Think about it this way, Americans will face:

• Mortgages worth more than their house, effectively eliminating refinancing and home equity lines of credit
• High credit card debt
• Falling stock markets
• Bank Failures
• Higher unemployment
• Tougher lending standards (often requiring 20% down to buy a home)

And you expect people to continue throwing away perfectly good TVs to buy a new TV because it is new?

It all depends on a few things:
1/ Can BluRay actually "win" - or will it die out in preference of internet based movie delivery?

2/ Will MS deliver a BluRay drive attachment for the 360?

3/ Will MS do a proper refresh of the hardware - and fix ALL the hardware issues?

...

The big issue I see with BluRay is this - now that it has "won", the price pressure is off. But if it takes too long to hit mass market price (i.e. $99 for a standalone player) - BluRay will fail completely.

As I have stated before (in my experience/opinion) - I have started buying a lot of DVDs recently - for $5-$10 (ex-rentals, etc..). BluRay discs cost around $40-$50 here in Australia - and apart from the "occasional" movie - there is nothing I would spend that money on.

There is *no* attraction for me to spend $700 (cheapest PS3/BluRay player) on a player - and then spend $40-$50 per movie - to get an "average" improvement in movies that I "own" at home.

- all channels now broadcast in HD here (so I can watch many HD movies for free)
- I can download various HD shows/movies at will via the internet
- my DVD player upsamples to 1080i, supports DIVX - and has a USB input at the front (not to mention coming with a FREE HDMI cable). It only cost $120AU - and that was around 14 months ago.

I'm personally much more psyched about Apples iTV, or even watching movies through a 360 (which I hope to get this year) - than BluRay/HD-DVD in general.

...

And finally - I don't see how PS3 sales of approx 65k / week (US) trailing the holiday season is considered a boost.

The same period last year it sold 63k + 56k + 53k + 50k = 223k. This when the PS3 was "out of favour", had far less games - and was *much* more expensive ($200 more?).

I would disagree with this seeing how the PS3 is the most successfull right now in some countries where the spending power of players is a lot lower than it is in NA.

I mean Spain and France. 500 Euros is a HUGE investment for a lot of folks over there......( minimal salary in France is around 1000 Euros a month and there is a decent chunk of the population that makes that amount).

Blu-Ray isn't out of the woods yet, it still has to convince the consumer its worth bothering with.

In the end, is it really worth replacing your entire library of movies just for a crisper image? While DVD and CD offered several benefits and conveniences over VHS and Cassette, Blu-Ray is little more than a Luxury Item whose benefits are superficial, not convenient nor of any real benefit to the consumer.

Even if Blu-Ray helps the PS3, it does little more than create a PSP scenario as its appeal as it could become more desireable for its secondary features. Either way, its dubious to think Blu-Ray is actually doing terribly well when Sony is forced to give away free movies with their PS3.

Just wondering, have you watched a Blue Ray movie on a 1080p TV yet ?

Because it is an amazing experience ( try Kingdom of Heavens Director's cut).

As for the free movies offer, now that HD-DVD is dead I woudn't be surprised if that offer stopped soon.

Otherwise I agree with you I don't think people are going to replace their DVD library with a Blue Ray library.

What is going to happen is for new titles, especially those with decent special effects or scenery, over time Blue Ray will become a susbtential part of the sales .

And as sales of new DVD are a huge part of the total DVD sales, that is not so bad.

But yeah, for older movies, aside a few exceptions ( LoTR extended edition comes to mind, that would be the 4th LoTR copy I own lol..) I woudn't replace my DVDs with Blue Rays. 

Besides you don't need to replace your entire library, a Blue Ray players plays DVD, whereas DVD players don't play VHS... 

If I was Warner or any other studio I woudn't bother coming with new releases in Blue Ray of older movies except the big hits ( Lotr, Die Hard, Star Wars yes, John Wayne's no).

I think PS3 will have a great success both in NA and in the rest of the world when it will get cheaper. Blu-Ray can help, but right now very mildly (nothing to despise, though, every help is welcome), perhaps more in the future.
Well, as far as I am concerned, even Wii is still too expensive, but it's almost sure that it will be the first to become cheap enough for the vast majority of potential buyers and I think that it will be the first and perhaps the only one of this generation consoles I'll buy.

Probably not. The next-gen movie wars are about as relevant as the next-gen music format wars (anyone remember those?) Point is, Blu-Ray will likely become the next DVD-A or SACD.

I'm sure you'd like to believe that is true but quite honestly the adoption rate of the format is proof enough of the lack of interest in such a superficial upgrade. 1080p will be made available with better formats in the future. Right now tech heads are just too eager to jump on the first half assed band wagon.

I think it will definitely help it .

Besides ,the software sales of the PS3 are very good .Even by own MS sources about the spendings in PS3 soft and 360 soft we have that PS3 has slighty more than half the income in software with way less than half the userbase .In NA .In Japan and Europe its even better .

Or think about it this way, the U.S. does not equate to worldwide.

A few of those case scenarios of yours still have yet come to pass, such as your higher unemployment example; still nowhere near as close as your country, the Great White North.