Monopoly Again
Monopolies can be good things. No, I am not referring to the state-sponsored Northern Rock (now in totally unfair competition with other private enterprises). Sony has won its long-running battle to reign supreme over the home video market, as their irritatingly-named ”Blu-Ray” disc format has prevailed over Toshiba’s inferior HD DVD idea.
The battle has raged for two years, with rival disc formats both technologically superior to the DVD being released on the unwitting public. Some fools bought players capable of viewing Toshiba’s product. Others placed their bet with the Blu-Ray format. Those with more money than sense bought players with a laser able to read both formats - itself a feat of engineering, although an utterly useless one. The rest of us reasoned that the humble DVD was good enough for now, and that one of the new formats will become dominant in good time.
The killer statistic, it seems, was that showing that ten times as many PlayStation 3 games consoles, also able to play Blu-Ray discs, have been sold than the total number of HD DVD players. Sony again have a monopoly. But this is surely a good thing.
With one format, price is no barrier to the consumer. Inexpensive mass-produced Blu-Ray players will soon flood onto the market, and the format will slowly replace standard DVDs in the shops. One format makes life much easier for the consumer and for advertisers: “out on Blu-Ray now” grabs the casual television watcher more than “out now on Blu-Ray from some stores, HD DVD in most stores, XYZ everywhere, DVD nowhere, and we’ve forgotten what VHS was to begin with”.
More to the point, newspapers will continue to give away free discs. Mass-producing Blu-ray discs is much easier than producing and marketing two different formats of disc. I hope to continue receiving cultural enrichment from broadsheet freebies for many years to come.
The argument in favour of competition is redundant here, because there would never have been commercial competition over two rival media formats. Nobody would choose between them on merit, having invested in one or other of the players. Given that there are many times more Blu-ray capable players in existence, it stands to reason that the Sony format would have prevailed in a market situation. This is one case where the market can only support a monopoly, because of the nature of the product. I am glad the battle has been won so swiftly. Now Toshiba can concentrate on producing a different, better product. That kind of competition is far better than equal, rival tit-for-tat competition. Better for the companies, and above all, better for the consumer.
Thus far I’ve been quite the Luddite in this regard: being wary of such innovations becoming as worthwhile an investment as Betamix I kept away entirely, not really having the funds for either anyway.
As for now, well, as far as I am concerned DVDs are still fine. Just as I thought that VHS were fine. I will probably experience some revelatory moment of clarity where the folly of my ways will become clear the moment I slap in a high definition {but not High Definition} Blu-Ray disc and get my eyeballs melted by the high quantity of detail.
Before that though I shall have to obtain some vast plasma screen suitable for appreciating such visual nuance.
I’ll get around to it some time next decade, I suppose. When they cost less than DVDs do now.