Sony does not own all of the BD replication centers... There are other companys that also have them. The facilities are expensive however since they must be built from scratch. This however doesn't really matter in the long run considering a studio doesn't have to own a replication center to have their movies pressed. Also you may be refering the Sony being the only ones capable of replicating BD-50 DL disks. That may or may not be true now but it was for the longest time. Also BD-R's are different then a pressed disk. Movie studios don't burn movies.
Also it is no more expensive for movie companys to have BD's pressed than it is to have HD-DVD's pressed. This was a factor for maybe the first 5 months. Blu-rays momentum has allowed for costs to drop very quickly.
51GB HD-DVD's will be playable on all HD-DVD players with a firmware update according to Toshiba. Apparently the new 100GB BD's will also be playable on almost all Blu-ray players via firmware upgrade also although I find this tough to believe. HD-DVD profile was already setup for mandatory support of the 51GB HD-DVD's and was only to require a firmware upgrade. But Blu-ray was not. However they have supposedly found a way to allow the laser to see more layers but who knows.
HD VMD will go nowhere. Without studio support it won't matter. Not even mentioning the fact that their main pro feature is a cost point under $200 I believe it was. By the time it has been released HD-DVD for sure and blu-ray most likely will also have players under this cost point, studio support, and market penetration.
