At Bits now - Sony CEO Stringer's complete statement

[almy]

At Bill Hun't latest post - just up now - you can read the full transcript of what Stringer said regarding Blu and Hd and "stalemate"

[bluperch]

Interesting.

[krispydude]

much better. it seems stringer really knows his stuff regarding blu-ray.

[darinp2]

Pretty sad that he says, "We have a sort of stalemate at the moment" the reporter reports that he said there is a stalemate, then people look up the definition of stalemate in the dictionary and claim that he said that no progress can be made from here. Would anybody on either side disagree that we have a "sort of stalement" right now? That isn't the same as claiming that we are in a stalemate where no action can be taken to change that.

I do wonder if some of the comments were directed at Warner or other studios, given that he said:

Oddly, the studios kind of liked it for a while. They were able to leverage one of us against each other.

and it does seem like the studios could decide to try to bleed both sides dry, if just getting paid is their main goal. He could have said that Sony would be willing to pay any amount to win and his future as well as everybody else's at Sony depends on them winning, but wouldn't seem like the best position to take if Warner is going to show up asking for money.

Originally Posted by krispydude

much better. it seems stringer really knows his stuff regarding blu-ray.

He does seem to be a little bit confused about bandwidth though.

--Darin

[Nicadian]

wow, what a big difference from the article posted from the press.

[whoami]

how come every web site is not telling this story

[darkpoet25]

Originally Posted by whoami

how come every web site is not telling this story

Simple, alot of sites are supported by either Toshiba, Microsoft or both.

[whippersnapper]

Thanks for the heads up. Here's a link. Now, I'm off to read it.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

[KingDeezie]

Good read.

Stringer really didn't say anything we didn't already know....

Its ashame that this format war is a direct result of Hubris, I would have much rather had a unified format where I could get all of my movies on one format....

I'm sure Toshiba just wanted to maintain royalties of some sort....

But until that time, I shall remain true to Blue...

[blu2]

Originally Posted by KingDeezie

I'm sure Toshiba just wanted to maintain royalties of some sort....

Not just them.

[Rike255]

I like the part about disk-security not being in Microsoft's best interest. Arse holes.

[tru2blu707]

even if it wasnt a unified format....if paramount didnt take the bait....it would have been over already

[Esox50]

IMHO, The most sgnificant comment Stringer made...
"Oddly, the studios kind of liked it (i.e. the format war)for a while. They were able to leverage one of us against each other. But in the end, it's counterproductive."

I just get this sense that it was "fun" for a while, but Hollywood is now starting to realize the danger inherent in two formats going forward. EVERYONE (us, retailers, studios, CEs) could lose out. I hope the retailers are getting sick of the format war too.

I expect that by the middle of next year, some studio decisions and bold retailer decisions will be made re: moving to one format.

[davidPS3]

Originally Posted by almy

At Bill Hun't latest post - just up now - you can read the full transcript of what Stringer said regarding Blu and Hd and "stalemate"

This is why I like to read his stuff. Get gets the facts straight and says how it is.

[mystiksuicide]

Well that clarifies a lot of what he said. I was shocked when I read it last week especially since Blu continues to win week after week after week.

But come to think about it am I not surprised that this story was taken out on content??? Absolutely not those HD DVD idiots will say just about anything in they're desperate state of mind.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by almy

At Bill Hun't latest post - just up now - you can read the full transcript of what Stringer said regarding Blu and Hd and "stalemate"

Just another example of how easy it is to generate hysteria on both sides by over-parsing someone's words.

Stalemate means nothing more in this context than: No one has won yet.

[BluOgre]

In context the stalemate refered to studio support it seems. Of course if you want to just pluck words from any where you can make it seem like he is saying BR is not able to win the battle.

It's funny, the media focused on the wrong word. What they should have focused on is the fact he said if highdef fails to take off the worst that would happen is they replace the disc drive in the PS3. If I was a developer of games that would raise more than a few eyebrows if you ask me. So after a couple of years of developing and spending money to get your company up to speed on making PS3 games Sony will just remove the BR drive? Are you kidding me?

Either Stringer is the most confused CEO ever or PS3 as a game console just got a little more bad news. Stringer should be forced to qualify his statment....infact if I was big wigs at EA, Konami, Ubisoft, ect.....I would want an answer of what Sony would do if highdef died next year.

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by BluOgre

So after a couple of years of developing and spending money to get your company up to speed on making PS3 games Sony will just remove the BR drive? Are you kidding me?

I think he meant that if BD tanks the PS4 won't support it.

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by Teazle

I think he meant that if BD tanks the PS4 won't support it.

Ok then why was he specifically talking about the PS3 then? You think he mistakenly said PS3?

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by BluOgre

Ok then why was he specifically talking about the PS3 then? You think he mistakenly said PS3?

I think he misspoke because it makes poor sense otherwise ... to quote:

But it's not a battle about the digital future. That's what's so strange about it. If it doesn't work out, that doesn't say very much about where we're all going. It's just... it's a scorecard: one-nothing or something. But it doesn't mean as much as all that. PlayStation 3 will still go on playing games. It would have to have a different disk drive. And that's about it really.

Why would the PS3 "need a different disk drive" if the war "doesn't work out" for Blu-ray, especially when he's just said it will still go on playing games (on BDs)? Well, the Playstation in future would need a different _optical_ drive if it's to play movies on HD-DVD; that makes sense. The anaphoric "it" in "It would have to have a different disk drive" does refer back to Playstation 3; presumably though he meant Playstation.

Or maybe he meant that PS3 would have to have a bigger _hard_ disk drive to accommodate movie downloads. Either way he can't seriously mean Blu-ray would be dropped from PS3 as an outcome of the war; he's just denied it.