We've got 11% market share! Time to split formats!

For those of you who aren’t following the news (or have decided that you’re getting to get all of it from this website) Blu-Ray has decided that now is the time for change. Not content to rest on their laurels, the brain trust over at Sony that brought us one of the biggest fails in recent format history has decided that it’s high time to split the market once more; There is now going to be a fresh faced format war between Blu-Ray and Blu-ray.

Let loose the dogs of war!

The Blu-Ray Association has announced that there will be two new formats to fuck your expensive blu-ray player that, if you’re anything like the majority of Americans, don’t own or bought within the last two years. This fantastic new ideas are called BDXL and IH-BD. Now, are these superior to the current format? The average blu-ray disc has 50gb of storage. BDXL would offer 128gb of storage in the read only format, and 100gb for the rewritable. IH-BD would offer 25gb of read only and 25gb of rewritable. Ok…

Bigger is better, and this fucker is huge, so it must be awesome, right?

A basic breakdown of spinning media storage would go as follows:

1886 – records are invented. They sweep the format wars in what is largely blasted by reviewers as an unbalanced fight.

1982 – Audio CD’s become commercial available. The general consensus is they suck. They suck so fucking hard. But, they look way cooler than tapes.

1997 – DVD players go on sale in USA.

2002 – DVD sales overtake VHS.

2006 – Blu-Ray players ship.

2010 – That shit’s for fags dude! New format!

(If you’re interested in a fascinating time line of media storage, check out http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/recording/notes.html.)

Now, I’m a big fan of technological progress. Shit, sometimes I support change just for the sake of change. Drink PBR ever night you go out? Fuck it! Try some Sake! Change is good. It opens you up to new experiences, and sometimes it’s even for the better. At worst, it highlights how not to do things.

Sometimes change makes us angry. You wouldn't like us when we're angry.

But for Christs’ sake Sony, you have 11% market share. Blu-Ray has almost universally been rejected by the general consumer as too expensive. And it’s only been around for four years, so that could change in the future, and almost certainly will, but now is not the time to authorize a little mini format war. Now is the time to encourage customers you already have to keep buying more blu-ray movies. In case the head of Sony reads this, we’re still pretty balls deep in a recession. If you have any hope of either of these formats sticking, now is not the time to release them. Or at the very least, don’t release a nearly identical product that is incompatible with the one you already offer. And if you are going to go that route (which apparently you’re hellbent on. Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you) at least wait until there’s a demand for your product. The new formats are being touted as “perfect for 3D movies and 4,096×2,304-pixel resolution.” What the fuck?! I just got over the idea of a 4:3 being userped, and now you wanna pull this shit? Who the hell even has that hardware? You’re not looking for early adopters, you’re straight praying that people have invented hardware capable of handling your shit.

"If we don't develop nukes, how will we be able to deter their use?" "EAT SHIT, OCCAM."