at least in America, i heard that 45% of Europe has HDTVs and 60% in Japan. idk if these are correct but if someone could find out that would be awesome. 

 true but every day more and more people do get HDTVs especially around the time of the Super Bowl, and when theres major holiday sales.

I totally agree that TV's are becoming way to tech-savy, I usually have to spend 2 minutes explaining the remote anytime a guest wants to change the channel.

Also, I have an HDTV and I watch regular cable... picture is a little crisper in comparison to my old tv but not much of a difference. I'm not willing to spend the extra cash yet on digital cable because I just don't watch that much TV.

But I do play alot of video games (xbox 360) and that's where I really enjoy HD.. I also watch DVD's on the 360

Bloody hell, I know. I have a friend that has an HDTV. Recently, he got a PS3 and he was all hypey and wanted to show me /quote "how good PS3's HD graphics are compared to Wii's". /endquote

Ok, I went to his home and all was setup and he was like "Yeah! HD!", but I noticed something weird on the image... I checked the back connections of the TV, and he was using composite video... I didn't even told him, I knew it was gonna be a pointless effort

I guess that you could complain about technology in general, not just TV-related stuff.

That actually quite pissed me off after all of Sony's "out of the box" HD comments which is probably not helping a non techsavvy person understand they're not in HD yet. Luckily we had a set of components left over from the PS2 so didn't need to go out and buy another wire.

It could be argued that video gamers are more tech savy and know how to use HD enabled devices but the NPD survey found something like half of 360 and PS3 owners also didn't know their systems were "HD".

I've been saying it for some time, and I know squirrel has been saying it for some time also, that MS and Sony jumped the gun on HD. Especially considerring how expensive they had to make their systems to utilize it.

True there doesn't seem to be much debate in this thread, but other than an oddly subdued Hus none of the usual HD obsessives have made an appearence. 

this is true, but theres a good chance that the percentage will increase while prices of HDTVs go down more and more. What happens if next year the percentage is 8% the next 9%? also most HDTV manufactures are going to be spending an ass load of cash to advertise the benefits of HDTVs and HD signals.

Also the misinformation retailers give to customers would help.

I was listening to the sales guy at CC, he said:

"HD signal is a cleaner signal yes, and the government is making every american switch to HD in 2009. He also said that the transfer will cost 300 - 400 dollars. Also there is little to no chance this TV will be compatible with the switch (it was one of the newest Sony Bravia models)." 

 lets go through the errors here

1. yes HD signal is cleaner but its not called an HD signal its a digital signal its up to your converter box to tranmite the signal to the highest possible signal your TV can do.

2. The government is making us switch, but not to an HD signal, you dont have to have an HD signal for the switch, you have to be able to accept a digital signal. There will be digital to analog converter boxes.

3. $300 - $400? wtf is up with this crap? Switching out my cable box to an HD converter box was FREE. It wont cost customers barely more then $100 if they dont have a cable/satalite service installed yet.

4. Well they lost the sale due to this moron saying its not compatible when every TV out is.

Not saying all TV salesmen are this retarded but a guy like this at 50 store in 1 state that has the chance to sell 8 TVs during one day, theres a good chance that the customer will believe the moron and not by a new TV till 2009 unless they really need a new TV. Lets say the guy fails at selling 5/8 TVs. That would be a failure of selling 250 TVs on that one day in that state, multiply that by the fact theres 50 states that number becomes 12500 HDTVs unsold due to idiots like the guy above. 

Of course what I just said with all the unsold TVs are hypothetical but just saying this is most likely a major reason for only 7% sales of HDTVs each year.   

Nelson recently did a survey and found that something like 30% of Xbox 360 owners were aware that it was an HD console. Further compounding things are the people who know what HD is, such as myself, and don't care all that much about HD gaming. I care more about getting good HD TV programming and having a good HD-DVR than I do about HD gaming. I have an antenna on my roof because I have seen HD over the air is literally compressed less than HD via cable although I recently switched to satellite to get ~30 more HD channels for much less money.

And with all that and after spending $36/month for all that HD programming with the HD-DVR, I still watch standard def programming if that's the only way to get my favorite shows. I want to see them in high def, if possible, of course, but if they're not available in high def I'll still gladly watch them. Because they're good shows.

Do I wish the Wii could push resolutions higher than 480p? Sure, that'd be cool. But my number one priority when gaming is having fun gaming, not looking at pretty games. I'm not really satisfied with 480p or Pro Logic II, but they're both more than acceptable if the games are fun. And the games are very, very fun. The PS3 will probably have a lot of good games over its lifetime, so I might end up buying one once there are enough good games to justify it to me. And the 720p gaming and digital audio will be nice little bonuses, but it won't make or break my experience.

I'll never really be satisfied with the sound or graphics of any game system because they all have so far to go. In that respect, the PS3 and 360 are only negligibly ahead of the Wii in the grand scheme of things -- none of them are as good as I'd like them to be. So I'll just focus on how much fun the gaming experience is.

Well then it is settled,
HD gaming=niche perk
SD Gaming=the majority