Originally Posted by
Epoch
That losing formats thing is a horrible myth. Beta failed for HOME use because Sony wouldn't let porn be distributed on it, and we all know that, amusingly enough, porn is one of the lead reasons for technological adoption. Beta in professional use was actually the standard up until a few years ago until the advent of affordable DVCAM setups. MD did well in Europe and Japan, just failed here in the US. Memory stick and ATRAC? Those are worthless compared to their market counterparts though.
porn was part of it, but i wouldn't ever say it was the defining reason for betamax's failure.
- initial recording time for betamax was only 1 hour, VHS was 2 hours
- betamax was more expensive and players were harder to find for rent (people were opting to rent instead of buy because they didn't want to invest in a doomed format)
- by the time betamax became readily available for rent, VHS had 70% of the market
- sony also failed to sign enough licensing agreements with studios to have films made in betamax, this is aside from the porn issue
there's more that isn't coming to mind.. but again, porn or the lack of was only a part of it.. i would also argue that porn is not one of the lead reasons for technological adoption, but that's another thread.