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New Line Follows Warner Bros. and Goes Blu
>> From blu-ray.com:

Following Warner's lead, sister company New Line has confirmed that it will support Blu-ray Disc high def releases exclusively. New Line has previously delayed their day-and-date new releases on HD DVD due to the format's lack of region coding, effectively making titles such as Shoot 'em Up, Hairspray, and Rush Hour 3 exclusive to Blu-ray.

And to think that just in the last 2-3 months things went from high praise for the HD-DVD format and to how Blu-Ray was going to fail, to a complete flip flop for some people. This thing is far from over.

All that this crap does is drag this thing out longer. Consumers are confused as heck about the two formats, and by Sony making deals with more studios to go exclusively Blu-Ray isn't going to help. Until everyone goes one way, the other way, or back to both ways, this will go on for a while. Besides, all of the Blu-Ray backers need HD-DVD to "hang on a little longer" to help drive Blu-Ray players down.

If anything, this just ticks me off more about Blu-Ray. They (mainly Sony) never had the consumer in mind from day 1, and so they just keep throwing money around to force their technology on people, and we, the consumer, let them... Makes me mad! (in case you couldn't tell...)

Why does New Line (or anyone, really) need region coding so badly? Is it really that much of an issue?

I'm with Nick on this, it really irks me that as recent as a week ago Warner has been denying all rumors of going exclusively Blu-ray, letting consumers think that HD DVD would have a full lineup of movies, and doing this after the holidays when many people just bought or received HD DVD players. That alone will make me pause when looking to buy anything Warner Bros. puts out.

Yes, that's really disrespectful of their customers.

Unfortunately for a lot of companies, it's not about respecting customers. It's all about how can I generate the greatest profits.

most of warner's comments were "At the present time we plan on continuing to realease on both formats"... or something along those lines. They didn't tell you want their plan was in 5 minutes!

that's the whole point of doing it now..they don't really care about the consumers. big big business rarely does. By announcing this now MOST people that got HD DVD are still within the 30 days of most companies return policies. make a big announce that you've dropped one format, people panic (see AVS forum if you want to see panic and trampling) they all return their HD DVD players and buy a bluray because they've seen the hi Def they, don't care if they have to pay $500 because they NEED their hi def and don't want to keep the HD DVD player that will apparently explode in May sending hi def shrapnel all over their home.

My thoughts exactly!

But you have to consider this: every stock owner cheers when the prices go up. It's been my experience that most people feel that big business are evil and only care about profits *SO* long as they don't own the stock. It's easy to beat up big businesses. But big businesses tend to employ a lot of people. I tend to think like the ex Johnson and Johnson CEO. "If I take care of my customers and my employees, stock owners will be taken care of automatically"