This week Blu-ray has four new titles coming to stores. HD DVD has zero. That’s a sad state for HD buyers – one accentuated by last week’s announcement from Buena Vista Home Entertainment of some major Blu-ray releases including Sleeping Beauty, Finding Nemo and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There’s no doubt Blu-ray has been making some gains in the battle for the new home entertainment format, but the war is far from over.
Today Paramount Home Entertainment announced that it will be siding on the HD DVD side of the fight exclusively. That means releases from Paramount, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon, MTV Films, Comedy Central, CBS Television, Showtime, and of course Paramount’s acquisition/partners at DreamWorks and DreamWorks Animation. Previously these releases were available on both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, but now the company will solely support HD DVD. Suddenly the high definition playing field seems a lot more level. Among the studio’s first exclusive titles will be two of this year’s biggest films, Transformers and Shrek the Third, as well as Blades of Glory which hits stores next week.
Almost as if in response to Paramounts huge announcement earlier today (although probably not), 20th Century Fox brought it’s own giant announcement of exclusivity on the Blu-ray side of things, with 29 new announced titles to be released this year. Among the announced titles are Live Free and Die Hard (as well as the other three Die Hard flicks), Fantastic Four: Revenge of the Silver Surfer, and the first television series from Fox to go high definition, “Prison Break.”
One thing is certain from this week’s announcements. The format wars are far from over. On one hand, I’m happy to hear this, having selected my own stance on the HD DVD side, who wasn’t looking as good a week ago. On the other hand, I can’t help feeling bad about all this division. Once the format of high definition has been determined, there are going to be a lot of people out there with a lot of money invested on the wrong side. With more and more titles being announced for both formats, more money is being thrown into both sides. Could this be the first time we don’t have one definite format but two separate winners, divided by studio?
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