[ascagnel_]

I don't think Microsoft ever believed that HD-DVD was going to beat Blu-Ray. Instead, I think they saw the long view around online video delivery (they had a digital storefront up pretty quickly after the console launched) and backed what they viewed as the losing format in an attempt to split the market and prevent either format from fully establishing itself so that the online transition would happen faster. They also failed to capitalize on the opportunity, largely because they also failed in the personal media player (the Zune was good, but _very_ late to market) and phone markets.

[tenebrisalietum]

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD:

> One of the issues was that Blu-ray Disc companies wanted to use a Java-based platform for interactivity (BD-J based on Sun Microsystems' Java TV standards), while HD DVD companies wanted to use Microsoft's "iHD" (which became HDi).[20]

Microsoft had a direct interest in HD-DVD succeeding as it could sell iHD dev kits and licenses.

Edit ... maybe not, as I read on the article looks like Microsoft didn't actually provide tools so ... not sure then.

[scarface74]

VOD makes pennies for the seller even at what were then Apple volumes of sells.

VOD “is a feature not a product”. It’s table stakes to make your product more desirable. It’s not a profit center on its own.

See also: streaming music

[ascagnel_]

Today, paid VOD isn’t a very lucrative market. In 2005, Apple had the music industry in a vice grip with iTunes/iPod, and it seemed like video was going to go the same way. It didn’t happen, not because of the technology, but because of the business model (subscriptions).

[ltbarcly3]

Nope, they aren't spending a billion dollars on some wild longshot strategy to try to make streaming a thing when 90% of thr country was on dialup, and the best video codec an average computer could decode was mpeg2 at 480p. Nope.

[rob74]

According to Wikipedia:

> The high-definition optical disc format war was a market competition between the Blu-ray and HD DVD optical disc standards for storing high-definition video and audio; it took place between 2006 and 2008 and was won by Blu-ray Disc.

by then, DSL was already well established, and according to this graph https://www.statista.com/statistics/616210/average-internet-... the average internet connection in the US was 3.67 Mbps - much slower than today, but much faster than would be possible if 90% still had 56 kbps. Doesn't make GP's conspiracy theory any more likely, but just for context...

[ltbarcly3]

You are right, it seems that about 80% of internet users had broadband in 2008. However, about 40% of people in the US were still not users of the internet and 10% were still on dialup. I don't know if the average speed means much in terms of addressable market for streaming (if 1% of the people in the US have gigabit connections, the average is 10mb even if 99% of people are on dialup), but I couldn't find any statistics on the median internet speed.

[anthk]

Back in the day people used DivX ;) and XVid.