Why betamax failed

Unfortunately, there is no crystal ball. What we can learn from Sony is to listen to consumer demand and design. If Sony was so concerned about picture quality and sound, a better option would have been to introduce varying levels of Betamax tape decks.

Sony could have marketed a high-quality play version, with limited playback for a higher price and then a lower end version with less picture quality at a lower price. This way, consumers could choose the features that mattered to them. Norman, D. The design of everyday things: Revised and expanded edition. Basic books. Raskin, J. The humane interface: new directions for designing interactive systems. Addison-Wesley Professional. Schofield, Jack , January Why VHS was better than Betamax.

Wielage, M. While you could for a while find both formats eventually retailers began giving shelf space to the slightly more dominant brand, which then dominated even more. So, the Betamax versus VHS dispels the notion that simply being first to market is the most important issue.

For any mass manufactured object, the winner is usually the one that is just good enough. When we look at the failure of technological objects in the marketplace we tend to be very pat and trace failure to a single cause. Yet technological things fail in the marketplace for many reason. So, in this series Bill takes a deeper look at the failure of three famous engineered objects: the Picturephone ; the Betamax video cassette recorder, and the Dvorak keyboard. Betamax Transcript This mighty machine sparked a revolution in our use of media.

It was the simplest and most durable magnetic tape configuration to date, and with the longest playback time to boot.

The motor industry loved 8-track — Bentley and Rolls Royce fitted them as standard for years — and for a while it looked like it might have the fidelity to become a home standard as well as a convenience for the car.

But Philips had been refining its compact cassette format since its introduction in , and by the early 70s improvements in sound quality and durability saw the more portable alternative overhaul 8-track.

As the more affordable VHS format, which also had a significant advantage over Betamax in recording times, gained ground in North America, economies of scale meant VHS equipment was more affordable in Europe than Betamax. Sony read the runes as early as , when it began producing its own VHS hardware, but — in what was a demonstration of either admirable customer service or weapons-grade stubbornness — continued production of Betamax machines until and Betamax cassettes until LaserDisc may not have lasted the distance, but it can be credited with paving the way for the global success of Compact Disc, DVD and Blu-ray — its concepts and technologies informed all later optical disc formats.

But, crucially, it was a read-only format with no facility for recording. Almost as crucially, the discs themselves were 12 inches in diameter, the same size as vinyl LPs. They looked anachronistic next to a tidy little VHS or Betamax cassette, and by the turn of the century it was all over. Aimed at challenging the fledgling VHS and Betamax home video recording standards, the lack of a catchy and definitive moniker was not the only reason the technology floundered.

V was innovative compared to its rivals, notably in the recording times of its two-sided cassettes. But it arrived after both VHS and Betamax, entering a market already wary of competing formats, and it wasn't marketed in North America at all.

There was no camcorder and, crucially, no suggestion that the pornography industry was interested in V And thus it was discontinued, years after the public had forgotten all about it. By all other important metrics, though, digital audio tape died on its arse. This caused paroxysms throughout the music industry — the Recording Industry Association of America threatened legal action. Thanks to its high quality performance, DAT found favour as a professional medium in recording and TV studios.

Compact Disc Interactive was an attempt by the ever-intrepid Philips to produce a disc-based system with greater flexibility and functionality than either audio CD players or games consoles. Home Explore Login Signup. Successfully reported this slideshow. We use your LinkedIn profile and activity data to personalize ads and to show you more relevant ads. You can change your ad preferences anytime. Betamax failure. Upcoming SlideShare. Like this presentation? Why not share! Embed Size px.

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