That’s according to a piece published earlier this week in the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper; while sources supplied the paper with the $400 million figure, neither Sony nor Warners’ would confirm it.
In what a Toshiba executive described as the last straw, Warners’ took Blu-ray’s side in early January. After retailers Best Buy, Netflix and Wal*Mart followed its lead, Toshiba threw in the towel earlier this week.
The Globe and Mail also reported that Sony was determined to win the war because it was “haunted by Betamax,” the format it backed that lost out to rival VHS in the late 1980s. Sony won by making partnerships all over the technology and movie industries, years in advance, and by using both its movie studio holdings and its gaming profile to gain an advantage.
Do you believe Sony paid that much? Talk about it in the Dealerscope forums.
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I think the guilty party paying off movie studios is the HD-DVD camp. I believe they spent 100+ million dollars to get Universal on their side.
One way to determine if the rumor is true is to check the financial section of Sony's SEC 10-K report, which should be coming soon.
I believe it is highly unlikely that they ever paid that much or that they ever paid a dime in the first place.
The reporting at the Toronto Globe and Mail is not the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, or Business Week so I wouldn't really classify it as a reliable source.
why continue to release?
it's called inventory....
There was no payoff...utter nonesense.
If there was a payoff then WHY is Warner's still releasing HD DVDs through May 2008?
If there was a payoff wouldn't Warners stop releasing HD DVDs immediatly?
When Paramount / Dreamworks took HD DVDs payoff they IMMEDIATLY stopped releasing Blu-Ray movies....
This is getting ridiculous. We already had a similar "rumour" but the figures were higher before from a so-called "source" and it supposedly involved both Fox and Warner in a bidding war between the BDA and the HD DVD group. Fox would not have switched because they wanted to have BD+ after the basic encryption was cracked.
Both Warner and Fox denied it at the highest levels already.
bluray is just a better technology and all the industrie knows it would you rather have 30gb per disk or 200 not that hard of a choice
The problem with this report is the only source is not credible and there is no evidence. Also, Toshiba offered them $400 mill and since they turned it down, Toshiba assumed Sony offered more and spread the rumor happily to try to sway consumers. Either way it doesn't matter since HD DVD IS DEAD! Toshiba gave up! The format war is over! Who CARES about why WB dropped HD DVD? Could it be the year long better sales on Blu-ray? Couldit be the better studio support? Could it be the higher ratings on BD and more awards Could it be the storage and bandwidth? Could it be a payoff? Who cares!?
Personally, I feel like if they paid $400M for Warner's allegiance, then good for them. I think that's a small price to pay for ending a stupid format war that Toshiba needlessly brought upon the consumer marketplace. I am very glad it's over, thank you very much Sony!
Wouldn't that be crushing competition. Where are the anti-trust regulators?