Its long, so I'm not going to post it all here:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/home-entertainment/articles/bluray-struggles-to-break-through/2008/10/07/1223145318783.html

Some excerps from it:

 - standalone BluRay players just not selling

 - BluRay titles account for less than 2% of the movie market in Australia & France

 - "" account for less than 5% in the US

 - this holiday season critical, big push to drive BluRay awareness

"Even for a new technology, the penetration figures are low considering Blu-ray has been on the Australian market for two years and its main competitor, HD DVD, was axed just under a year ago."

"The shift from VHS to DVD a decade ago offered tangible benefits such as significantly improved picture quality and the ability to skip instantly to any scene of the film. However, Blu-ray's improvements over DVD are less pronounced and largely limited to a noticeable but far from extreme increase in picture quality, provided a big screen HDTV is used."

"Paul Uniacke, managing director of Blockbuster and Video Ezy in Australia, said all of his stores stocked Blu-ray titles for rental and many customers were now buying multiple copies of each title. However, the format still made up less than 2.5 per cent of total rentals."

"He refused to predict when Blu-ray would replace DVD as the dominant format in Blockbuster and Video Ezy stores. However, he said he recently met representatives from a major studio that predicted 2011 would be a critical year for mainstream adoption, with the studio's Blu-ray sales expected to rise from $35-40 million this year to $200 million."

"Samsung's director of consumer electronics in Britain, Andy Griffiths, told Pocket-link last month that the company saw the Blu-ray format lasting only a further five years before it was replaced by a new format or technology.

He said 2008 would be "huge" for Blu-ray and that Samsung was "heavily back-ordered at the moment".

Some predict that when broadband connections become ubiquitous and prices drop, people will ditch the disc altogether and move to downloading their movies from the internet."

"Sony Australia's brand and channel marketing manager, Vanessa Hamilton, said Blu-ray players, initially priced at more than $2000 for a stand-alone unit, had struggled to compete with DVD players that at the time sold for under $500 each. A DVD player could now be had for less than $200."

(umm - I can pick up a DVD player for closer to $50, and an awesome one with excellent upscaling for around $100...)

(etc)

...

Its an unfortunate time for the financial crisis to hit - HDTVs & BluRay players will certainly be considered a "luxury". I definitely have no interest in them, or any plans to pick one up in the future.

While the sales of stand alone blu-ray players are underwhelming, the ps3 is picking up steam and more ps3 owners are now buying blu ray movies. Personally I have around 20 movies and a friend of mine has over 30. And neither of us has a stand alone player.

I think that within the next 12-18 months blu ray will become the standard format give or take 6 months.

Australia and France really make up a large market.... not... lets check the full EU not 1/28 countries....

didn't know that not selling good enough in Australia or France means the end of that technology

A bit off topic but I find it strange that all movies in Thailand are now on Blue Ray (or atleast 80% of them).

I hope Blu-ray succeeds, but they need to get the !#@$!%@#$ standalone players down in price so people end up adopting the players instead of standard DVD players. I'm not paying more than $150 for a standalone player.

Why does every article mention the expense of a blu ray player, but neglect to mention the extra expense of the blue ray movies themselves? Because that's the main thing putting me off Blu-Ray

Well...maybe it's just like high-end (or even mid-fi, depending on who you're talking to) audio equipment...95% of consumers can't tell the difference, or don't care?
Also, the players REALLY need to be cheaper at this point.

(I buy almost all of my movies in blu-ray format though)

I assume that a large amount of the price differential is due to the relative rarity, and most analysts assume that once Blu-Ray gets dominance over DVD, price is going to drop.

Like I have said before. They should make some only on Blu ray movies like they do in Japan.

The most consumers don't have an idea what an Blu Ray player is but if they want a movie and they know it is only Blu Ray they are going to be interested to buy a Blu Ray player.