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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This is nothing new and the same thing can be said of HD-DVD supporters pressuring Fox and Disney to release on HD-DVD. I really doubt that Universal would release on Blu-ray any time soon and likewise with Fox and Disney releasing on HD-DVD.
it will happen, there are now 4.5 million Blu-Ray capable devices out there, compared to 300,000 HD-DVD units. The gap is widening every day.
Blu-Ray has the hardware industry backing it, it's got Hollywood backing it, It's got more hardware out there, it's got cheap Funai players coming for Xmas via Walmart..
How can it fail? A few early adopters trying to fake numbers by doing "buying days"? I think now.
Richard Doherty is a Sony man through and through. The same Richard Doherty that claims it will take 10 years to jack BD+.
Man- the market is so small why bother with it 70k or 200k is too small to make a studio's heat flutter. all those blu-ray players and barely 2 million disks sold. 2008 there will be near 10 million hd players built in to Toshiba computers alone, should they be counted as being bought for HD, no.
in spite of how badly the fanboys for both side want to in believe their side, nobody is going to win this "war".
Fan-mcFanboy can post all they want about gaps widening, magical vaporware players that don't exist or how many players are out there, while not counting their counterparts numbs accurately. It doesn't matter. Wait now for the next round of pro HD to be followed by pro Blu-ray. Rinse and repeat.
Richard Doherty is a Sony man through and through. The same Richard Doherty that claims it will take 10 years to jack BD+.
Man- the market is so small why bother with it 70k or 200k is too small to make a studio's heat flutter. all those blu-ray players and barely 2 million disks sold. 2008 there will be near 10 million hd players built in to Toshiba computers alone, should they be counted as being bought for HD, no.
in spite of how badly the fanboys for both side want to in believe their side, nobody is going to win this "war".
Fan-mcFanboy can post all they want about gaps widening, magical vaporware players that don't exist or how many players are out there, while not counting their counterparts numbs accurately. It doesn't matter. Wait now for the next round of pro HD to be followed by pro Blu-ray. Rinse and repeat.
Richard Doherty is a Sony man through and through. The same Richard Doherty that claims it will take 10 years to jack BD+.
Man- the market is so small why bother with it 70k or 200k is too small to make a studio's heat flutter. all those blu-ray players and barely 2 million disks sold. 2008 there will be near 10 million hd players built in to Toshiba computers alone, should they be counted as being bought for HD, no.
in spite of how badly the fanboys for both side want to in believe their side, nobody is going to win this "war".
Fan-mcFanboy can post all they want about gaps widening, magical vaporware players that don't exist or how many players are out there, while not counting their counterparts numbs accurately. It doesn't matter. Wait now for the next round of pro HD to be followed by pro Blu-ray. Rinse and repeat.
Richard Doherty is a Sony man through and through. The same Richard Doherty that claims it will take 10 years to jack BD+.
Man- the market is so small why bother with it 70k or 200k is too small to make a studio's heat flutter. all those blu-ray players and barely 2 million disks sold. 2008 there will be near 10 million hd players built in to Toshiba computers alone, should they be counted as being bought for HD, no.
in spite of how badly the fanboys for both side want to in believe their side, nobody is going to win this "war".
Fan-mcFanboy can post all they want about gaps widening, magical vaporware players that don't exist or how many players are out there, while not counting their counterparts numbs accurately. It doesn't matter. Wait now for the next round of pro HD to be followed by pro Blu-ray. Rinse and repeat.
Think you made your point there.