Interesting read on Fortune.com about how Sony's Blu-ray was able to set the dominoes in motion and win the HD video format war against HD-DVD. Did anyone really think that Sony would let Betamax happen again?
"Sony chief's at the time, Akio Morita, grew enraged when asked by one of the visitors whether he was unhappy with buying Columbia, which had resulted in a 3.2-billion write-down in 1994. "You Americans don't understand." Morita shot back. "We clearly had the best product with Betamax - but Hollywood picked VHS." In an e-mail, Roberts recalled the encounter as very un-Japanese in its emotion. "And I vividly remember, with fire in his eyes what he said next: 'That will never happen to Sony again'."The big question now - does it really matter which physical format won this battle or will digital downloads ultimately win the war?
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