A long time ago, in a world not too far removed from today, there was a format war. The two competing formats were Betamax (Sony) and VHS (JVC). Even though Betamax was a superior format VHS won the format war based on cost.
Some people who cover the format war between Blue-ray (Sony) and HD-DVD (Microsoft and Toshiba) like to draw parallels to that bygone era. They say that the war will be won based on price and they point to the recent $100 HD DVD players that have hit the market. Price is a factor but Sony lost this war before even the first 1080P disc was played.
Among the movie studios, Blu-ray Disc is currently exclusively supported in the United States by Sony Pictures Entertainment and MGM (20% of MGM's stake is owned by Sony) as well as Disney, 20th Century Fox, and Lionsgate. HD DVD is currently exclusively backed by Universal Studios (including subsidiaries Focus Features and Rogue Pictures), Paramount Pictures (including Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies, MTV Films, DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation), The Weinstein Company (including Dimension Films), and First Look Studios. Warner Brothers is currently riding the fence and supporting both formats but it has some HD DVD exclusives.
Back then Sony was just a tech company, today Sony is a media company. If there is one thing I know about media companies it is that they like money and they do not like to share it. They don't even want to give the people who write their scripts a miniscule portion of the DVD sales money let alone any form of compensation for web delivered media. Do you really think they want to give money to one of their competitors to use their DVD technology?
No. Because Sony is both a tech company and a media company they were destined to fail in the format war. Blu-ray may have a lock on pictures released by Sony Pictures but I do not see the other motion picture companies coming quietly before the altar of Sony to get their content on Blu-ray. As far as the studio executives are concerned getting content on Blu-ray is the same thing as supporting Sony Pictures, which is something they will not do.
