Sony’s Blu-ray: Betamax Lesson Learned

Sony Corporation (SNE) appears to have learned its lesson from the Betamax/VHS format war. As some already know, Sony was the primary backer of the Betamax format introduced in 1975 that competed with–and eventually–lost market share to VHS. The VHS format was introduced in 1976 by JVC and it proceeded to wear down Sony to the point where Sony began producing a VHS player in 1988, effectively ending that format battle. There is a similar battle for high definition [HD] movie disc technological supremacy today between Sony’s Blu-ray and Toshiba’s (TOSBF.PK) HD DVD formats. This format battle has been going on for almost two years but it is all but determined that Sony’s Blu-ray will win this one.