I think the use of the emotive word "massively" (in relation to the higher costs for developing OLED versus LCD and Plasma) is what's being questioned here. It's undeniable that the costs for OLED must have been somewhat higher for it to have been the cause of everyone except LG to pull out.

The question is how much higher?

I have no idea, but the term "Massive" has to be relative to the possible returns though doesn't it?
If Plasma cost Panasonic £2 Billion to develop but gave them a return of £8 Billion (made up figures btw!), but OLED is likely to cost £1 Billion and the return is estimated at only £1.5 Billion, the relative cost to develop compared to the return is massive.
At the time of Plasma development, there wasn't really any other option for very big flat panel TV. The market was there to be taken. After a while LCD came in for smaller screens and eventually as the quality got better became the normal.
OLED is being developed to compete directly with a very mature market that already has the economy of scale to keep the prices falling & improve on picture quality too.

Actually, I don't think it follows that OLED development costs had to be even "somewhat" higher at the point at which Sony and Panasonic decided to abandon it. The point is that they both had existing display technologies into which a great deal of money had already been sunk, and which were selling well, and yet they were struggling to make money out of them. So investing even more money into a technology with uncertain prospects for a return would perhaps have been a risk too far. And maybe they just didn't have the money, even if they were willing to take the risk. And maybe LG had a lot of relevant patents that made competing with them difficult.

Another poster keeps posting links to articles from 2013 and 2014 in the apparent belief that this proves his point. But fast forward to now (a few years is a long time in technology) and it's starting to look as though LG might have made the right decision.

You asked for sources for people saying that they bailed because of cost, that was supplied.
The fact that people like Panasonic & Sony are now going to have very top end models using OLED screens doesn't mean that LG made the right decision. That will only be recorded in the LG balance sheets in years to come when the cost/return calculations are made.
As it stands now, the world biggest TV maker isn't using OLED & seemingly has no plans to do so & 2 of the top 4 are making very low volume models. that is not going to recoup LG's initial costs very quickly.

Sony are the main suppliers of the highest quality DSLR sensors and are happy to sell them to all their DSLR rivals, even Nikon and Canon at times. Sony get to use them first in their own cameras of course but they also sell them to rivals at realistic prices. This helps to develop or at least maintain the market and remember, DSLRs have also become very much a minority type of camera, but they survive in spite of the many alternatives these days.

In the case of OLED screens, LG will also sell them on at realistic prices if they are not to strangle their own market, because they need as many OLED TVs as possible to be out there and on view in shops if their own market is to develop or be maintained. They can't do that all by themselves - just as Sony can't with their DSLR sensors. LG will of course get new designs first - but I am sure they will, like Sony in sensors, be willing to work with other TV manufacturers to tweak them as required.

The comparison with Betamax is invalid because OLED TVs are equally compatible with all UHD sources, unlike Betamax/VHS. Incidentally, another advantage of OLED is angle of view - I often watch my plasma from a very acute angle and I have no intention of changing that habit by getting an LCD TV in the future, as long as I have a choice.

Hopefully there are enough of us 'highish enders' to keep OLED development going and that such TVs do spread to all TV manufacturers as a premium product, whoever makes the screens. That would help the price to come down as manufacturing volumes increase.

I most certainly did not. I asked for evidence that the development costs for OLED had been higher than those for LCD or Plasma. Nobody has supplied that.

That various companies had withdrawn from OLED development, and that this decision was cost-related, was never in dispute.

Panasonic and Samsung have booth been on facebook and Sony has been on twitter a announce Thertrr oled models I think it will a mater of time prices Will come down e eventually just a matter of time
Last edited by the power king : Yesterday at 12:47

Samsung have been taking whole page adverts in the Financial Times for a while to promote their quantum dot technology. They are not advertising products so presumably the aim is to reassure current and potential investors that they are not being left behind.

Could this be a viable/cheaper alternative to OLED?