Oh John C. Dvorak, I could read your stuff all day long. And your weekly web show, Cranky Geeks, keeps me looking forward to Wednesdays now, if only to catch a fleeting glimpse of the crankiness that’ll undoubtedly ensue.
Now the crankiness has spilled over into the HD DVD versus Blu-ray thing. The very thing that I, believe you me, am sick of writing about, hearing about, and reading, yet I can’t pass up a good old Dvorak word-tantrum.
The basic premise of his latest column is that “this whole thing was a Microsoft scheme to mess with Sony.” Mm-hmm.
He then goes on to point out the attacks on Blu-ray about the discs scratching easily and that things got worse when HD DVD players were so much less expensive than Blu-ray players, compounded by how long it took Sony to release the PS3. No fair!!!
Then an epitome…
“There was a sense that the entire HD DVD war was just a grand scheme to submarine Sony and the PS3 in some way.”
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It’s an interesting idea, although I’m not sure that if HD DVD would have won (which was never its intention, according to Dvorak), the PS3 would have been sunk. Still, it’s a fun read if only for bits and pieces like,
“In hindsight, I have to conclude that the entire exercise was a sham, plain and simple. Perhaps it was part of a larger marketing effort to screw with Sony…This was not a Beta versus VHS battle. It was something unique and weird and onerous. And it was a big waste of everyone’s time and money.”
I can’t argue with the last sentence.
R.I.P. HD DVD [PC Magazine]
