If a technology battle over industry standard formatting takes six years to determine, does anyone care who wins? This is the question surrounding Sony’s Blu-ray standard for high-definition DVD players and disks. After years of hoping the free-market economy would determine which was best, the final ruling may be too little, too late.
Much like the battles between VHS and Beta, the HD wars left a media hungry public in the lurch. Movie buffs dreamed of higher quality sound and picture to match their improved home theaters. They were forced to bide their time before sinking a sizable amount of money into a system that may or may not be around come next year. And it’s a good thing that most of them did wait.
Multiple factors seem to have converged on Blu-ray like jackals around a wounded gazelle. A stumbling economy has made consumers ever more conscious about where they spend their money and what kind of return they’ll get. As covered in a recent Talkibie article, Netflix and Roku have teamed up to deliver on demand movies, immediately and affordably. Systems like PS3 provide not only gaming consoles, but also Blu-ray technology and internet connectivity. As the final coup d’etat, time and technology have not ceased their forward progress, and data storage systems such as the IBM 8 Terabit Optical Network prototype are stepping into the marketplace. Blu-ray may have come into its own just in time to pick out its headstone.
Like any good business, Sony will want to find something to redeem this anti-climactic victory. Look for Sony to immediately exploit the current market for Blu-ray and push very hard to get exclusive extras available only on Blu-ray DVDs. The ability to merchandise through captured audience will take on a new spin. (Remember, once upon a time you would rent VHS videos and it just showed the movie…no trailers, no commercials. No, really. It’s true. I was there.) Enter Profile 2.0.
Profile 2.0 is the soon-to-be released Blu-ray technology which will come standard with Blu-ray machines and allow internet connectivity. The ability to download exclusive extras and content will be a major plus for Blu-ray in that it will justify the vast price difference between standard DVD movies, which run anywhere from $5 – $15, and Blu-ray films which are $25 – $35. The general audience that will buy a Blu-ray movie regardless of extra content are the action flick crew. But why spend the extra $10 – $20 for a comedy or drama? Consumers who want to connect to the fansite, get exclusive offers, see extra scenes and alternative endings, and download soundtrack songs will soon have a reason to spend considering the additional content that Blu-ray with Profile 2.0 can offer.
Analytically speaking, the dollar breakout looks like this:
| Blu-Ray with Profile 2.0 | Netflix with Roku | Standard DVD player | |
| Hardware cost | $399 | $99 | $60 |
| Cost per title | $35 | $16/mo membership with 10,000 titles available | $15 |
Clearly, the advantage for Blu-ray will not be in the price-point per title, but in the added value of exclusive content via the medium and the ability to extend movie studio’s merchandising reach straight into the home.
So while Blu-ray might not be the wave of the future, consumers can at least body-surf it until the next big thing.