Keeping Customers Happy and Making Money!

Smart Marketing the HD DVD

The white flag

So Toshiba threw up the white flag almost a month ago to Sony's Blu-Ray DVD format stating that it was no longer worth marketing since Sony had paid the production companies money to exclusively back Blu-Ray. This really is sad news since Microsoft was supposedly on the side of HD and would have been able to help the DVD Consortium toss money back at them in support of HD. As far as I can tell, Microsoft remained silent as the external drive for the XBox 360 became obsolete….good thing it was just a add-on. The built in player in the Sony PS3 no doubt had a significant impact, such as the non-removable inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows 98. "It's part of the operating system." was the typical response from Microsoft and the ultimate demise of the once more popular Netscape Browser.

Where next?

I decided to take my ideas to Toshiba and sent an email to customer support. I basically said to not give up, make customers happy by pushing for
the creation of "Combo disks" to replace all standard dvd releases.
For those unaware, these are dual sided disks with the "standard" DVD on one side and the "HD DVD" on the other.

Since we are all going to go to HD some day, though there are still players out there, I don't think any movies are being actively released on VHS, instead of making "VHS"
and "DVD" as in the past, just create Combo and Blu-Ray DVDs. Everyone is
happy, including the millions that have HD-DVD hardware…but I am guessing Sony would NOT since all of those "standard" DVD consumers would suddenly have HD-DVDs at no additional cost over the
initial purchase and can simply buy an HD-DVD player and likey not even consider
Blu-Ray as an option. I wonder if I could talk to someone at Toshiba about this? I
cannot believe that is was not considered and implemented. From past
media changes, one would think this be the best for everyone…no retailer
will get stuck with a bunch of old "VHS" movies in their warehouse, nor
would companies even have to decide when to discontinue standard DVD.
When that does happen, create a "Total HD" DVD, conceived, yet never developed by Warner Brothers, with one side Blu-Ray and the
other HD-DVD. I dunno, I think I really should be in Marketing. LOL. I
could push my baked goods too.

For now…

I am happy that it takes a while to manufacture disks….I am glad that
the new release HD DVDs were not just tossed since Toshiba's
announcement and will continue to buy HD DVDs for new releases. I of course will tend to buy "Combo" disks which should have been the deciding factor in the Hi Def DVD fight, but never seemed to come up, in the event my player breaks and there are no more available. For the first time in my life I feel to be on the "Laser Disk" side of digital media. Can you buy players any more?