According to Variety Magazine, Universal Home Entertainment is facing increasing pressure to release titles on the Blu-ray high definition disc format.
Only in May, Ken Graffeo pledged his company's allegiance to HD DVD, citing its price and interactivity advantages over Blu-ray.
Though Universal remains the only studio supporting HD DVD exclusively, Envisioneering Group guru Richard Doherty believes that "there is a lot of persuading going on right now" from Blu-ray supporters.
Though there are many signs that Blu-ray has the advantage, HD DVD isn't dead in the water yet. For example, Toshiba claims 70% of the European market for standalone high definition players, and HD DVD has pushed out more titles than Blu-ray in quarter 2 of 2007.
Though Universal wouldn't have to abandon HD DVD, the investment required to produce Blu-ray movies may currently be too great.
"We're still at such an early stage that it's hard to gauge how [selling Blu-ray] would have any impact," Graffeo says. "When you sell 6 million standard-definition units of a title, and you're selling only about 70,000 in hi-def, it's hard to say, 'Wow, look at what we're leaving on the table.' "
(Variety via TV Predictions)
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