to be us. Congrats to M$ and Paramount for reducing the value of my investment in HD media.
|