The PS3 will fly off shelves once the price drops and Blu-ray is pirated worldwide. Blu-ray will then become the HD standard.
If HD-DVD manages to be pirated, that will become the HD standard.
I say this because of third-world countries' influence, especially South America, China and India; when combined, they are capable of moving far more hardware than North America and Europe combined.
The problem is, at least for Sony, is that they need to recover their PS3 subsidizing with software sales, which won't happen if Blu-ray is cracked. Nintendo and Microsoft do not have this problem because they already profit from console sales alone.
The other thorn in the PS3's side is by the time hackers manage to crack Blu-ray many standalone players will have matched or beat the PS3 in price, so they may decide to purchase the standalone player instead.
So, in the end, the PS3 may win in hardware sales but not in software. Catch-22.
