thanks for the heads up :)

i wouldn't doubt that there were quite a few people waiting on the fence.

I do think this will be very good for the PS3, with Microsoft hyping HD DVD for a long time many vocal 360 fans made it their mission to denounce Blu-Ray in general. Despite the movie playback quality in general is poor on the 360 and the PS3 is one of the best quality Blu-Ray and upscaling DVD players on the market, many 360 fans slammed the PS3 on high def orientated websites.

Now with clarity on this matter they are left with no ammo and may be less inclined to spread the Microsoft gospel on other things as well, at least I hope so. The US media may become a lot less biased as well.

Well, even if Blu-Ray failed as a movie format (which was already unthinkable considering the support) the drive would still be a huge pro for gaming (no disc scratching and less drive wearing to worry about, less drive noise production, bigger storage space and constant streaming speeds). And in any case Sony Pictures and partially Sony owned movie studios would still have continued to pump out movies.

I doubt consumers were waiting because in my experience most consumers don't even know what Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are.

A big difference between DVD and Blu-Ray is that fact that people didn't have to buy new tvs to appreciate DVDs as opposed to Blu-Ray in which you basically have to have an HDTV to even see a difference. Add to that the fact that some non-videophiles wouldn't likely notice much of a difference even then.

Then there's the matter of price. Are most consumers willing to spend more money for the same movies? And what about the large segment of DVDs and DVD players devoted to young children, are a lot of parents going to be willing to put in the investment so that their kids can watch cartoons in HD?

I guess we'll see what happens this year and next but I really doubt that we'll see Blu-Ray becoming a thread to DVD for years to come.

Analysts predict PS3 sales will stay up 10% and this will grow in course of time due to the format war being over. 10% extra for this year could account for 1 million extra sales if correct. Like a TV set with teletext, an audio set with MP3 support, a DVD player with DivX support, etc, the PS3 is becoming more compelling feature wise.

DVD didn't require a new TV in order to reep the benefits of the improved format.

Blu-Ray requires a HD-TV to get any significant improvement over DVD out of it.

Where as DVD offered inumerable advantages over VHS, Blu-Ray really only offers two, better sound and picture. Can cosmetic differences really justify a new format?

Better audio and picture quality are of course the major pros for Blu-Ray movie playback, but there are more optional features in store for Blu-Ray movies, like more interactivity, online services (BD-Live) and features like picture-in-picture.

"Can cosmetic differences eally justify a new format"

Its how videogames have been going for the last 30 years...

Not to mention Blu-ray players are 1/3 of the cost that DVD was after a year in the market.

People seem to forget back in '99 when DVD players cost $1000+

Toshiba and Microsoft were purposely causing confusion, and no one likes to choose the wrong format. Ask the 1.6 million HD DVD adopters, they must all feel like crap. But if official numbers had been released say right before Christmas about the numbers for each format, many many more people would have gotten a Blu-ray player.