Optical HD Battle May Be Over: HD DVD Wins

The basis for the prediction, which did accurately point out that Sony’s win here might actually cost them more than a loss, was the PS3 and the forecast volumes for that product. Back in August of 2005 we did know that HD DVD, which used DVD production technology, would be easier to bring to market but it simply did not seem reasonable that Sony would put their PlayStation franchise at risk for anything but a technology they were absolutely certain they could bring to market on time. That turned out to be incorrect. The problems with Blu-Ray have created extreme cost and execution problems for Sony and now their premier division (instead of being the profit center for Sony) is predicting they will take a $1.5B loss next year largely resulting from this decision. To put this in perspective, just think what would happen if Apple’s iPod group, instead of generating massive profit, suddenly dropped into massive loss. Now you can see why the Sony PlayStation division just changed out their top executives.

Read more at DigitalTrends.