For those who've been watching from the sidelines of the format war, waiting for one side or the other to emerge as the definitive victor, you may not need to wait much longer.
According to Business Week, both Blu-ray and HD DVD groups have been actively courting Warner over the last several months, attempting to win the last 'neutral' studio over to their side exclusively. Apparently, Blu-ray has taken a substantive lead in the battle for Warner.
"Why? Because despite a setback this summer when the HD DVD companies signed up Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, the Blu-ray forces have still lined up more studios than the HD DVD side. Plus this year, the Sony team has sold more than twice as many discs. "The rumor is that Warner is coming aboard soon," says Michael Burns, vice-chairman of studio Lionsgate, which makes its movies available on the Sony-backed format. "That will make it awfully tough for HD DVD to stay in this game."
For those who don't know the studio landscape it presently looks like this:
| Blu-ray Exclusive | Neutral | HD DVD Exclusive |
| Sony | Warner Brothers | Universal |
| MGM | New Line* | Paramount/Dreamworks^ |
| Disney/Touchstone | ||
| Fox | ||
| Lionsgate |
* -- New line is officially neutral, though their day and date titles are being announced for Blu-ray only due to international distribution agreements
^ -- Paramount/Dreamworks are officially HD DVD exclusive, since signing an 18-month contract giving them $150 million in advertising concessions to do so -- they still have over 30 Blu-ray titles that were previously released on Blu-ray, however, and films by Steven Spielberg are specifically exempted from their exclusivity contract
If Warner does decide to go Blu-ray exclusive (and takes sister company NewLine with it), it would quickly place well over 70% of Hollywood films in the Blu-ray exclusive camp, making it very difficult for HD DVD to continue. If they should go the other way, it would produce an almost dead even split of films and studios between the disc formats.
With CES fast approaching in early January, it's looking more and more like Blu-ray may be able to put this format war to rest sooner rather than later. Here's hoping!
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