Betamax was technically inferior in one way that mattered quite a lot. VHS could play a two-hour movie with a single cassette right from the start. Betamax at

Betamax was technically inferior in one way that mattered quite a lot. VHS could play a two-hour movie with a single cassette right from the start. Betamax at the time was limited to one hour, so anyone who bought or rented a typical movie of more than one hour but less than two had to switch cassettes midway through. VHS could play the whole thing in one go. Even for the rare movie that was more than two hours, this meant two VHS cassettes vs. three Betamax cassettes. Betamax II and III were introduced later, with longer running times due to slower tape speed (and lower quality), but these were too late to the party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS#Competition_with_Betamax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS#Competition_with_Betamax