I’m not entirely sure why you are pessimistic about this. Yes, a device like this drags out the format war, but a longer format war actually helps early adopters and consumers over all: the losing side gets greater longevity from their loser device—-and both EAs and consumers overall get more movies, dropping prices, etc, with respect to both formats. A short format war is worse for the losers: they buy high, spend out the nose for titles and media, then 6 months later learn that the studios have canceled support. Hello Betamax.
A long “format war” actually creates the potential for an *indefinite* format war. If prices keep dropping, people keep buying both technologies, studios keep finding reasons to maintain and increase support, then it might be possible for the formats to coexist until the next gen comes along (HVD, baby, HVD—100GB+, 500MB/s on an optical-sized disk!)
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I’m not entirely sure why you are pessimistic about this. Yes, a device like this drags out the format war, but a longer format war actually helps early adopters and consumers over all: the losing side gets greater longevity from their loser device—-and both EAs and consumers overall get more movies, dropping prices, etc, with respect to both formats. A short format war is worse for the losers: they buy high, spend out the nose for titles and media, then 6 months later learn that the studios have canceled support. Hello Betamax.
A long “format war” actually creates the potential for an *indefinite* format war. If prices keep dropping, people keep buying both technologies, studios keep finding reasons to maintain and increase support, then it might be possible for the formats to coexist until the next gen comes along (HVD, baby, HVD—100GB+, 500MB/s on an optical-sized disk!)