Blu-ray's Field of Dreams

There are two ways to get people to buy your product - offer something innovative and groundbreaking or sell cheap. According to TGDaily, the Blu-ray Disc Association missed that day in marketing school. According to Andy Parsons, the Chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association, prices aren't going to decline any time soon. Who is to blame? YOU for not buying enough.

Gotta love that logic.

It seems that Parsons sees Blu-ray similar to DVD when it was first released. This suggests that he thinks it is a new tech and we should be happy to have it at any price.

Funny, that didn't seem to be the case last year when discs and players were being given away to convince people that Blu-ray was better than HD DVD.

Now that their main competition is dead, they've taken a big step back from the idea that they need to get market penetration. Parsons doesn't see downloadable content as a threat, citing that people like to hold something.

Funny how much a DVD feels like a Blu-ray disc in your hand.

Don't forget that even though Blu-ray isn't worried about downloadable content, that doesn't mean it won't take shape. The Roku, Xbox 360, and LG are all bringing Netflix into your living room. Who knows what other technology is in the works? The thing is that I'm not the one that Blu-ray needs to convince. I have a nice display to take advantage of the higher resolution. I have nice speakers with which to enjoy the higher fidelity audio. They don't have to sell me on the advantages of Blu-ray over DVD.

Which reminds me, when was the last time you saw a commercial for Blu-ray?

The Blu-ray Disc Association must be headed by Kevin Costner if it thinks this is going to work. Technology, unless it is revolutionary or lifesaving, is not a "build it and they will come" proposition. John Q. Public needs to be convinced that their DVD player isn't good enough. Even if they think it isn't, you've got to convince him to shell out the money. That's not going to happen with discs 1.5-2x's the price and entry level players 2x+'s more.

Something is going to have to give. If manufacturers want to sell $600 players with minimal features than disc prices have to come down. If studios want to sell the discs at $20-$30, than the players are going to have to come down. Regardless, you're going to have a pretty pissed off public when they find out that that $600-$1000 player isn't decoding all the high def audio formats internally, is only Profile 1.1, and needs to be upgraded in a year.

Blu-ray may want to compare itself to early DVD but it just doesn't hold water. DVD was revolutionary - a new type of format (even though it looked like a CD) with new feature sets and abilities that VHS just didn't have. Blu-ray is an upgrade pure and simple. A nice upgrade, no doubt, but an upgrade nonetheless. This is part of why Clint DeBoer claimed that the new high definition formats were dead before they were released. Most people don't get excited about upgrades. Enthusiasts do, but again, Blu-ray didn't have to convince them anyway.

If this new and improved Blu-ray attitude sticks, we may be in for a long haul before most people make the jump to Blu. The longer that takes, the more likely it is that someone else will release something that will actually excite the public and get them to skip Blu-ray altogether. This "hurry up and wait for people to adopt" attitude might end up being "hurry up and wait to die."