A lot of LD fans spat on DVD early on, at least that’s how I recall it. There were fears it would be just VHS on a shiny disc, no widescreen options or extras. And since the powers that be seemed to be doing everything to nudge LD off a cliff rather than let it quietly fade away, that made some die hard fans even more pissed off.
Pioneer did make a few combo players that could handle both formats.

It’s interesting there never was a full frame version of The Matrix on DVD that I know of, yet the sequels got separate fullscreen editions.