This has been reported by numerous different online websites and is either a rumour that won’t go away (MGS on 360) or based on fact.
It appears that Toshiba dropped of an envelope stuffed with 1 million $100 bills to try and get Warner Bros to become HD-DVD exclusive. $100 million is a huge number and it is quite suprising that Warner didn’t go for it.
However it appears that they were very smart not to do that because Sony then arrived and dropped $400 million on the table to become Blu-Ray exclusive.
To me this is just more proof that Microsoft were not heavily backing HD-DVD as they could easily beat Sony in a bribery war and there is no mention of them even being part of it.
globeandmail.com: With Warner in its corner, Sony has Toshiba on ropes
Last Updated: January 11, 2008
Banana hammock
January 11, 2008 at 06:52
I honestly don’t think it’s that much money, $100Mil is less than what it costs to make 1 decent movie in Hollywood these days.
But hey, if Toshiba want to be cheapskates then that’s what you get. If you are going to bribe someone at least do it properly!