Indeed.  At the equivalent time DVD sold ~1.2 million units to BR's 400k.  Of course, there wasn't an on-going recession in 2000.  It wasn't until a year later that the tech industries began to waver.  If we throw the PS3 in the mix (since the PS2 still didn't exist at this point in DVD's life) though, we still see BR ahead by 30% or more.  The key will be this Christmas.  As the BR standard has already replaced DVD in Japan, it's fully possible that BR can still come out ahead in the west.

I think it'll "win" by default. 

Why the hell would you buy a DVD player when you can buy a Blu-Ray player, that still plays every DVD, for $149.99? $129.99? $99.99?

Eventually it'll get down to that price and you won't even be able to find DVD-only players at stores anymore. 

The same way almost no stores carry SDTV-tube sets anymore. This isn't necessarily great for the PS3 though ... because it takes away a selling point of the PS3 -- the Blu-Ray functionality isn't such a big deal when standalones are so cheap. 

It's not a coincidence that PS3 sales are down this year in the US whereas Blu-Ray players are up. 

DVD Players can upscale now for not a whole lot more. A lot of people think that it is enough as it is an improvement over SD and not too far off of true HD. As long as a DVD player w/ built-in upscaler is nearly as good as Blu-Ray and cheaper Blue-Ray is going to struggle.

But will people still care about disc based media by that time ?

The audio CD wasn't replaced by DVD-A / SACD, but by mp3. I think it's inevitable that DVD will slowly be replaced by various low bitrate streaming / downloadable video alternatives, not Blu-ray. And it's going to happen faster than most of us think. Even Sony have largely admitted that their future focus is the Playstation Network, not Blu-ray.

Blu-ray will likely end up a niche format like LaserDisc. Popular among home theater enthusiasts and well supported by the movie industry, but with zero mainstream appeal outside of Japan.

For an avarage consumer there are no real deference between MP3 and not compressed audio. Still difference between Bluray and DVD is obious if you got HDTV.

I'm thinking about getting one myself.
what do you think about this one
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/03/29/samsung-blu-ray-players-pop-up-online-bd-p4600-due-4-19/

Very nice GO GO GO!!!!

Alot of people i know are getting a Blu-ray player for one reason because they think its the next thing u have to buy and that dvds will soon be gone so they have to get a Blu-ray player. Just shows that average consumers have no idea.

BR is a dead format already.

US population is like what? 350M, count like 150 M potential customers (households) , how frecken great is it to gain a market penetration of 0.25% in 3 months? 1.00% in a year? 10% in 10 years???

Oh yeah the HD war is won all right...

What is considered the first part of the year?

I mean... the PS3 sold nearly that didn't it?