Paramount and Dreamworks are Stepping out of the Blu-ray Camp

I take a one week vacation and look what happened! Paramount and Dreamworks announced that they are now HD DVD exclusive! Are they doing this because they think that HD DVD is better than Blu-ray? Not at all…The HD DVD camp offered them and $150 000 000 incentive to become exclusive for the next 18 months.

Paramount and Dreamworks represent only 10% of the titles currently available on Blu-ray. That may not be a lot but it changes the perception that we all had that movie studios were largely behind the Blu-ray format. But who can blame them? 150 million bucks is a lot more than what they could do by selling Blu-ray and HD DVD titles.

In response to that, Mike Dunn, President Worldwide, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, said: "Given that Blu-ray has consistently outsold HD DVD all year, we believe that the time is right for us to accelerate our activities and help convert the nearly 60 million high-definition households worldwide into Blu-ray households."

The good news is that  Fox and MGM "finally" announced new Blu-ray titles to be released this fall.

Here are the dates:

• MASTER & COMMANDER                     OCT. 2
  
• THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW             OCT. 2
  
• FROM HELL                             OCT. 9
  
• THE FLY (1986)                         OCT. 9
  
• EDWARD SCISSORHANDS                    OCT. 9
  
• 28 DAYS LATER                          OCT. 9
  
• ROBOCOP (MGM)                          OCT. 9
  
• AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979) (MGM)     OCT. 9
  
• BATTLE OF BRITAIN (MGM)                NOV. 6
  
• A BRIDGE TOO FAR (MGM)                 NOV. 6
  
• I, ROBOT                               NOV. 13
  
• DIE HARD                               NOV.
  
• DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER                 NOV
  
• DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE          NOV.
  
• RED DAWN (MGM)                         NOV.
  
• MR. AND MRS. SMITH                     DEC.
  
• INDEPENDENCE DAY                       DEC. 4
  
• CAST AWAY                              DEC. 4
  
• RONIN (MGM)                            DEC. 4
  

Let's the fun of this "HD DVD vs Blu-ray" war continue for at least another year!

That reminds me the old adage: Cash is King!

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