Pushing technological progress by strategic manoeuvring: The triumph of Blu-ray over HD-DVD

While the Digital Versatile Disc was becoming the consumer's technology of choice for playing video content at the end of the 1990s, several companies started developing the next generation of optical discs. This led to a format war between two similar but incompatible high definition optical disc formats: Blu-ray and HD-DVD. The companies supporting these formats competed for dominance in the marketplace. HD-DVD was first to enter the market and had cheaper products, but did not win due to strategic manoeuvring of the Blu-ray supporters. Different from previous format wars, consumers did not determine the outcome. The competition was decided by tipping company support throughout the supply chain and using the technology adoption characteristics of the video game console industry.

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