Email : belinda@ladygeek.org.uk
Oct
Economist: And in the Blu corner…
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I’d agree that in general the longer the debate ranges the less relevant the whole BluRay vs HD DVD debate will seem to the average consumer, particularly women, who now are equal to men for the majority of tech and gaming purchases.
There are already devices like a Tivo that allow consumers to just pick the videos they want to watch and then download them in realtime which have mass appeal to women. Owning a disk might apeal to the sort of people who like to ‘collect’ stuff, but for most women, having a simple experience on demand will probably win out – as long as it’s priced reasonably.
It’s worth noting that Microsoft are already experimenting with movie distribution – they’ve been pushing out movies to XBox Live subscribers. It works pretty well. Economist, Sept 6th 2007
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Interesting you note that Microsoft are pushing out video to the Xbox… it was only today that they were talking about the power of the internet in the living room and how they were investing heavily in mobile and iptv. Food for thought I think… and that doesn’t even bring into the conversation technology like the MS Surface and the Hug Shirt clothing technology.
Lets hope that the big companies don’t exclude the women from their markets or they will soon find some new big companies popping up being run by women in their space and catering for the female markets
Might it be worth investigating the differences between male and female attitudes to ‘stuff’. My experience tells me that all the great hoarders of stuff (e.g. DVDs, Comics, Books) have been men. Does anybody remember the story of Crouch End’s “Mr. Trebus” as a prime example?
Are women less likely to accumulate stuff – possibly because they place a higher value on the overall quality of living space.
What I’m getting at here is that while these video-on-demand services are mainly being sold to men as cool home AV devices, there might be an equally valid sales-pitch to women who might come to see an XBox 360 as a device that liberates the living room from clutter.