As many of you know, the battle of the high definition disc formats rages on. It's almost amusing to watch, but it's disturbing when one thinks back on the fight between Betamax and VHS. How many people bought Betamax players, only to have them become obsolete when VHS took the lead? They were left with an expensive player that they couldn't find movies for.
The same dilemma faces today's shoppers. While both BluRay and HD DVD players have been reduced in price, the HD DVD players lead in sales due to drastically lower prices (and they've been out longer). Unfortunately, BluRay leads in sales of movies, because the movies are cheaper, more abundant, and the wildly popular Sony Playstation 3 comes with BluRay capability built in. I think that Microsoft really screwed up when they didn't include HD DVD playing capability in the Xbox 360 as a standard feature (customers have to buy it as an option).
In addition, Sony PC's can now be had with BluRay players/burners built in to them. Add to this the willingness of movie studios to join the fray, and you have a real mess. The latest blockbuster movies being released in high definition formats are being released on one format or the other. Spiderman 3 will only be available in BluRay, while some others will only be available in HD DVD. Smart consumers won't give in to temptation, and will wait to see which format wins before purchasing a player.
I, for one, will NOT buy one of these golden machines until it becomes clear that the disc format will remain available for years to come. If I had to guess, I'd say that BluRay will probably win out; but that's just a guess.
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