starcraft said:
Sony only receives a portion of Blu-Ray royalties, split between something like a dozen companies. With increasing competition from downloads (particularly high-profile services like Xbox Live (and hell, the PSN)) not to mention the momentous dominance of DVD, the use of words such as the ones I bolded is a little superfluous.
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I believe he's talking about the very, very long-term. If you grant that the PS3 is solely, or even primarily responsible for Blu-Ray's victory (I do not, as I feel the purchasing of studio exclusivity played a larger role, but that's off-topic), and if you grant that Blu-Ray will enjoy as lengthy a lifetime as, say, VHS, then it is all but certain that Sony's slice of the Blu-Ray pie will recoup a measly $3 billion over the course of a decade or two.
Of course, as you pointed out, the degree to which Blu-Ray will dominate remains an open question. I personally feel that the High Definition physical media area will be exclusively Blu-Ray's, but that digital distribution will become large enough that Blu-Ray will be left with the whole of a smaller pie. Still, it's conceivable that Blu-Ray will gain enough market share to justify its existence; time will tell either way soon enough.
Edit: @ Dominicator: actually, that may well be exactly what it means. $6 billion+ is a massive hole to pull yourself out of; even if Microsoft began enjoying Nintendo-level profits this very second, it would take years to recoup its losses. If Microsoft plans ahead to maximize profits from here on out, and stays in the gaming business to the same degree it is now, it may become profitable within the decade. But neither of those conditions is certain as of yet.
