Media Wonk attended an industry dinner in Hollywood in early December where he ran into Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara and home video president Ron Sanders.
According to Sanders, however, Warner's decision was driven by consumer behavior, more than an expectation of resolving the format war.
"It's hard for us to speculate about impact this will have on the format war. All we can do really is make the best decision for our business and the rest of it will really take care of itself, in time," he said. "One of the things you see in the NPD data for this fourth quarter was that even with a $100 [price] premium, Blu-ray set tops outsold HD set tops in December. Even with Toshiba having the lowest-cost player in the market, software sales remained 2 to 1 in favor of Blu-ray."
