No.  The movie studios won't decide, it will be the consumer.  If people don't buy Blu-ray players because they are too expensive, I assure you that Hollywood is not going to start telling the 95% of the world that still watches standard DVDs to take a hike.  They want money, and the market will decide if Blu-ray ever actually becomes the norm.  I hope it does, or I'll be mad that I wasted my money on a BD player.

Either way, Sony needs to cut the players ASAP (and not just a $150.00 player black Friday sale).  I mean they need to make it the standard pricing, or streaming media will kill Blu-ray before it's even had a chance to blossom.  DVDs are still good enough for the large majority of the world.

Wrong. Consumers will decide because not every movie studio would take that "Blu-ray first" mentality and consumers would continue to flock to their product, ensuring additional sales and profits over the more expensive Blu-ray titles.

In the end, consumers will flock to Blu-ray when the price is competitive with DVD. When there is little price advantage to be found from buying DVD over Blu-ray, there is no reason to stick with the old format, even if you own an SDTV with mono sound. As time passes, fewer and fewer people will see a reason not to upgrade.

This won't be a DVD vs. VHS battle where huge gains are made... This will be a slow, uphill climb for Blu-ray and they better hope no other format appears on the horizon within the next five years. Personally, I don't think one will.

To draw comparisons, my first DVD player (bought in early 1997, around February, I think) set me back $500.

The first several DVD titles I bought (12 were released at the time... Yes, twelve) were $35 apiece.

Those were 1996/7 dollars. Think of what that equates to today... $600 player? $40 titles?

Prices drop. It happens. On the upside, I just finished watching Trainspotting again 20 minutes ago... One of the original DVD titles I bought.

Well it's sort of chicken-eggy then because many people will not adopt Blu-ray until the disc prices are far less dear...but they need the higher install base to justify making them cheaper.

It just seemed like as soon as DVD was released you couldn't find a new release VHS anywhere...let alone for a third of the price of a DVD. I guess the gains aren't as extreme and there's more incentives to stick with DVD as every man and his dog most assuredly owns one and for some reason it's accepted as 'good enough'.

Maybe Sony could pioneer a timed release strategy i.e. release Sony Pictures movies a week earlier on Blu-ray than DVD, they have the means and motivation to do such a move.

Actually, it was years before DVD prices were below VHS, and that's doubly absurd considering the manufacturing costs behind each. VHS, with its crazy moving parts, were far more "expensive" to make, they just had to fit a price point to reach consumers. DVD was a luxury item and was priced as such. Over time, those two ideas will meld (as production costs drop) and Blu-ray will consume the market.

There is no reason it won't. Unless a new format arises.

Again, to point out what I'm saying, I think many of you didn't know that DVD even existed until 1998 or 1999, long after it was released. With the internet around now, we pay attention to these things and can find out up-to-the-minute information on everything. These comparisons and timelines just don't make sense to someone who kicked and screamed over DVD for three fuckin' years before people started buying them en masse.

If new format arrives then Blu-ray will go down to $50-100 players and movies attached to magazines for 5$ and we will be discussing how does new format does against good old bluray everyone has :D

Hans plays with Lotty, Lotty plays with Jane. Jane plays with Willy. Willy is happy again.

Well, clearly Blu-ray will have a big christmas, I'm buying my first one after all (Dark knight).

^^^don't you already have a PS3?

lol i think he means his first Blu-Ray movie