Its not like anyone uses those inferior CD's anymore.......Oh wait...no....no PC still uses them to this day. I know that the massive 1 or (OMG!!)2 disk change is huge to you, but not to anyone that has enough energy to press the eject button on their console. XBOX doesnt need larger disks, neither does PC, but you and PS3 do.

I personally dont see the big deal, and every PS3 game that has come out to date can be done on XBOX(maybe not graphic wise, which will have nothing to do with disk size) with its "inferior" DVD disks. Much as %1-%2 of last gen games used Dual Layer DVD's %1-%2 are going to need more than 1 DVD DL worth of space this gen. It works for PS3 cause 7.1 audio takes up an ass load of space, for everyone else, DVD will be fine.

Its not a total win/win situation. Playstaion 3 had a stamp of approval to be the winner this generation and they would if it hadnt been for the price. Had they made a console on par with the 360, even with no games, they would be outpacing the wii most likely. They were the overwhelming market leader for 2 generations and they traded that in for blue ray advantage in the format war. Both the blue ray and hd dvd sales are so small, its insignificant. Its like saying I sold 2 movies and you sold 1 so Im out selling your 2-1, but dvd is selling 20. Its a tiny niche market and the comparisons dont matter yet.

Yet is the word. Sony figured well the PS2 sold so much and we want Blu ray to be the only HD format. So use the success of the PS2 by making the PS3 with a Blu ray player and kill two birds (console competition, HD competition) with one stone (PS3). If Sony wins the format War they increase their chances of winning the console war because it's the cheapest blu ray player and the PS2 crowd will see its the next step in console gaming. If they lose the format War then they lose both.

With the PS2, you get both a game console and a DVD player. Its almost the same with the PS3 and knowing sooner or later you have to go HD. Sony has a 10 year plan with the PS3 and If the Blu ray sales continue then things look bright for Sony.

OMG, not the 10-year plan again. If you really think PS3 will be a viable console 10 years down the road, you must be crazy.

Sony's technology/media division has always had a higher importance to them than gaming.

Thus said, when this generation came about and the new console was to release shortly after the new format technology became commercially accessible, Sony had a decision to make.

It didn't take long to decide that winning the format war was far more important than winning the console war. That isn't the decision they had to make. The format market is outrageously larger than the videogame market, so they'd have been fools to decide that winning the console war was more important.

The decision they had to make was this - do we want to risk it?

They were risking a LOT on this generation - the ENTIRE Playstation name. By making the PS3 a BR player, they found a way to sneak millions of BR players into homes. However, what if it hadn't worked?

What if Blu-Ray didn't take off so far ahead of HD-DVD? What if the cost of the PS3 made it too much for anybody to find it worthwhile?

All that Sony had put on the line here would have been destroyed. Completely wasted. The Playstation name is now permanently soiled. There may not even be a Playstation 4 (although I think there probably will be, but it'll be Sony's last venture into videogaming. The PS4 will be the new Dreamcast). They would have completely ruined the Playstation brand-name for a failed format.

And that still may happen, but it looks like Blu-Ray likely will end up being the next format, if only for a short while.

Once Blu-ray wins this war it is going to be a huge boost for PS3. When it becomes common knowledge that Blu-ray is with no doubt the successor to DVD PS3 will become the only choice for HD consoles. Next fall when this happens and PS3 is $299 we will be laughfing at this post and at how we thought the Wii numbers were so good this year. Blu-ray is the most important thing in this generation, with Networking at a close second, and Motion just behind that. Had Sony left Blu-ray out of the PS3 they would have made one of the largest business mistakes of this decade. By 2010 we will be seeing Madden on 2 discs for the 360, we will see Call of Duty 5 on to discs, we will see GTA7 either PS3 exclusive or on 2,3,4,or 5 discs. At this point I would like everyone to look at Sony's console maketshare, and net profits, you will have one of two feelings 1) Man that was a smart decission to put Blu-ray in PS3 2) I guess Sony was right about PS3 and Blu-ray.

(side note) If you could go to an alternate reality were PS3 had DVD and 25 Million sales world wide right now, I fell you would be let down by those versions of Ratchet and Uncharted. Their is just something differant about Blu-ray games that make them feel differant.

I don't really understand why so many scoff at the idea of a "10 year plan" tbh.  While even I think that 10 years might be stretching it a bit, 7 or 8 is certainly doable, you only have to look at the PS2 to prove that point.  Blu-Ray might conceivably reach 100gb or more of space which offers the format a lot more leg room than what's currently offered by default in its competitors.  Link

The real question is if Sony can convince developers to make exclusives for the console NOW (or even in the past 3 months).  Given a few years of development time for games and the current situation of the console war how many developers are going to look at the PS3 and say "3 years from now the PS3 will have a large enough installed consumer base to warrant developing exclusives for the system." 

"""""Its not a total win/win situation. Playstaion 3 had a stamp of approval to be the winner this generation and they would if it hadnt been for the price. Had they made a console on par with the 360, even with no games, they would be outpacing the wii most likely. They were the overwhelming market leader for 2 generations and they traded that in for blue ray advantage in the format war. Both the blue ray and hd dvd sales are so small, its insignificant. Its like saying I sold 2 movies and you sold 1 so Im out selling your 2-1, but dvd is selling 20. Its a tiny niche market and the comparisons dont matter yet. """

==> so much truth in ur post eugene.

One of the problems with having thousands of consumers using PS3 as just a BluRay player is that Sony sells 2.6 million PS3's in the US but then the highest-selling blockbuster game barely sells 225,000 the first week while other systems are seeing 500,000+ sales opening week.

When X360's user base was 3.5 million, Gears of War sold 1 million in 3 weeks. But even though PS3's user base is nearing 3 million here, a large percentage of them will rarely ever buy a game since they are just watching movies.

So I guess PS3's "installed user base" is really divided into gamers and watchers whereas X360's user base is 100% gamers.

EDIT:  By the way, I still haven't opened my free Blu Ray copy of Talladega Nights because I have a standard 27" TV.  I don't have the DVD version to compare, but I figure all of the Hi-Def demos I've seen were on glorious 1080p LCD's so the difference is obvious.  Will I notice a higher-res difference or will my TV be that much of a low-definition roadblock that I won't be able to say "ooh, pretty"?

I'd say the percentage of people buying PS3's SOLELY to watch Blu-Ray films is pretty small. You cant say 100% of the 360 owners have it for games, when people could buy a HD-DVD attatchment and just watch those on it. Sure, it's not the most practical way of doing things but by your logic its feasible.