A lot of people on here wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. 

would anybody have any sources of data for just how much the prices on HD Tvs have dropped since they have been put out?

Was in Argos the other day and looked through their catalogue, they still have quite a few SD TVs but I would say the amount of HD YV sets was welll over 60% of the TVs they had for sale. The cheapest HD Tv was a HD Ready one which was about 20" I think, and about £250, and there weren't really that many full 1080p sets. Personally I would say that 720p will be the norm within the next 2 yrs, as they'll probs be as cheap as SD sets by then, and I reckon 1080p will only be the norm after 5yrs, as at the moment, you rarely see one significantly under £1000, which is ridiculous for a TV.

I'm gonna sum this up.
HDTV is cheaper because they're usually plasma/lcd
Digital does not mean High Def, most channels will still be SD you'll just need a digital tuner.

None of this matters much anyway even the format war is moot. Protein coated disks are well into their testing stage and hold -up to- 50 Terabytes so when they're ready(estimdate mid 2008) kiss blue ray and HD-DVD goodbye.

OLED TV is also well into it's testing phases and will easily replace both plasma and LCD as it's thinner, lighter, easier to make, less energy consumption and far less restrictive in what sizes and shapes the TV can be.(can be as small as a postage stamp and still function fine) We may even see these things on packaging in the future.

Also a Japanese company(forgot the name) is already able to demo it's UHDV, Ultra High Definition Video which outputs in sizes that make 1080p look like nothing. 7680 x 4320

Just food for thought here, even if PS3 has a longer life... Wii was an instant success and can turn in early to make way for newer cheaper stronger tech and steal PS3's thunder half way through it's "long life" forcing sony into developing yet another cutting edge expensive monster and push them into remaining with PS3 as an overall loss.. just a thought though.

 Nah, we're probably not gonna see UHDV for at least another 10 years, possibly 20. It's just far too impractical for commercial use right now, the testing phases that were held for it left people suffering motion sickness lol.

They go the way of Trex bro, extinction.

Actually no. Nintendo is smart when they make their consoles. They don't try to get an early jump on the "next-gen" because they don't ever see a need to. When the Xbox came out and they were touting all their online play, all throughout the original Xbox's life span only about 1 in every 6 people who owned one were playing on live. This gen with the 360, the number is closer to 1 in every 2 people. Nintendo saw it as a fruitless add on because not many people were using it at all so they omitted online. This generation you can see that it is included. Right now a lot of people are either:

A) Still running on their old SDTV.

B) Have an HDTV but are fucking stupid and think that because they have an HDTV, their picture is automatically HD.

or

C) Want to get HD but can't afford it/don't know how it works.

The thing people have to realize about America is that the vast majority of the population is really dumb. Next gen I will bet any amount of money that Ninty's console will have HD support.

And what do you mean by the 360 is 70% HD friendly? How is something not 100% HD friendly? If anything the 360 is MORE HD friendly than the ps3 is at the moment. More games run at 1080p than the ps3 and a lot of games actually look better on the 360 than the ps3 at the moment. How long they will stay that way is unknown but there's really no doubting that the 360 looks better than the ps3 right now (right NOW).

 And what in the world are you talking about, since when has there only been a 3 year gap in between releasing consoles? Next gen will probably start around 2011/2012, I know you like Sony but don't just go spitting out numbers like the Wii will get replaced every 3 years >_>

Just to end all those discussions about Wii´s short lifespan:

I don´t buy my console to play in HDTV.

That´s it. End of the story. It doesn´t matter if the Wii just outputs 480p or if it runs in full 1080p - I bought it for the games. And because the Wii sells better it will get the better games. So who cares about HDTV? I want HDTV to watch my movies. Not to play games in HDTV. That´s nice but not a reason (not) to buy a console. Everytime the PS3 fans talk about how great Killzone is because of it´s graphics I think "Well, yeah. The graphics are great. But Halo 2 is a better game."

And you know what, Kwaad? As long as the Wii has the better games it will remain market leader. And you know that.