I think the problem was that Sony simply didn't have a rational understanding of the ecosystem at the time, and somewhat overestimated how much of a hand they had in the success of the DVD format.
VHS had been standard since, what, the 70s? The advantages presented by DVD were overwhelming and absolute in circa-2001.
Blu-ray on that front... not so much. It coincided with the breakout of HDTVs only 5 years later at equally colossal prices. Hell, at the time, people were still referring to them as "Blu-ray DVDs", the vast majority thought it was some wacky marketing term that Sony pulled out of their ass.
On the gaming front, I guess Sony also banked a little too hard on developers hopping on board because of a superior storage medium based on previous competition, especially with Kojima committing to the PS3 so early on, I hear that one of the SPUs in the Cell processor was designed with decompressing data in real time running MGS4 in mind. But Microsoft had far more financial backing than any of their previous competition (hence their mind-boggling obsession with GTA IV, paying out the ass just to secure a simultaneous launch, nevermind the timed exclusive DLC)
It was all grossly mismanaged product placement, so no I don't think it's the same thing as a specific peripheral driving up the price of already less technically nuanced hardware.
Something I did noticed mentioned was the Blu-ray laser's ability to read through scratches though. That shit is fucking Godlike, you have no idea how many of my PS1 games I assumed were out for the count only to find they run flawlessly on my PS3.
Bet with Einsam_Delphin: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=172355&page=11
