Whither Blu-ray?

I can't say that I have been watching a lot of movies of late, mostly because I simply lack the time to do so. On weekends, though, I am trying to at least take some time off, so I have been heading out to Santa Monica to wander around the beaches or take long bike rides along the pier (I could ride all the way down to Long Beach if I wanted). I've also been renting more movies.

I've been interested in the new NetFlix "Video On Demand" set-top box, made by Roku, but I haven't gotten around to buying one yet. That means I still do the old-fashioned thing and head down to the video store to rent DVDs.

I hadn't been to Blockbuster in awhile, mostly because I've been favoring a 20/20 Video store a few blocks down that is much cheaper and has a wackier film selection. My recent visit gave me a chance to see what they've done since Blu-ray "won" the battle over HD-DVD.

As it turns out, not much. The still have maybe four shelves-worth of Blu-ray movies available, and the entire time I was wandering the "new releases" section (which at Blockbuster, means any film released in the last decade, it would appear), I saw no one spending any time in front of it.

That shouldn't surprise anyone, as ever since Toshiba abandoned the field to Blu-ray, sales of high-definition DVD players have plummeted. Perhaps the lack of a juicy fight to drum up interest in a DVD disc replacement has something to do with it, causing fickle electronic consumer attention to drift elsewhere. Most consumers still don't have HD-capable television sets, and even among those that do, there is still a surprising lack of understanding as to what actually constitutes an HD signal. For many, a flat panel HD TV is simply a more convenient large screen television.

Then there is, of course, the price. Blu-ray is MUCH more expensive than standard DVD, both from a player standpoint and the cost of individual titles. This has, as I mentioned earlier, put the entire disc-based film industry on the slow track. It's rather unprecedented that the more expensive format won the format war.

You can see, however, why certain parties absolutely needed Blu-ray to win ASAP. Blockbuster is in a particularly scary place, as they have strings of brick-and-mortar shops across the United States that could serve as real estate boatanchors were digital downloads to really take off as a popular option. Today, Video on Demand (VOD) lacks sufficient market penetration, but that won't be the case forever (cable companies are certainly angling to put VOD-cable set-top boxes into everyone's hands). It will simply be impossible for a physical location to have as many titles as a server located somewhere on the Internet. A lateral move into home electronics through the recently-collapsed deal to buy Circuit City might make more sense within the context of a company who views mortal threats to its future on the horizon.

Sony, however, simply HAD to win the battle, as if they hadn't, it would have destroyed not just potential revenue from Blu-ray licensing, but it might have pulled PS3 down with it as well. Imagine what would have happened if HD DVD had won the format war. In such a world, having an integrated Blu-ray player in your flagship game console would be a useless distraction. It would be like having an 8-track player on a modern stereo system, which isn't something that tends to boost sales.

I can't imagine that thought didn't occur to Microsoft. Their status as co-author of the iHD XML grammar simply doesn't strike me as enough reason to care one way or another which format won. Creating a hole in the Playstation hull, however, now that's a reason.

Sony would want Blu-ray to win even if HD disc formats go absolutely nowhere. There was a lot of speculation on Betanews about Sony's decision to support streaming on the PS3. Truth be told, they had to support it, given that their game console competitors are doing it (though I really wish XBOX would partner with a company like NetFlix; enabling third parties has been a recipe for success for Microsoft historically).  Even if media downloads eventually reign triumphant, however, they simply could NOT lose the format war. The PS3's choice of mandatory integration made that an absolute necessity.

I don't know what it cost to bring Time-Warner across the line, but it was likely money well spent, even if Blockbuster never gets more than four shelves of Blu-ray discs, and even if downloadable media ends up denying Blu-ray success on par with standard defintion DVD.