Blu-ray Is Sony's Iraq
As expected, HD DVD sold very well and continues to show very good numbers during the holiday buying season. In looking back at the amount of pain this thing has caused Sony, I couldn't help but compare it to the U.S. and Iraq.
Think about it -- if Donald Rumsfeld, then the Secretary of Defense, had gone to George Bush and said, "Hey, we need to invade Iraq and the result will be I'll lose my job, most of the generals and advisers you currently have will resign or lose their jobs, you'll kill more U.S. soldiers than any president in near-term U.S. history, you'll lose Congress to the Democrats, you'll almost assure Hillary Clinton will be your successor, you'll restart the Cold War, you'll devalue the U.S. dollar to the lowest level in recent history, you'll go down in history as probably the dumbest U.S. president ever, and you'll be locked into an incredibly expensive battle you won't either be able to leave or win," you'd have to believe that George would have said, "No."
And not just "no," but "hell no, no way, nopers, negatory, not doing it, get the hell out of my office and don't come back."
Now look at Blu-ray. Since bringing it out, Sony has trashed its PlayStation division, had to downsize a number of top executives including the guy that was credited with creating the PlayStation's success in the first place. The company's financial performance has largely dropped into the toilet and it has had to sell off parts of the company to Toshiba, the company behind the other format. Key studios have abandoned it, some of which have gaming properties that probably now won't go to PlayStation. Sony has nearly assured that whatever country gets the next media format, it won't be Japan and probably will be China, it will be constantly reminded of the Betamax mistake, Nintendo Latest News about Nintendo is No. 1 in the gaming segment, and it'll be locked into a battle it can neither win nor exit from. You'd have to believe that the guy making the proposal would be chased by ninjas out of the office and his ending wouldn't have been a good one.
Oh, and one other similarity: If you point out that the Iraq war was brain-dead stupid, you are seen as a terrorist sympathizer; if you point out that Blu-ray was brain-dead stupid, you are portrayed as being on Toshiba or Microsoft's payroll. I still don't get the Microsoft thing, since neither it nor Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Latest News about Intel seems to care that much one way or the other now, and both are focused more on downloads. It gives me a lot of empathy for the kid in the "The Emperor's New Clothes."
