One step closer to digital downloads.
The following post deals with a few of the earlier entries that I’ve created regarding optical media high definition format war battle against HD-DVD and becoming the median for high definition storage.
As of right now the Sony created Blue Ray format has the backing of the majority of the major movie studios, some of which decided to jump ship from HD-DVD.
A few big wigs have come out and crowned Blue Ray as the winner of this generation’s format war and others will soon follow but this victory will be short lived in my opinion.
One thing that the big wigs have come out and said is that larger capacity hard drives and faster broadband speeds are the future (something I’ve been saying for a few years now).
Bill Gates stated, “HD DVD did well over the holidays.
The other trend we’re seeing is that direct download over broadband – I think the greatest example of that is XBox Live – (is) becoming an important choice.
Over time, that will be the dominant way that people get their movies.”
Steve Jobs also said something to that affect even though I couldn’t find the exact quote.
This tells me that the two men that run the companies that control the operating systems of 90% of the world are telling people that your disc will not matter in the future.
Your ability to connect to the internet at any given time will keep you informed, entertained and tethered to the outside world.
The question now becomes who will control the flow of information as well as content?
Google is doing the best job when it comes to search, ad based revenue and everything else that they’re doing however Microsoft has Xbox Live (xbox live isn’t on competition with Google but Microsoft Live is) which is in control of more living rooms than any other set top box disguised as a gaming console.
Not to mention that Windows Mobile, the Zune are slowly but surely coming along and “Media PC’s” are in most homes that have computing.
So this leaves Apple with innovative technologies that are must have items (ipod, iphone, apple tv), Google, Sony and Microsoft as the major players in whom can actually deliver content over their networks to their hardware.
Google and Apple seem to be pretty good bed fellows but with the release of the Google OS for mobile devices coming soon I can’t see a real cozy relationship there.
Sony can’t lose footing on being able to deliver content to the home nor can they kill off their own format (Blue Ray).
This leaves Mr. gates and the company that has the ability to throw money into any market to see what it will take to control it.
My money is on Microsoft since as M$ controls home computing, controls online gaming, in the process of controlling mobile communicating but hasn’t yet cracked the mobile media market.
Large hard drives + Ever increasing download speeds + a company to store your content = the end of optical drives.
I’m not saying this will happen tomorrow but it will happen.