Comments on: Rumor: Warner Paid $500 Million To Go Blu-Ray

By: rumors

rumors — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:47:43 +0000

Anymore new rumors?

By: squishface

squishface — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:23:09 +0000

@ weclock, yes it is a free country but it could lead to issues if more companies are bought out and cause some monopoly or collusion problems.

By: DigitalMovie

DigitalMovie — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:41:22 +0000

Stop buying DVD. It’s the past. Digital download FTW!!!!!!

By: weclock

weclock — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:11:04 +0000

IMO there’s no reason to deny it, so what if you were bought off? it’s a free god damn country.

By: Minotaur

Minotaur — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:49:54 +0000

Of course Warner were paid off… they have to break a contract stating they’d keep making HD-DVD’s in to next year. The payoff would have been an amount to at least cover the price of breaking that contract…

By: Ned

Ned — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:57:46 +0000

Warren Grove, of course Warners going to deny it. Paramount denied it until it was proven. Once somebody finds the evidence, the Warner President will just say it wasn’t a “payoff”, but a “promotional fee” or something.

By: Warren Grove

Warren Grove — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 16:52:24 +0000

Not true!

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Warner/Warner:_No_Payoff_for_Move_to_Blu-ray/1327

Warner Home Entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara says the studio took no pay-offs to exclusively back Blu-ray.

In a post-announcement conference call, Tsujihara flatly denied rumors that studio had accepted anywhere from 250M to $500M in exchange for dropping its HD DVD format support.

According to the exec, Warner’s sole motivation in dropping its HD DVD format support was to ensure growth of the “category” and the long-term health of the industry.

By: William

William — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:16:30 +0000

used_c I agree. Money had to have changed hands at some point. I have no clue how much money or who.. but these deals are always about money in the end.

By: used cisco

used cisco — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:09:00 +0000

Both format were still born. Until now, both formats were complete losers.
I hope WB DID get money for this, otherwise they are idiots. I’m betting they did get paid. They’d have to be fools not to leverage this format war to their advantage and leave money on the table. Anyone arguing that going blu-ray was done simply because it “was best for consumers and retailers” needs to wake up.
Its meaningless whether or not they were bought off, just like it was meaningless with Paramount, but having said that, they made a colossal fuckup if they went exclusive without getting paid. I’m sure some money changed hands. It only makes sense.

By: weclock

weclock — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:33:44 +0000

1. when shown on the side bar, it shows $0 million
2. Who cares even if they were paid off? They have the right to do whatever they want. They could abandon all formats and go back to using beta.. Of course that would be blatantly stupid, but they have the right to.
3. I think it’s a good thing that it was reported that the switch was made, but I have to agree with Tim. I’m not buying any more players.

By: john

john — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:45:04 +0000

i have seen that warner have blatantly denied this rumour,
even if they had been paid a ‘bribe’ i wouldn’t have cared, just so long as the format war was ended by it.

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:04:38 +0000

Hey here’s a thought: Who cares? Most people will be watching HD content through on-demand or digital download anyway. The time of popping in a disk and buying a new player is over. I know I won’t be shelling out 300$ for a player and then paying 25$ just for a movie. Not when I can press a few buttons on my remote or console controller.

By: Sean

Sean — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:00:42 +0000

Um, highdefdigest.com confirmed that the rumor is patently false. The WB didn’t get a dime from the BDA.

By: seahawk

seahawk — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 03:04:33 +0000

This does sound like nonsense. Norbit is right, it was no surprise, Warner spoke of going Blu-ray exclusive a couple months ago. It was all the consumers and most decided to buy the Blu-ray movies. A large studio company isnt going to choose HD-DVD that doesnt sell, instead they will choose the format that consumers buy so newer consumers to HD arent confused on what to buy anymore. BDA isn’t stupid enough to pay $500million to Warner to go blu-ray exclusive especially since Warner is making more money on their movies from Blu-ray discs already, theres no logic in that.

It should be simple for these studios. Both formats offer sharp resolution, but Blu-ray gives alot more storage space and actually gives security from piracy, which all studios should want.

I would probably delte this article, wont make HD-DVD fan boys feel any better.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:56:40 +0000

HD-DVD was still-born, and Warner just buried it. There was no payoff — Warner spokespeople have already said so. Switching to Blu-ray just made good business sense because it’s the best and most profitable next-gen disc technology.

The end, kiddos.

By: Hush now fanboy, there there.

Hush now fanboy, there there. — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:51:32 +0000

From the minute it was announced, fanboy boards were wild with rumours of $200/$450/$500 million pay-offs. Warner started making a lot of noise months ago about supporting Blu Ray, and said very little about HD DVD, the writing certainly seemed to be on the wall. So, they’ve now said there was no payoff, probably true. But if not, so what? Barring a miracle, HD DVD is effectively DOA, and we can move on with a single format. There’s far too many people emotionally invested in what are effectively circuit boards and bits of plastic – let ‘em whine and spread their rumours. Blu Ray has won. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

By: Norbit is full of shit

Norbit is full of shit — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:30:38 +0000

Norbit is full of shit

By: Norbit

Norbit — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 23:41:50 +0000

This sounds like total nonsense. The reason they went with BluRay is the reason they gave. They had to make a choice because so much of the market was waiting for a clear winner and that wasn’t going to come unless they made a move. If they had gone HD-DVD exclusive the market would have been split pretty much 50/50 which would have kept the stalemate going.

Bluray was already looking like the obvious better choice to the worldwide consumer and retailer. Worldwide there are more standalone players in homes and the players make more money for the retailers. An electronics retailer makes about 35% on each item sold which means a $450 BluRay player nets them about $150 profit. To get the same profit from the $100 HD-DVD players we kept hearing about a retailer would have to sell 5 of them which involves 5 times more effort, 5 times more shipment costs and 5 times more storage space being used up. That would be OK if they were actually selling loads more of them than BluRay standalones but they arent. The most recent figures put HD-DVD player sales at about 750k compared to about 700k for BluRay so retailers have made far more money from BluRay and they would have mader their choice clear to Warner which would have made their decision even easier.