in Japan over 50% of movie watchers buy there movies on blu-ray, and in the us its only 30% to 40% but because blu-ray is usually 10 dollars or more expensive then regular dvd they make the same amount of money.

so when will blu-ray be the choice of over 50% of americans?

Soon.

very soon. blu-ray is an emerging market. one of the reasons i bought a PS3 was for blu-ray, so I'll be sure to make good use of that capability :)

very true as many people prefer a ps3 over a stand alone blu-ray player.

Your numbers are way off. Neilson videoscan releases numbers every week in Billboard weekly and Blu Ray sales for the latest week in October 09 were 25 million vs 188 million for DVD. Considering DVDs are a lot cheaper, Blu Ray disks can't have more than about 6 or 7% of the market.

Jumpin's numbers seem far more accurate, i think only 30% of people in america have hd tv's... so i imagine less again would have full hd 1080p tv's to take advantage of bluray. I think bluray still needs a couple more years. I also think bluray will be the last "cd style" format before the market moves to digital download/streaming.

May take 10 years or 10 months the blu-ray is unpredictable.

Current numbers show for YTD Blu-ray Marketshare is 10% in the US. In the last few months Blu-ray is putting up consistent weekly numbers in the high teens (15-17%). I am predicting the soonest it will be a majority leader, which is technically 51%, will be at the end of 2011. For information about the Blu-ray numbers please click the link in my sig.

3D is when, because it's not only easier to see the difference but also easier to comprehend the difference.

Right now the average consumer just doesn't get the meaning of pixels or what difference the amount of pixels does.

When BD players will cost a few quid more than DVD ones, a necessary condition will be fullfilled. This could easily happen since just before Xmas 2010. From then on it will depend exclusively on media pricing strategy.

Edit: another necessary condition is obviously that the majority of families have a HD TV.