The Universal Blu myth

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Originally Posted by The Don

Just read something for the 15th time on these forums...

"Universal isn't going neutral/Blu anytime soon"

pretty much like "Sony isn't cutting the price for the 60GB PS3" ?

Unless Toshiba and Microsoft is there paying Sony not to drop the price of the PS/3, it is a rather different situation.

If you look bad you'll see that insiders were hinting a change was coming early this year, and the silence at CES seemed to confirm something was up. But, then Universal came out gung ho anti-Blu-ray HD DVD-rulz and the insiders were (publically) expressing puzzlement at the cross signals.

To me that probably means that Universal was talking to BD interests, finding out replication issues, encoding software, ROM-Mark licenses, etc. and were ready to make the wise business move, and then something big happened to grab 2007 away. We also saw announcements for The Matrix, and an HD DVD/DVD Star Trek combo with lots of PR of them being exclusive.

The rumour (myth? ) is that MS-Toshiba paid for 100 titles from Universal for 2007. 2008 is a brand new year, and if BD has the Q4 we all expect then CES 2008 could see the neutrality announcement.

Perhaps the laptop announcement by Toshiba might have already given Graffeo hope he can save his reputation and he will give HD DVD yet another year. But, we have to wonder if Graffeo really never wants to work in the industry again. Because, at some point, dragging on the war is going to have reprecussions and the studios are going to say "enough".

Gary