What will it take to get casual gamers to PS3? Is Blu-ray enough?

[NJ5]

Renar said:

MikeB showed an interesting poll by Engadget on another thread.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/27/poll-whats-it-going-to-take-to-make-you-buy-a-ps3/

I already own one, so I guess I'm ahead of the curve. Suckers.15617 (26.0%)

Now if Engadget's poll really statistically covered all of the PS3 buyers, current and potential, it would mean PS3 has another 30M sales in its lifetime. Possible, I suppose. But more likely, the poll % owned is much too high because casuals are not going as much to Engadget to vote in the poll.

My question is: Will casuals buy PS3 like they did with PS2? If so, will it be only as a Blu-Ray player, and not games? (a bit like the PSP where it sells, but low game ratio)

Has/Will the Wii taken away too many of the casuals, so especially if another company or Sony itself comes out with a cheap Blu-Ray only player, that would be bought rather than the PS3?

Your thoughts?

 

 My thoughts are:

1- Blu-Ray is not as interesting as DVD was back in the day. The difference between VHS and DVD was huge, since DVD is so much more convenient than VHS. Blu-Ray appeals to a part of the technology-oriented crowd, but not so much to the rest of the population who don't even know what 720p is (even the ones who have HDTVs).

2- The PS3 won't forever be the cheapest Blu-Ray player, as you said.