Toshiba believes in HDM's future (speculation)

[What'sHD]

Toshiba evidently believes that HDM has a lucrative future. I do not think that they are in the war to stall HDM and prepare for downloads. If they were, the Para bribe would not have been entirely out of their pockets.

I think their goal here is to:

Make hd-dvd survive until universal players are everywhere cheaply and then make royalties. The penetration will probably be less than what one format would have generated, but anyhoo.

OR

Irritate the BDA until they are offered a cut of royalties from BD. Toshiba seem highly unwilling to let go of the DVD IP gravy train, thus hd-dvd and this stupid war.

Either way, it is clear that Toshiba sees HDM as a growth industry and the alliance with MS is one of convenience and not based on principle or a consensus on the superiority of hd-dvd.

The solution, thus, for BDA, is to either agree to share royalties asap OR knock out all chances of universal players becoming cheap. They could BAN universal players (is it possible?) or end the war before they become cheap.



P.S. Thinking some more, if universal players become cheaply available, I dont understand why any studio would release on hd-dvd since the PS3 base would be left out. Or studios could release on both formats (unlikely). So, that means they would release on BD long-term, which means Toshiba has little hope of getting a lot of royalty $ since most $ are made on disc royalties and their players are dirt cheap already anyways...

So that means Toshiba is in it hoping for share of royalties and is willing to throw good money in bribes in the hope that they will make it back. Cos, I really do not see where they see themselves making money if hd-dvd survives since BD and PS3 are here to stay.