DVD Demystified

The World Before DVD
57
pared with other predictions, this was rather pessimistic, but given
Philips’s slightly better track record at forecasting, it may have been the
most realistic.
At the same time, Sakon Nagasaki of Matsushita told the press that
completion of the DVD specification and resolution of the encryption problem
were two separate issues, saying that encryption “is a problem in the
United States, not in Japan.” Matsushita announced that it could not wait
any longer for a copy protection agreement, that its two movie player models
would be available in Japan on November 1 for 98,000 and 79,800 yen,
and that if a copy protection agreement were reached, the players would be
introduced a few weeks later in the United States for $599 and $699. 20
Although Sony announced that it was delaying the release of its players
until spring, Hitachi, Pioneer, and Toshiba followed Matsushita’s lead and
promised players before Christmas.
A few weeks later, on September 12, 1996, Toshiba announced its first
home PCs and reaffirmed its commitment—despite ongoing copyright protection
issues—to bring out DVD-Video and DVD-ROM players, stating
that PC makers “should have the first units with our implementation of the
copyright protection toward the end of September, and we think we can
start shipping those units in volume by mid-November.”
The following week was the IMA Expo, with a special focus on DVD. The
glowing news from Toshiba was that every DVD-ROM PC would have hardware
or software to play DVD movies, DVD-RAM would be ready within a
year, and DVD-ROM would be such a success that Toshiba would no longer
be making CD-ROM drives in the year 2000. Estimates from International
Data Corporation (IDC) placed DVD-ROM drive sales at 10 million in 1997
and 70 million in 2000. During the Expo, Pioneer announced November 22
as the release date in Japan of a combination laserdisc and DVD player at
133,000 yen and a DVD-only player at 83,000 yen, plus two other DVD
karaoke players. U.S. prices were expected to be $1200 and $750. By this
time, the DVD Consortium had managed to fit most of the world into six
geographic regions for release-control purposes, but Mexico, Australia, and
New Zealand were still bouncing from region to region. According to Warner
Advanced Media, there were supposedly 30 DVD-ROM software titles in
development for early 1997. Matsushita representatives at the Expo were
privately admitting that their players would not be out in the United States
until February.
20 When the Matsushita (Panasonic) players were finally released in March of 1997, the price of
the DVD-A100 was unchanged, but that of the DVD-A300 had risen by $50 to $749.95.