Betamax was technically superior for quality of recording (but would you notice that on SD TV after the taps was used a few times?), but practically was inferior. Sony made a huge mistake in making small, neat, technically superior tapes and machines, but the tapes were an hour long, whilst VHS were two hours, which meant you could record a movie without resorting to the 3 tape stacker mechanism as a bolt on accessory to the betamax player. Being Sony the players were a lot more than VHS players (and proprietory to Sony), so VHS players were available from a number of manufacturers and a lot cheaper. The final killer was at the time, video rental was huge, and most shops had huge stocks of VHS tapes.