well ill correct you. MSRP is essentially store discretion......you can walk into my local BB and find the player in their adds, the Samsung BD player for $599 when in their adds its 700 after the rebate.  So yes, the Tosh $500 can probably be had for less...and likely so will this new Sony player.

The 360 addon can offer 1080p, however to get the best picture or to truly experience 1080p youd need the elite for the HDMI, 1080p is capable through componant or VGA but its also not taking full advantage of the picture....so essentially youd also need a $480 xbox with the addon to enjoy movies the same as with this $500 Sony BD player or the $500 tosh MSRP model. 

And the argument of "whichever is cheaper to produce on" is so bogus its disgusting.  Tell me anything that not only has this as teh only motive but that this is the most important motive.  Its going to come down to $$$, and companies like Sony, Disney and Fox these companies didnt wake up and just say lets support BD, they invented it and have very much riding on it, much invested in it......there is far much more incentive for these companies who will capitalize on BD's success than there are for the small amount of money they would save producing cheaper HD DVD discs, if thats even the case if and or when HD DVD catches up in software sales for these companies to have to make that decidion.

Blu-Ray gained most of their studio support by claiming that 10+ Million PS3 systems would be sold to consumers by the end of 2006; at the time this was a very compelling argument being that the PS3 was going to be released in Q2 2006 for $300/$400 and would sell like the PS2 or better. Essentially, the PS3 was supposed to quickly kill off HD-DVD before it became an established alternative.

This has not happened and how studios react to this should be interesting.

oh you must have been in the board meeting huh? Nope prolly not, just some conjecture on your part thinking you can speak as if you were the CEO of Fox, Disney and Lionsgate, right? 

I don't see this as a problem, as it will soon be evident that the best selling HD players are hybrids. Eventually, most manufacturers will shift to this philosophy.

Plus, how often do you buy new players? I purchased a Sony DVD player for $350 about 8 years ago. Then about 3 years ago I purchased a Panasonic DVD player for $65. That's it. Two players during the entire DVD era. Granted I have a dvd/vcr combo for $30 in my kids room, but it can read all of the same formats the panny can, just no progressive scan. I would argue that you would probably buy 2 or 3 max.

Incorrect, HDMI does not offer greater video quality over Component, just a different delivery method.

Or how about that it's a completely logical assumption? Everyone -- in pretty much every industry -- expected the PS3 to sell better than it has. We can reasonably assume this includes the people who signed on with Blu-Ray. As such, it's reasonable to assume that they are disappointed and surprised by the relative lack of support the media got from the PS3 console. You don't really need to be in on the board meetings to figure that one out, buddy.

 go ahead and base an entire argument on assumption with no facts proof quotes or anything of substance.....i guess i just dont like to support my claims that way.

Analog signals can run into video interference whereas HDMI's digital signal cannot.  DVDs must convert a digital signal to analog send it trhough the component cable and then transfer it back to digital to be played, this results in quality loss......i never said it didnt still look amazing or even as good at times, i just said to get THE best option is via HDMI...its a fact of science that converting pictuires this way loses quality, it may not be noticable in all instances, its prolly not noticable in 95% of the cases, but its still losing quality and thats all i said.

Its not the same, one is digital one is analog.....they do the same thing but they arent doing it the same way.