Here Goes Sony Again

[DereX888]

Sony Corporation history in few words

from begining -> circa mid.1960's
crappy but cheap electronics maker

mid.1960's <-> end of 1970's
excellent home electronics maker;
world-class innovator and leader;

1980's <-> 1990's
just living on the fame and reputation gained earlier...

1990's -> today
world-class entertainment and media conglomerate
and
crappy yet expensive electronics maker

future ->
probably just the entertainment and related holding only...
(logic behind it: they will buy or (unlikely) merge with yet another big movie studio soon, while they are closing yet another factory in Malaysia and switch towards ODM'ing more and more...)

EOT2me

[Doramius]

The problem with the cost on Blu-Ray is that DVD manufacturers have to retool their entire production lines. It's not transitionary. It's extremely expensive because they do not want to stop sales of regular DVDs just yet. They are still large sellers for those who do not have Blu-Ray. The standard production cost for a DVD is around $0.14USD per disc. Making the change to HD DVD wouldn't require full retooling and the cost to produce HD DVDs would have only started out as an $.08-.10 increase. When DVDs started out, the cost was $0.60 per disc. To press a Blu-Ray disc, the cost is around $1.80 per disc. Plus you need to factor in the increase in the cost to pay for the retooling of the manufacturing company. That's raising the cost to $2.40 per disc. With Blu-Ray being the sponsored format of most movie industries production will increase and the cost will drop. If it move like it did for DVDs, the cost will maybe drop to $1.10 or $1.20 per disc.

So, either the price of Blu-Ray will not drop to the price level current DVds did after 10 years. OR Manufacturing companies are going to take a hit on how much they receive for producing each disc. Since most of the bloated cost of a DVD has to do with copyright, I highly doubt manufacturers are going to reduce the cost of the discs.

Manufacturers were extremely happy to move to DVD when it came out, because the technology was relatively inexpensive and they could produce more videos, cheaper than with video cassettes. That was a major chunk in the boom to switch to the new media right there.

[DereX888]

Obviously Sony will push hard the BR high-def movies and players on the market now, since they have monopoly. Luckily for them, now the HDTV LCD TV prices have fallen almost low enough for all Averge Joes to buy one too. With the television switch to digital in almost same time (and HD channels) it looks like it may be just mere couple of years only when BR DVD may replace DVD-Videos, really.

OTOH I think Sony Corp could single-handedly and arbitrarily enforce phasing-out of DVD-Videos too in most of civilized countries with very few exceptions, they own enough and thus have enough power in the movie business to do it even tomorrow

[JohnnyMalaria]

Sony Corporation history in few words

from begining -> circa mid.1960's
crappy but cheap electronics maker

mid.1960's <-> end of 1970's
excellent home electronics maker;
world-class innovator and leader;

1980's <-> 1990's
just living on the fame and reputation gained earlier...

1990's -> today
world-class entertainment and media conglomerate
and
crappy yet expensive electronics maker

future ->
probably just the entertainment and related holding only...
(logic behind it: they will buy or (unlikely) merge with yet another big movie studio soon, while they are closing yet another factory in Malaysia and switch towards ODM'ing more and more...)

EOT2me

Too simplistic. You've overlooked the broadcast industry. Plus they still produce excellent Made in Japan camcorders.