Big Steve J Says No to Blu-Ray

Someone isn’t on board.

“Bluray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD – like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats,” said turtleneck enthusiast Big Steve Jobs in response to a customer’s complaint that the new Mac Mini didn’t come with a Blu-ray drive.

When said customer fired back that it was filesharing and piracy that lead to the dominance of the MP3, Jobs continued. “No, free, instant gratification and convenience (likely in that order) is what made the downloadable formats take off. And the downloadable movie business is rapidly moving to free (Hulu) or rentals (iTunes) so storing purchased movies or TV shows is not an issue.”

Though I agree that piracy is probably largely to blame for downloadable formats rising to prominence, Steve has a point – Blu-ray could be pretty inconsequential quicker than we think. But even if he’s right: Apple is one of the companies on the board of the Blu-ray Disc Association. Sup with that, Steve?

The irrational conspiracy theorist in me would tell me that Jobs plans to burn Blu-ray to the ground from the inside, and that the fact Jobs also has the most shares in Disney (a Blu-ray supporter) is all part of an elaborate plot. But it probably isn’t. And with the current state of content delivery being what it is, any sneaky plot on the part of Jobs would be kind of irrelevant anyway. Saying ‘Blu-ray will eventually lose to digital’ is about as prophetic as saying ‘the Sun will eventually explode’.

By the way, guys, the Sun will eventually explode. Imagine if that began tomorrow. Would totally ruin my day.