Hmm, it looks like it will take a bit longer to eliminate HD-DVD... there won't be one format on 01.01.2008...

If Blu-Ray wins.

The whole thing is really open now.  

Shame i know kber81 but dont worry Blu-ray will dominate.....eventually.

@mitsuhide

Yep, I'm aware of that. But all format wars are decided by what Joe Sixpack buys. And Joe shops at WalMart.

I think that there is something people miss on this site when it comes to the format war ...

Unlike Console wars format wars take years before anyone actually cares enough to choose either format. It took DVD 5 years before it made up 50% of the number of movie players purchased by consumers, 7 years before 50% of movies rented were DVD, and 9 years before there was more DVD players in homes than VCRs in homes. Even if you include every PS3 system as a Blu-Ray player, it will be many years before HD-Players account for 50% of movie players sold (probably sometime between 2010 and 2012) so it is way too early to state that one format has won or will win.

So I figure one of three things are going to happen.

1. A dual-format player is released for $199 eventually going down to $49 bucks and the discs slide to the $10-$20 range.

2. Downloadable media gets more mainstream. Either Itv, XBox, PS3, or whatever takes off in an IPod/Itunes like fashion. All of these exclusivity contracts are moot because they only cover the discs so all studios release in the same format.

3. Due to Price/Confusion/Format War/Depth of adoption of previous format/ the general public bails on these formats like Laserdisc/SACD/DVD-Audio and wait for the next video format.

This new is more fuel for #3. I will only get interested when I see #1 or #2.

Every poll I see is that the purchase of HDTVs is driven by the desire to expierience DVDs at a better quality than they have ever seen, not to watch HD channels, or HD movies.

Hmmz to me is seems that with DVD players now up to 30$ you can expect that the one that reaches the lowest price point first will eventually win.

Then i'm thinking in terms of Hi-Def (or true def or whatever) televisions that will be solds with a DVD player with it. In my vision it's more likely to include a 100$ HD-DVD set then a 200$ Blue-ray set.

And still remember that Sony keeps pushing formats only and only to gain money on every blue-ray disk sold. Where HD-DVD is patent pooled so far less money has to be earned.
Look at the miserable sales of the PS3, they expected to sell 6 million by march this year. So Sony is expecting lots and lots of Blue-Ray-money.

Even if Microsoft is paying $150M, it's like spare change to them. But do we have any source that says they are getting paid? (Paramount and Dreamwork that is).

Sure. It's obvious.  HD-DVD will lose and Shrek won't change it. Pretty expensive deal for HD-DVD camp - 150 million - there won't be effects they expect though. Line up of this studio is pretty weak. Lack of Steven S. won't help too.

So the war is still fought. Nice, this means that a xbox360 with a HD-DVD might be a good idea during 2008.