http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3161833

Some highlights:

According to the results, only 40% of PlayStation 3 owners polled were aware the machine had a Blu-ray player and about 50% of that number had popped in a Blu-ray movie during the last 10 times they turned on the machine -- the other half didn't use the feature.

Only 30% of Xbox 360 owners were aware of the HD graphics capabilities of the machine, whereas that number rises to 50% with PS3.

Basically, this article shows how little people know about secondary features of their systems. I find it sad that most individuals dont care enough to read what is right there on the console's box. Still, this does show that when people are buying a gaming console, they are buying it for games and not for some other features. Or maybe the general public is simply not prepared for HD-gaming? Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why PS3 and 360 are not doing so well compared to a more general public friendly wii?

P.S.

If somebody already posted this article, I would like to apologize in advance and ask mods to lock this thread and send me straight into 7th circle of hell.  

1up=EGM=Ignoramus

Before this gets locked because this is old I will say:

This is one more reason why 360 and PS3 will have a longer life cycle.

Interesting, but you have to keep in mind that this poll was made on a gaming site. If made on a movie site, there sure would have been people that were unaware of the PS3 capability to play games.

But it's a good point that gamers apparently aren't really interested in extra features such as a blu-ray player, if only 20 % dropped in a disc.

And even more reason price and game selection matters more than anything. Given the huge library the 360 has, that leaves just one thing... price....

 Read the article. It's from NPD.

 RTFA.

The irony of your post makes baby Jesus laugh.

I find the numbers surprising.   I doubt they are truly that low.  Else they managed to survey just the dumbest owners of each console.

I would think that this probably means that a minority of people really understand what 1080p is, or a BD disc is.

However, the market is progressing just fine. We're going to see another small jump in usage once we get samsung's $400 dual format player....and a much bigger jump when the HD players come down to $200. This article, to me, says that the market for HD products is still small at this point, kind of like how not many people would be able to distinguish between the features of a plug-in hybrid car vs a "regular" hybrid car.

Well, I don't know about what steven said, but I do think that the PS3 will have a very good life cycle.  I think that the BD player, forthcoming DVR feature, and of course the HD gaming would probably be enough attract consumers for 8 years.