Studio Rockstar

I’ve just about had enough. Yes, I’m talking about the HD-DVD & Blu-Ray format wars: a war that’s spanned over two years now. It’s just childish. Today I read an article on engadget that said Paramount/Dreamworks are actively dropping support for Blu-Ray in order to become HD-DVD only.

How stupid is that? They’re actively pissing off customers in order to take sides in a war that can have no winners. And yet it seems big record/movie companies don’t understand why people are pirating their material. Here’s a huge hint: you’re alienating your customers. That’s right. Maybe if you took the wishes of your customers into hand, you wouldn’t be getting so many people that have zero guilt about pirating your products.

Here’s a selection of choice comments about the article:

Man…I just want A winner.

And the winner is… no one.

I’m saving money NOT buying either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. Downloading movies is the most convenient option out there (legally or otherwise). Now only if Apple or Microsoft can make it easier, I’m in.

All this has happened before…

I feel like we’ve already gone through this. Anyone remember the days of IE4 and Netscape 4? Remember when you were forced to choose a web browser that was specific to a site? Luckily for us, at least those browsers were free. The only losers in that war were the web developers. Now we’re at a point where both the producers and the consumers are on the losing side.

Dear Film Executives

If there ever was a time that you saw consumers pleading for help: here it is. End this stupid format war. I don’t give a shit who’s the winner, because the longer the war goes on, the more money you lose. I really want to buy an HD player. I really do. But I only want to buy one. Don’t make me choose sides.