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Betamax

Despite the fact that Betamax came out two years before VHS, and was widely perceived to be of better quality, it ultimately lost the battle with its younger, chunkier partner, and became a classic example of how not to establish a new technology format in the marketplace.

Sony created Betamax for the professional and home user in 1975, but made a few bad judgement calls which meant that they went from 100% of the market upon launch, to 7.5% only ten years later.

JVC tried to make VHS as cheap and widely available as possible, licensing the technology to many other companies. Sony attempted to hold on to the perception of quality, thereby ending up with fewer machines on the market at a higher price. Consumers were eager to own video players, but were not keen to spend thousands of pounds on them, with many opting to rent. In the UK, the leading rental shops were part-owned by JVC so they really got behind VHS, and it wasn’t long before the format dominated. So much so that anyone owning a Betamax felt like a bit of a numpty, and no amount of declaring, ‘But the picture quality is amazing’ really made them feel any better.

Betamax wasn’t helped by the fact that it had a shorter running time than VHS, especially in the US with the NTSC format. Sony also made the decision not to allow porn on Betamax. Many analysts believe this last point to be the biggest reason for its failure – a sure sign of our times.

By the late ’80s, Sony pretty much knew the game was up, and started getting into the VHS market themselves. The last Betamax machine was produced in 2002.

But at least Sony learnt from their mistakes and were never again to see a new format fail in this way. Just look at the huge global dominance of the minidisc!

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