I'll give they don't cost as much now, but the speed of the blu-ray drive has had slower loading speeds in practice, constant speed or not. This won't cripple the system (the PS1 and PS2 had slower loading than most of their competitions), but the loading is slower. 

Thats right. I never said that the 2X for Blu-Ray and 10X for DVD were comparable measurments, and fully acknowledge that there is no FIVE TIMES advantage. But as LOTK said, there is an advantage, and it compounds the technical obstacles to the PS3 being the gaming powerhouse Sony claims it is as a result of Blu-Ray. Lower disk reading + low memory = not good.

The prob though starcraft is even with its "slower disk read" and "lower memory" we have games like Ratchet and clank, which don't load mid-stage, stream GREAT textures, run at 60 fps, AND load like 8 million damn things on screen at a time, I'm not sure where the "not good" falls into the equation o.O??? Considering its a title launched within the first year also, if uncharted pans out, there will be a bunch of people eating crow. I'm just not sure where people get their comparison read-outs, ratchet was beyond gorgeous lol.

@Chronotrigger

I was talking in the context of Sony's claims. Things like be far superior to the Xbox 360, future-proofed, and part of a ten year cycle. We havent seen memory or read speeds impacting the 360 either. What I'm saying is that the PS3 will be hit by these specific limits before the 360, and that the low read speed, low memory and poor GPU are unfortunately disproportionate to the no-doubt powerful cpu, which is not good for gaming

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has revealed that the Blu-ray release of 'Spider-man 3' sold 130,000 copies the first six days at retail, 15,000 more copies than the Transformers HD DVD was reported to have sold its first week on store shelves. Having shipped 400,000 copies to retailers, this represents a 30% sell-off for the title.

David Bishop, President of Sony commented, "We are well-placed for the holidays. We got in before the key shopping season, and now you'll have more people getting into the market, as new players are launching from Sony, Sharp, Panasonic [among others]. It's our hope that they walk out with a player and Spider-Man 3."

The 130,000 sold does not include copies given away as part of a Sony promotion to provide the title to those who purchase a 40GB PS3. Sony expects demand to increase throughout the holiday season, with 'Spider-man 3' to remain a top seller. 

I know it's a cut and paste, but that 15,000 number is bogus. The source article on videobusiness does not mention that number. In fact, it mentions this:

On the HD DVD side, Paramount Home Entertainment touted selling 190,000 HD DVD units of Transformers in the week after its Oct. 16 bow. Many industry sources wound up disputing that figure, however, believing it was actually tens of thousands lower.

And according to that link, the dispute is just rival companies calling the numbers too high, but giving no proof of any exaggerations.

As for the Spider Man 3 sales, they are good, but it seems negative audience reaction hurt it, on both SD and HD fronts.  This has little to do with blu-ray or HD-DVD. I anticipate Shrek 3 and Pirates 3 to fall slightly short as well.

Yeah currently the largest HD debut on a single platform is transformers BY FAR

Transfomers only sold 115k so Spiderman 3 did outsell. Unless you think that paramount is a more reliable and neutral source than neilsen.

The majority of responses on this page of the tread seem to be talking about how Blu-Ray is going to win the HD format war, how Toshiba may not be making money, etc. But that has nothing to do with the OP. His post was not about Whether HD-DVD was better than Blu-Ray or that HD DVD would win the format war so all these responses seem irrelevant and off topic. His point was that including a Blu-Ray drive was bad for PS3. This forced a delay to its release which meant 360 got a head start which has clearly helped with third party publishers. It also increased the price of the console rediculously which has resulted in low sales for PS3. There is no way Blu-Ray can be said not to be bad for PS3 and if Sony fan boys can't see that then you are so blinded by your love for Sony that I almost feel sorry for you. Sony will in all probability win the HD format war but that is at the expense of the console format war.

Back to the OP as you say.  I believe that Blu-ray was initially a ball and chain round the PS3's legs, because of the delay and the much increased pricepoint, i.e. a good $200+ more than it should have been.  But now because of the apparent time it is taking developers to make games for the PS3, Blu-ray now seems like the PS3's potential saviour IMHO.  It is the delay of good games that it now causing the problem for the PS3 and certainly not the Blu-ray player.  In fact, I reckon a high proportion of all PS3 sales is down to people buying them for the Blu-ray player alone.