| Bodhesatva said: Ugh, every time I read news like this -- whether it be good news for HD DVD or Blu Ray -- I think to myself: "god, what an awful, bloody, expensive mess this format war is." I don't see either format becoming dominant any time soon, now. The HD DVD stand alone players will clearly outstrip the Blu Ray ones, I think; at the same time, the PS3 is such a dominating for in the HD video market that it's hard to imagine Blu Ray ever really losing. At my Toys R Us store, you'd better bet I emphasize the Blu Ray capabilities of the PS3 to potential buyers, and I use it as an important and distinguishing feature from the 360. Even knowing that a large portion of buyers don't know or care about the Blu Ray capability, the fact that even a fraction of that 5+ million DO care puts Blu Ray players on top by a sizable margin. Heck, even 5 percent of users would be enough to give Blu Ray a noticable lead. If I had to guess, at this point, I think both HD DVD and Blu Ray will accrue enough market share within 2 years time that neither can really eliminate the other -- the big problem is movie libraries. If I buy an HD DVD Player for 200 now, the big problem later on isn't buying a 100-150 dollar Blu Ray player in 3 years; it's replacing all the HD DVD movies I already have in my library, or vice versa. That just isn't happening unless one of gains an overwhelming advantage. Thus, I'm now betting on dual-players being the ultimate winner, and both HD DVD and Blu Ray being viable mediums for a long time. That would be a first -- I'm sure neither Sony nor Toshiba considers that their best case scenario -- but I don't think we've ever had two formats compete so viciously before. |
Reminds me of betamax vs VHS. Betamax was actually the superior format technically, yet VHS wins in the long run (after several years).
But, those tapes were different sizes, so you couldn't really have a dual-format player. Now with these identical disc sizes all you have to do is cram the technology to read both discs in there (in 5 years they will both have $39 versions at wal-mart anyway).
