Dirty Business: The Real Reason Warner Went Blu-ray
Warner actually wanted to go HD DVD. They gave Toshiba the chance to bring another studio into the HD DVD camp before they turned Blu. Fox was lined up, and told the HD DVD camp it was going to switch to HD DVD, which would’ve also turned Warner exclusively HD DVD. At the last possible minute, it nixed the deal.
Lindich says it’s because Fox received a reported $120 million payout from Sony to stay Blu-ray—Warner then switched and received between $400 and $500 million for its defection. BW says it’s closer to $400 million. In our phone call with Warner Kevin Tsujihara said it wasn’t a bidding war that brought them over—that’s true, in the words of Ben Kenobi, from a certain point of view.
Dirty Business: The Real Reason Warner Went Blu-ray
After reading this on Gizmodo, I’m almost mad. I’ve felt that HD-DVD has been superior, I bought an HD-DVD player, I have probably about 8 movies for it. To think that the crushing news of Warner going Blu-Ray was so close to falling on the other side of the fence stings.