To say that Microsoft "went with" HD-DVD is an overstatement. The player was an add-on, did not affect the price of the base console, and they never put out a single game in an HD-DVD format. If Microsoft has gone with anything, its digital downloads.
 

Microsoft actually has stated that they'll likely make a Blu-Ray add-on if it is needed. So expect that announcement within the year.

As for the format wars, I'd say it's very likely the PS3 will catch the 360, even as a proud 360 owner myself.

The RRoD issues combined with the selling power of the Playstation brand will be too tough to keep Sony at bay once the console sees another price drop around Xmas (it will happen). If Msoft is still the number 2 selling platform by the Holidays of 2008, I'd be surprised.

Still, it's just good to see that all 3 are so close... except Nintendo maybe. They seem to be running away with their little waggle-remote that could.
 

This war would have been over a long time ago if Sony hadn't used crappy mpeg2 conversions on many films in their 2007 Blu-ray releases. If it weren't for the picture quality competition that HD-DVD created, Blu-ray movies wouldn't have been any better than upconverted DVDs.

Blu-ray is still a buggy format, requiring you to update the firmware on your player constantly, and in some cases, movies don't even play on your expensive Blu-ray player. The _only_ reliable Blu-ray player is still the PS3 game console, which makes the format somewhat of a joke.
 

ps3 outsold the 360 last month and that was only when the rumour was about. I'm sure the the whole Format war will do the PS3 a whole lot of good.

I was personally sitting on the fence wether to pick up a ps3 (and use it also as a BR player) but wasn't sure that it would win the format war, I already have a 360 and was swaying over buying a hd-dvd player.

So it's finally made up my mind, I will get a nice shiney new ps3 when a decent games is released for it :D
 

Huzzah for blue-ray! The Japanese have had it for years anyways.. its just us(US) lagging as usual. Next thing will prolly be purple ray, then ultraviolet ray, then xray or gamma ray... no, that won't work :P (don't want consumers to get too many RAD's)
 

As others noted, MS really went with DVD, and that is still winning by a landslide. The HD format war has been the biggest tempest in a teacup I've ever seen. It'll be interesting to see if HD adoption picks up given a single format. I'm inclined to think it won't, and that other market factors have been more significant.

As a data/game format, though, I don't see the point of it. Optical hasn't kept up with hard drive technology, and there's no indication that the gigs of content they'd spread over multiple DVDs is going to be that much cheaper on a single Blu-ray disc. I mean, who cares if a "big" ~15GB MMO costs 3 x $0.10 to press DVDs compared to one $0.20 HD disc when the game ends up being $75 anyway?
 

Well I'm glad that the format war finished before it even really started over here in the UK. I know precisely one person with a HDTV over here, so the whole issue is a bit moot at the moment.
 

The 360 may be coming out with an internal Blu-ray player. And MS is getting the next gen console ready for release, so it's unlikely that any headway that Sony gets from this announcement will last.

And no one is going to care about the DVD format in a year or two. They will dump DRM for movies just like they have for music. You won't be going to Best Buy to get a new movie on Blu-ray, you'll be buying it online and downloading at home.
 

I already bought the MS HD DVD, got enough free movies and still plan on buying those that go on discount that the news doesn't really matter, basically got my HD movies for $10 and a upconverting player.

I won't be buying blu-ray anytime soon until they iron out all the issues, the v2.0+ settles down, and the price drops near to the HD DVD player mark of $150.

As much as I'd like to see downloaded HD movies take of (I'm already an avid user of Amazon Unbox on my Tivo, but only for the $1-2 weekend rental specials), I really don't see it happening anytime soon.

Digital downloads of movies are too price prohibitive at the moment, everybody wants to charge $4-5 per HD title, $3 for standard. If they hit the $3 price point I could see higher uptake on HD rentals, especially since consumers are expected to foot the bill for hardware on their end (Tivo, MS Media Center, vudu, etc.).

The other issues is portability, music download DRM lockin by companies like Apple is very real, at least up till recently when mp3 was made available, then later for the same price.

If they can provide a mpeg4 non-DRM video with reliable storage media that can transfer your videos freely to other devices it would have a chance.. but do you honestly think the studios want to give you that power? Or just keep selling you the same content multiple times over?
 

Yes I don't make much of MSFT's support of HD-DVD, it was just an addon, and halfhearted. The hubbub was part of why they put a DVD player in instead of a next-gen drive, that and increased load speeds.

Perhaps part of the difference between the VHS/Beta wars was now Sony controls a lot more content creation, and could use that to basically create a market.

Though what's funny is so few people own one that who knows what's even going to happen in the future. It's quite likely that downloadable and streaming content supplants DVD, and Blu-ray dies off in a few years.
 

It's sad that nearly 3/4 million players can be junked like that. Just some simple economics show how easy it would be to support two player types, but big money gets involved and sides have to be drawn. In the end, consumers lose, because in five years, Blu Ray will be shit without the need to improve due to competition.
 

Microsoft didn't go with HD-DVD, they went with DVD. I own an xbox but I fail to see why I would want a HD-DVD or Blue-Ray player add-on for a console.
In the end they're both going to lose when everything is available through the net. The sooner I can buy my favourite DVDs and Games off the net and directly download them, the better.