At Bits now - Sony CEO Stringer's complete statement

[nails]

It's funny the entire chat about HD, almost everything he said about toshiba wasn't in a "we're neck to neck" fashion, it was more of a "I really feel sorry for toshiba's poor decisions" fashion. HAHAHHAHA. Bad fanboy bad! I must control my bias urges.

[dialog_gvf]

Adler: So when a consumer now has to choose between the two, if they want to get into the high definition video, Wal-Mart was selling the Toshiba HD-DVD for $99 last Friday for a couple of days. Usually, it's been $199 there. I think your list price is $499 for Blu-ray. That's an enormously big difference, particularly in a slowing economy. Can you play that game with the difference being that great?

Stringer: Well... we've been selling them as fast as we're making them because the brand -- first of all, we're not the only ones selling them at that price. So is Panasonic, so is Samsung, so is Sharp. And one of the reasons it's more expensive is because it does more. The bandwidth is greater. If you just want a two-hour movie, the Toshiba version is a high definition picture. But we thought that to drive high definition into the customer's imagination, you should future-proof the disks so that you could have director's cuts, which are fairly obvious. We have six to seven hours of bandwidth available. You can have interactivity in three dimensions. We would be prepared to allow the package goods to survive much longer by making it much more innovative. But that does make the player more expensive. Now, they all come down. The race is to bring costs down. It always is in consumer electronics. So it isn't going to stay at $499.

Doesn't sound like a guy inclined to start throwing away money simply because of the anghst of the Blu-ray collective.

Let's see those 100K actually have ANY affect, before declaring victory for HD DVD because of them.

Shrek 3: #69 on Amazon (bleh!)
Transformers: #102

Close Encounters: #89

When 30 year old catalog titles are in the same region as the few key new releases that HD DVD has this quarter, I'm inclined to wonder why HD DVD is dying and what new stunt Toshiba is going to try, not how the BDA is going to counter it.

Gary

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

When 30 year old catalog titles are in the same region as the few key new releases that HD DVD has this quarter, I'm inclined to wonder why HD DVD is dying and what new stunt Toshiba is going to try, not how the BDA is going to counter it.

You got it. And now Toshiba has reduced the perceived value/price of their entry level players down to $98. What are they going to do early next year? Lower prices? LOL

With each day, I am more and more confident we may not have to wait until the end of next year to see the conclusion of this format war, and Blu folk are going to be mighty happy next year.

[Terjyn]

Always question a journalistic article in which they quote long sentences and then use a single word in quotes without surrounding context.

Random CEO: It will be a tough challenge, but we are winning, it's no where near a stalemate.

Journalist: CEO uses "stalemate" to refer to war, saying "It will be a tough challenge"

[oscar_in_fw]

Maybe Sony should offer to throw Toshiba a bone: a small piece of the BDA Blu-ray royalty pie and a break on Blu-ray player royalties if Toshiba switches from HD DVD players to dual format players ? This would get Toshiba on the Blu-ray bandwagon while allowing them to save face with their HD DVD supporters. Eventually Toshiba would go to Blu-ray only standalone players once the studios stop producing HD DVDs. Just an idea.

[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.

[StilettoViper]

I don't see how you people can sugar-coat what he said. He is basically saying that things are a lot worse now that Paramount switched and Toshiba is rock-bottoming prices. I can tell he doesn't think Blu-Ray is going to win out. He's not the CEO of Sony for being oblivious. This is Beta all over again, I'm pissed.

[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?

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by StilettoViper

I don't see how you people can sugar-coat what he said. He is basically saying that things are a lot worse now that Paramount switched and Toshiba is rock-bottoming prices. I can tell he doesn't think Blu-Ray is going to win out. He's not the CEO of Sony for being oblivious. This is Beta all over again, I'm pissed.

I don't get it. What he said is they were winning in every way. Price was always in HD's favor. The one thing that he said that changed everything was Paramount. It made it more equal with studio support although he doesn't even sound confident when he talks about it.

"As you know, they had fewer studios, but then they paid a lot of money for Paramount. So we have four studios and they have two or three studios."

It's funny because he doesn't even know the stuidos that are supporting them lol. BR has 3 major exclusive (Sony, Fox, Disney), 1 mid exclusive (Lionsgate), and one neutral (Warner). HD has 2 major exclusive (Universal, Paramount) and one neutral (Warner).

How can you take any of his quotes seriously when he doesn't even know the exact details of which he based his "stalemate" comment on?

[CptGreedle]

That was actually a very positive speech he made. I liked it overall. It was real and doesn't lie or spread rumors or misinformation like the HD-DVD camp does all-too-often. We was sincere and made a point that BD is indeed better and better equipped for the future.
Whoever the hell that dumb@$$ reporter for AP is should get his ass fired! That is the worst kind of picking-and-choosing reporting that spreads FUD and misinformation. Again the work of an HD-DVD fan spreading through the internet like wildfire.

[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.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

Always question a journalistic article in which they quote long sentences and then use a single word in quotes without surrounding context.

Random CEO: It will be a tough challenge, but we are winning, it's no where near a stalemate.

Journalist: CEO uses "stalemate" to refer to war, saying "It will be a tough challenge"

Except that's not what happened here. There was no mischaracterization at all in the original article.

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by BluOgre

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?

Sometimes CEOs don't get all the detail right, although hopefully the technical people in their organization know them (like the bandwidth thing where he seemed to be confused). My guess is that the disc drive thing is really about changing the PS3 to have a combo drive, if they had to. They need it to keep playing Blu-ray games, so they might as well keep it playing Blu-ray movies. But if they really did lose the war, they could also make it play HD DVD movies.

--Darin

[OokieSpookie]

The bottom line in this Stringer thing is that Stringer screwed up, made all of us who support blu look like idiots and made himself look like an idiot.
There is no way to deny that with any certainty.
He knows that every word he says will have weight, and he knows how important image is.
He needs to man up and make a positive statement soon.
We can all play the spin machine and try to say what he meant to say, but that is not good enough.
One of the risks of having the PS3 so closely tied to blu ray is that Sony will be tempted now and then to play off the importance of the BD/HD war to try and make the PS3 look more appealing to gamers which IS their main demographic with the system no matter how people want to pretend their intent is equal to both sides.
That is what his comments were , they were directed toward PS3 gamers who buy the system wanting to make sure that it is future proof.
His continued silence after the press has picked his comments apart is making it even worse.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by OokieSpookie

His continued silence after the press has picked his comments apart is making it even worse.

Ah, but then all we would hear would be accusations of damage control.

At this point actions are more important than words. How will Sony break the "stalemate" (or whatever you want to call the status quo)? The only sence I get from the interview is they'll try to wait it out and ultimately bring down player pricing.

[OokieSpookie]

Originally Posted by blu2

Ah, but then all we would hear would be accusations of damage control.

At this point actions are more important than words. How will Sony break the "stalemate" (or whatever you want to call the status quo)? The only sence I get from the interview is they'll try to wait it out and ultimately bring down player pricing.

It would be a mistake to come out and say "this is what I really meant" and would be seen as damage control.
But coming out and making a strong statement about the race, about sales of players and movies ( preferably with very little mention of the PS3).
Essentially a declaration of war for the holiday season.
This is the biggest shopping time of the year and silence speaks volumes to the consumer.

[Blu Titan]

A lot of misinformation has occurred due to the statements made by Sony's CEO. I just posted similar thoughts in eproductwars to disperse the constant FUD that is constantly appearing. Do not expect any clarifications from Sony regarding the statements, because they serve a purpose. Mr. Stringer's comments make complete sense if the audience that he is addressing is considered. Sony is a public corporation owned by countless investors that could care less about Blu-ray or HD DVD. Any time a company makes a sizeable investment, the investment / financial circles speculate on possible outcomes (best case scenario/ worst case scenario and the "expected outcome") The "market" is always changing and investors are risk adverse...meaning the higher the perception of risk, the higher the expected return on the investment (a riskier bond demands a higher rate of interest, a risky stock will sell at a lower price) Consequently, when Sony CEO speaks, he is not thinking about you or me, he is thinking of the investments/financial sectors. Consequently, by stating that a worst case scenario "will not mean all that much" he is in no way indicating that the company commitment is wavering. Sony's CEO is reassuring the company's stockholders and bondholders that even in a worst case scenario; the company is a solid investment prospect.

[Joe Cain]

^^^Have seen this argument laid out a very few times since Stringer's comments first broke...might have been bluperch who said it here first (in another thread?) Thanks to BlueNeon for insisting the sky is remaining where it should.