I have yet to see any indication of how much Blu-Ray can earn them (not to mention that damaging a brand just to win a format war is far from being a great idea).

It's certainly good for Sony that they won this format war, but it's not at all clear that it will be enough to offset the multi-billion $ losses they have incurred so far. I don't even know how much they would earn if Blu-Ray sold a lot, and it's not yet guaranteed that it will (due to its battle with DVD+movie downloads).

The royalties from disc sales will amount to quite a pretty penny over time. Why else has Toshiba sparred with Sony so adamently over HDM?

Edit: In my opinion, Blu-Ray will take over DVD faster than DVD took over VHS. HDM is already doing much better against DVD than DVD v. VHS 18 months into the format war, and I think that this is happening primarily because of backwards compatibility. All Blu-Ray/HD DVD players can still play DVDs, and they make them look better to boot. This is something that DVD players could not do for VHS. Because of this, people can upgrade without having to either keep an old player around, or ditch their old collection of movies. It makes upgrading worry free.

Another reason Blu-Ray will inevitably take over DVD is because CEs will eventually stop selling DVD players. Eventually the price differnece between players will be negligible, so eventually CEs will start selling dvd players that happen to play Blu-Ray. It's no negative to the consumer, but it will ensure one format across the industry (if only for a short while until the next format comes).

Once Blu-Ray takes 80%+ marketshare, studios will stop releasing films on DVD.

When the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD war was on, something that I heard quite often was that Blu-Ray was handled by a coalition of numerous companies (more so than HD-DVD if I remember correctly).

How much does each of those companies stand to earn from Blu-Ray if it takes off? I'd be interested to read an analysis about that, but unfortunately I haven't seen any yet.

 Wow, why don't you tell us what you really think.

Such opinionated hostility.

Damaging a Brand?    Get over yourself.

The only temporary damage that has been done is releasing something too expensive for most cheap americans to afford.

People like cheap things because they are cheap. (and for a business to go against this would be crazy, right?)

Wrong.

Sony is Sony, and they will not learn their lesson, because they want to offer the  best piece of technology available.  Their image, is more solidified than ever. (in that regard, not financially)

Their products have always been more expensive, and now with the PS3, their gaming devision has joined the same line of thought.

They respect the idea of quality over price.

But realize that the same reprocusions do not apply to sony as much as they do to other companies. Because they are sony, they can justify crazy technological advances that cost them money, but adversely give them the advantage of always being the first to the market with a new technology- like the cell.  

Regarding OP,  I expect a 250 million loss, but lets hope it is a billion, right??

A shareholder of sony stock is somewhat of a maverick of a person i believe. They have the faith that eventually people will recognize quality over price in the long run.

And that is exactly what Sony is in this race for,   the long run. 

 They have damaged the playstation brand in that if it does not win this generation it will not have such a high build up of hype next generation. The reason the hype was so massive for the PS3 (and truly it was) was because the PS2 had so absolutley dominated the last generation.

Going into a new generation with a console in last place means that you have far less hype, the 'revolution' was expected to be in last place by most analysts and the only way which Nintendo managed to build hype was by changing the control style completely.

 Also console wars have never been won by quality over quantity. I think that in almost every generation so far the weakest console has won the race.

*thunderous applause from the Sony marketing department*

^ Hehehehehehe.

I think Sony has mostly learned its lesson, now the question is how fast can it recover? It's done for this generation, will it figure out a good strategy for the next one?

How long until the report?

Two hours, I think.

edit: Yep, two hours. God, I love this iPhone. World Clock FTW! 

I'll be at work :(