deception is vital to war, maybe sony wants microsoft think they won only to find out miscrosoft needs blu ray technology in its future.

 Not likely, Nintendo at this point doesn't even need to expend the energy.

I frankly don’t know to what extent if any, Sony sacrificed the PS3, or at least put it at risk for Blu-ray. I personally just think it was a colossal miscalculation based on a presumption that people would pay whatever they wanted to charge in order to own the next PLAYSTATION.

If they did however I think it may be a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. As has been pointed out, they head a consortium so they don’t get all of the licensing fees which are not generally huge in any case. For the next few years as the public somewhat begrudgingly accepts it, it will undoubtedly line their pockets. The long term outlook is less certain.

Those of us in fields that involve intensive image storage, for example, were very excited about its use for archiving off servers in an inexpensive and readily accessible form. I purchased a pair of BD-burners for that purpose. However storage space has become so inexpensive with 1TB disk

Unfortunately for the OP, BluRay is the result of a consortium of twenty or so different companies which will all share in the revenue.

No doubt Sony used the PS3 as a BR "trojan horse" - it is likely what allowed BR to best HD-DVD. However, it is hard to believe that Sony just threw themselves on the grenade and sacrifice a decade's worth of profit just to help ensure the BR consortium won out over Toshiba.

Think about it. The PS brand started before DVD, and will likely outlive DVD (or at least DVD as the dominant format), and we all know there are storage formats that will be coming out in a few years to oust BR as well. Why then would Sony abandon a proven, profit making franchise - not to mention profit in general- for shared dominance in a transient storage medium?

Blue Ray is shockingly under performing now, it doesn't look like its doing what was intended then.

Dont think it was PS3 that won the format war for Blu Ray 

More massive stupidity from the na media site, no wonder your economy is where it is.

Is it me or is someone out there planting excuses for Sony's failures this gen?

The problem with the article is this-

One has to be really f*****g retarded to throw away an entire multi billion dollar division. Corporations are out there to make as much money as possible. Not throw away billions in profit.

So...stop with the excuses. Sony messed up. But it's not over yet.

It sure as hell helped. Whether people wanted the BR or not, by including BR in the PS3 they were able to give BR a substantial boost in market base, which made it more appealing by far to the studios.

By January 2008, Toshiba had sold 1m dedicated HD-DVD players, compared to nearly 10m PS3s.* The studios, like WB, were concerned that the format war was causing a stagnation of the HD market, and knew that they could end it by picking a side. Given the disparity in market base, there was only one choice to make.

*At the same time there were about 16m 360s on the market. Had MS put in HD-DVD compatability, it would have increased the console's cost and reduced overall sales, but also increased the long term viability of HD-DVD. Thus MS decision to avoid HD-DVD, and Sony's decision to embrace Blu-Ray, dramatically influenced the outcome of both the HD war and the console war.