The percentage of returned gadgets that have nothing wrong with them.
Of the $13.8 billion worth of returned products in 2007, only 5 percent were because gadgets were actually broken, according to a 2008 study.
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It baffles me. Did you people even read the original article? He didn't say the format war was a stalemate, he said "We have a sort of stalemate at the moment". That means no one is gaining at the moment, despite Paramount's defection, despite Toshiba's clearance sale, despite transformers all that has happened is that Blu-Ray is at least equal to the growth that HDVD has seen.
No flip flop there.
This isn't even accurate as BD continues to outsell HDVD, so perhaps it's the sudden influx of $99 HDVD players he's comparing to. The numbers for the last several weeks, for those who don't pay attention: NOV 11 65%Blu 35%HDVD, Nov 71%Blu 29%HDVD, Oct 28 55%Blu 45%HDVD, October 21 51%Blu 49%HDVD (transformers release), Oct 14 71%Blu 29%HDVD, October 7 68%Blu 32%HDVD.
In the meantime, the year to date and since inception numbers have stayed locked in the area of 65-35 and 61-39 respecively. Also, let's remember that HDVD got started before Blu-Ray so for them to have 39% share, they have LOST a huge share of the market. Unless HDVD manages to battle back to %50 or more on a consistent basis, I don't see any hope for them, or any reason why studios would continue to bother (other than all that cash they were given).
Frankly I saw nothing in his original comments or the new article, which you didn't link to: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/home_entertainment/video/e3ie3ee16106869ea720bef9b3771c93cf1
That I see as anything more than BD saying 'if you want to end this before you go broke, we can work something out'. He said straight out in the original article that he wasn't around when they tried to unify the formats originally, and he wished that he could go back and put more effort into it. Since all the HDVD loonies decided to make fun of him wanting to time travel or something, no one heard him offering to save toshiba from their sinking ship. Tell me, if you were loosing $200 on every player you were making, wouldn't you be listening for a way out of it? 'We're at a stalemate for the moments, you're in your best negotiating position that you'll ever be in, if you want to try again to unify the formats before you go broke, let me know...'. It'd be worth the effort for BD to get universal and paramount back more immediately, and toshiba could use a stabilization of the market in the WORST way.