1240°

Official statement: Warner Bros to back Blu-ray DVD format exclusively

New York/Los Angeles, Jan 4 (Reuters):

Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros studio on Friday said it would exclusively release high-definition DVDs in Sony Corp's Blu-ray format, dealing a big blow to Toshiba Corp's rival HD DVD technology.

Warner Bros Chairman and Chief Executive Barry Meyer said in a statement, "The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers."

Warner said it would continue releasing in the HD DVD format until the end of May, although those releases would follow the standard DVD and Blu-ray releases.

Alernative sources (26)
Warner Bros news releasedeadlinehollywooddaily.comktchong
cloud360-7th_account5956d ago

PS3 Era 2008
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Win.░░░░░░1
Loss░░░░░░0
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TheTwelve5956d ago

Warner Bros logo in Blu color...haha. Awesome.

12

The Brave 15956d ago

This is great!Finally a company choosing the superior format instead of bribes.Go Blu!

gamesR4fun5956d ago

at least in regards to b/r vs hd dvd

marinelife95956d ago

I'm going to miss this format war. It was a lot of fun. Oh well back to the old PS360 thing.

sonarus5956d ago

yall can keep buying the goin out of business hd-dvd player sales. It was tempting and for all yall that fell to temptation sorry but really wasnt your fault 99 dollars is a very good deal. Once again blu ray has the best movies. Universal should go neutral soon and hd-dvd will probably be considering forfeiting now. Xbots can still try to save it and keep buying xbox 360 add ons or they can be sensible and seek a quick end to the format war buy saying no. Hopefully msoft didnt put hd-dvd in their new xbox...what a waste that would be. They could shock us with a blu ray drive though lol that would be hillarious.

w57cpd5956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

Why are people blogging about how Blu ray is destroying HD DVD in total sale until Blu ray or HD DVD lower the price of their respective releases DVD will remain King. The winner will be the one that begins to match DVD price wise. Companies follow trends so just because a Studio decides to go with Blu ray now doesn't mean one should count out HD DVD. If HD DVD lower the price of their releases trust me when I tell you the outcome maybe different. People are always looking for a bargain that is why Black Fridays are so successful.

f7ss15956d ago

i bet bloodmask is crying so hard right now haha

rofldings5956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

LOL, yeah ... where is Bloodmask?

Anyway, this is a HUGE victory for:

the Consumer
Sony
and Movie studios

n_n5956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

wow, does Paramount & Dreamworks feeling dumb yet? take the Toshiba bribe $ and spend it wisely on producing future Blu-discs... hehe

Mr PS35956d ago

Do you hear that toilet flushing

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Andronix5956d ago

This is major news. Warner Bros realised the format war was preventing sales growth.

But what does it mean for the PS3?
It means the machine has legs. Shops will now push Blu-ray exclusively meaning the PS3 will sell a little bit more.

Does this mean that the Xbox 3 will have a Blu-ray drive?

diatom5956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

No More blue-ray HD-DVD news/flamewars on N4G!!!! All we need now is a Sony/Microsoft merger...

Omicronn5956d ago

This the biggest news we have seen in awhile on here.

"Game over" is pretty much right if you think about it.

Warner was a seriously big hit to HDDVD.

Pain5956d ago

about time this crap war was done with!

the world go's Blu (insert Rick Flare voice) Woooooooooooo!

cuco335956d ago

That's what it cost to get WB to go Blu and to apparently start the end of the format war

I wonder how many PS3 fanboys are going to keep buying Blu-ray movies. My guess is BD sales will start to drop after HD DVD is put away.

Omicronn5956d ago

Yes of course it took 400+ million because you know the facts.
And of course every ps3 fan bought these bluray movies to promote the ps3 and not for the games.

Give it a rest young man, Bluray won.

PS3 helped, and every other movie studio that supported Bluray and not HDDVD helped also.

If you think ps3 helped the Bluray war so much, then you should have bought a ps3 to go next to your xbox and Wii like the rest of the men.

PS3/XBox360/Wii are not what this is about....
this is about format..
Blu-ray Won. You lose.. End of story.

Adios!

technology5956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

Only 5 hours passed for this article and there r nearly 300 comments ?! WOW Blu rocks ur world

s1lens35956d ago

Word man!

Now I can buy my blu ray movies in peace, I'm just hoping for more rentals in hd to enjoy, I'm tired of upscaled dvds.

s1lens35956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

if people buy ps3s to watch blue ray in japan, just like they did to watch dvds for the ps2, i feel the 100,000 consoles sold coming.

godofthunder105956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

i never cared for any of them till now.it seems that br has won the hd format war but they need to drop the price to put a dent in hd sales.already dvd sales are slowing down because of people renting dvd through the mail and people down loading movies.i still want buy a br player yet unless it's cheap because i'm not willing to pay $30 for a new movie on br when i could get it for $14 to $16 on dvd the first day at best buy,circuit city or walmart but every now and then if a good sci-fi or fantasy movie comes out i might buy it on br.
the majority of people isn't willing to jump to blue ray just yet because of the price of the movies.i'll admit that if a br player goes on sale for $200 or less i'll buy it because it will still play regular dvds but i will not buy a br disc because of the price,hell why pay $30 for 1 movie when i could buy 2 or 3,hell i wouldn't and the majority of the world wouldn't either,but if they drop them to around the same price as regular dvds i start buying all my movies on br but not till then.
like i said i never cared for br or hd till now,i wanted to see who wins and i didn't care who it was but i've read some post where people are saying that br is superior to hd dvd and that's far from the truth,the truth is that they are exactly the same picture and sound,as a mater of fact it was hd dvd that was superior to br till br added the internet conection for the movies like hd dvd had since the bigining.br fans were saying that br don't need all the extras like hd had because people don't even look at them.the truth is that the majority of people like to see the extras on the dvds and sony knew it and that's why they upgraded br to do the same thing that hd was doing and if people didn't care sony wouldn't have spent all that nmoney to upgrade br .but now that it seems that br won,people can buy br now and not worry about it loseing.

+ Show (19) more repliesLast reply 5956d ago
MK_Red5956d ago

It is... DONE.
300, Matrix, Batman / Dark Knight, Harry Potter, I Am Legend... now only on Blu. Time for Paramount to reconsider the bribe it recieved.

TriggerHappy5956d ago

Man this Round Peg Guy actually posted a good post in his life. I concur with you MK_REd

Now am going to get my PS3

cloud360-7th_account5956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

No Wrong. That guy does it because he is battling with MK_RED for the money, i will support my fellow PS3 "nakama" to win most of the money.

sayonara for now

Yes each letter in the Language has to end in a vowel and did you know 78% of Japan is mountains

sonarus5956d ago

thats why blu ray wins cus the best movies are on blu ray. I just hope hd-dvd see's this as defeat and apologizes and just strikes deal with sony so we can all move on with our lives

rofldings5956d ago

I wonder if Warner is still scheduled to speak at the HD-DVD booth at CES. LOL!

resistance1005956d ago

'I wonder if Warner is still scheduled to speak at the HD-DVD booth at CES. LOL!'

Yep, just to say, you can have some films up until May, then go F**k yourselfs xD

unlimited5956d ago

someone havin a heart attack after reading it...i can assure you ..

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 5956d ago
UnblessedSoul5956d ago

Goodnight Hd-dvd it was fun :)

travelguy2k5956d ago

And it means that there will be alot less mud slinging here on N4G.

It aslso means that there may be an increase ion PS3 sales due to this news.

All Early adoptors of Blue Ray and the PS3 can now breath easier.

Led Zeppelin5956d ago

Sony has success with a new format.

Third time's a charm I guess...

aslucher5956d ago

lol actually its been a couple more failures than three.... just to name a few:

Betamax
MiniDisc
Hi-Md
Atrac
UMD

I will stop there... lol i love Sony but man they pick the wrong stuff!!! i am so happy to see this one a success for Sony!!!

Neurotoxin5956d ago

I`m going to do an impression of Zhuk.

"Only with the true power of Sony`s Blu-ray will High Definition viewing bring us into the future with flying cars and magical unicorns, rejoice rejoice rejoice".

End impression...

.... Now for the real comment... I actually don`t care who wins.

gamesR4fun5956d ago (Edited 5956d ago )

ya but what would Danger Mouse rather watch?

edit ya and we all now you can only get the good kitty porn on b/r now ;)

Tryst5956d ago

lol about the Zhuk statement :)

Real gamer 4 life5956d ago

I can hear corks poping off the champaing bottles over at SCEA SCEE and SCEJ. Sony has finaly cracked the format market. And i hope that microsoft scarps tha 36o ultimate. You know how embarrasing it would for microsoft to release a hd-dvd drive on the 360.

travelguy2k5956d ago

it actually going to be a blue ray drive in the ultimate

jwatt5956d ago

Yea congrats to Sony, they lost with Betamax but I think they deserved to win this time.

ravinash5956d ago

They would have to wheel Bill Gates out to explain this one.

Merovee5951d ago

How everyone forgets that Sony was a major player for CD and DVD creation and pretends that they get no money from those 2.....

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 5951d ago
Show all comments (377)
220°

Microsoft’s Surface and Xbox hardware revenues take a big hit in Q3

Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.

Read Full Story >>
theverge.com
darthv7217h ago

Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.

solideagle4h ago

you should apply in MS PR team buddy, I think you will do a great job in my humble opinion :)

Sonic18811h ago

I thought darthv72 and Obscure_Observer already work for Microsoft 🤔

dveio1h ago

MS: "Xbox services and content without AB up 1%, with AB up 62%. Hardware down 31%. In total a loss of 350 mill."

darthv72: "Seems about right."

MS: "Excuse m ..."

darthv72: "I don't hardly play on my consoles directly."

MS:

Cacabunga4h ago

I can tell people like you are an absolute minority..

If service is up means their fans and fanboys accepted this model and subscribed to it. The near future you will see a big decline because the service is saturated.

shinoff21833h ago

But that's been ms for years. When things aren't going their way they try to change the way things are said. For instance console sales are down, they stop telling how many sold instead telling us how many hours spent in halo or headshots. So it makes sense console sales down just say people are playing on more devices then previous. What they won't say is how many xbox players jumped ship to ps5.

Cacabunga2h ago

Hardware sales are so bad that Sony and Nintendo are blowing the sales off the water with their hardware.

If Xbox are losers, others aren’t..
Xbox already tried everything with Xbox live then subscriptions went down so much that they had to find something else. Their fans subscribed then reached saturation rather quickly.

Hardware and exclusive games is where it’s at! Keep gamers excited, announce decent software and people will support you

purple1016h ago

Xbox hardware revenue tanks to lowest point of Xbox Series generation

Profchaos6h ago

I'm not surprised surface is struggling they aren't relevant anymore

XBManiac5h ago

Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.

SimpleDad5h ago(Edited 5h ago)

"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."

That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.

purple1015h ago

Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"

Microsoft: "why's that"

Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'

Profchaos4h ago(Edited 4h ago)

Top brass have also wanted to start seeing returns on the 100 billion they have put into various Xbox related moves so seeing more multiplatform games is highly likely especially from abk

It's basically saying that PlayStation is the reason Xbox is afloat right now thinks to Ps5 versions of COD

Kornholic3h ago

So basically PS and PC gamers' money is keeping Xbox on life support.

Show all comments (21)
140°

Why Monopolies In Gaming Must Not Be Allowed

As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.

thorstein16h ago

Shouldn't be allowed in any field.

Inverno12h ago

And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.

jwillj2k411h ago

Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.

MrCrimson10h ago

tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.

Zenzuu11h ago

Monopolies shouldn't be allowed regardless. Not just for gaming.

MrCrimson10h ago

They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -

120°

This Gigabyte GPU is now among the cheapest RTX 4090s on Amazon after a hefty deal

On Amazon, you can't get an RTX 4090 for less than this one from Gigabyte, which now offers great value after an eye-catching April deal.