eProduct Wars: "The war ends..."

[bluflu]

Sounds like another HD DVD fanboy run website is closing up shop.

"The war ends...

Walmart goes with Blu-ray, and as of today (2/18/2008), Toshiba is saying different things to different people (ranging from "we haven't made a decision" to (paraphrasing) "we may give up really really soon." I'd say this is akin to the moment when Rudy Guliani's top strategists saw the writing on the wall and played football (instead of working) shortly before exiting the campaign. I'll leave it to others who spent much more time on this than me to figure out when the tide turned (of if it ever did), but I'm sure the HD-DVD team at this point is looking back at the last few years of their lives and wondering the same thing.

One thing I did learn from managing this site is that a first-mover advantage (as HD-DVD had for a few months) is nice, but it doesn't mean much when no one's watching and no one cares. Back when HD-DVD was winning, far fewer people had HD TVs, and there were very few HD DVDs available. Toshiba was winning all the games in the preseason (with noone watching) while Sony was preparing for the regular season (recruiting their team, working their "relationships" with the umpires, etc). By the time the regular season (covering Q3/Q4 2007) ended, Sony clearly won, and won big.

Another thing I learned is that price isn't everything. HD DVD always had the less expensive players and often the less expensive DVDs. They also had extensive giveaway sales and packaged HD DVDs with regular DVDs. Still Blu-ray won. Why? Because, for these particular decision makers (those with HD DVDs who even considered buying HD DVDs), price wasn't nearly as big of an issue as the answer to the questions of "what movies are available?" and "who will win?". Of course, price reductions would (and did) result in temporary hits to the blu-ray lead, but these answers were the only thing that (I believe) could fuel a sustainable lead.

Notes about the site: I'm going to freeze the "Who's on top" timeline, but I'll let the graphs/stats continue to run, so that Blu champions can relish their victory (who doesn't like to finish a board game they know they're going to win?). In the meantime, please continue to use the following link (we earn money when you do) to

Browse and Buy Blu-ray DVDs"

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/index.cfm