MAY 2008 W3 ALERT

<May 14, 2008>In a newly released Harris Poll, it appears that Sony’s Blu-ray technology may have beat Toshiba’s HD-DVD and won the next generation DVD battle…but the war is far from won. In spite of their only competitor dropping out of the battle, the poll suggests that the victory was a hollow one.

Harris Interactive surveyed 2,529 adults in the U.S. during the week of April 7-15, 2008 and found that:

• Ownership of standard resolution DVD is widespread with 87% penetration

• Few own Blu-ray disc players (4%), Sony PS3 (5%), HD-DVD players (6%) and the HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 (1%)

• Only 9% of non-Blu-ray player owners say that they are likely to purchase a Blu-ray disc player within the next year – even when made fully aware that it is the definitive technology for next generation DVD

• An impressive 67% report being aware of the resolution of the format war and 69% knew that Blu-ray was the winner

• Although almost a quarter of respondents say they were waiting for the war to end before they decided to purchase…they have yet to do so

• Perhaps most startling – only 14% of HDTV owners say that they are “likely” to purchase a Blu-ray disc player within the next year

Industry plans to include Internet connectivity in the Blu-ray feature mix was also apparently not compelling to survey respondents with almost no impact in purchase intention numbers for this added capability.

And how about those poor HD-DVD owners:

• 45% of current HD-DVD owners say they will just hold on to it and continue to use it and purchase HD-DVD software for as long as possible

• Another 14% say that they will hold on to their units and continue to use them…but not purchase any new software

• 15% say they will hold on to their HD-DVD units and plan to purchase a Blu-ray player sometime in the future.

For more details, see www.harrisinteractive.com