Sony's $400 Million Hit Man

“The Toronto Globe and Mail reports that Sony paid Warner Bros. as much as $400 million to throw its support behind Blu-ray and abandon HD-DVD.”

A more accurate report would say “After Warner defected to Blu-Ray, some HD-DVD blog somewhere suggested that Sony could have paid Warner $400m for the privilege. The blog later deleted that claim, but not before it was picked up by Engadget, echoed through the blogosphere, and finally reached the mainstream media to be reported as assumed fact.

“Warner’s only on-the-record reaction to this claim was along the lines of: ‘We’re a 60Bn company. You think our HD strategy for the next ten years is worth those peanuts?’”

Not quite as punchy a story, though.

Toshiba and Sony were both throwing money around to get allies in the format war, but the $400m figure is pure invention, and the idea that it may have had more effect on the outcome than, say , the fact that Blu-Ray discs have been consistently out-selling HD-DVD for the last year, is a little ludicrous.

Meanwhile, all Sony’s bought is a few years grace before downloadable HD video starts having the same effect on the video market as downloadable music is having on CDs, and ten years before Blu-Ray is a footnote in Wikipedia.