i think the only way blu-ray wins out is if they adapt the technology to be able to play existing dvd's. whether that means developing a 2 laser system or separate trays or whatever, people are just not going to give up on the number of dvd's that have been sold in this country. it seems to be the more elegant technology, but unless you can play your dvd's in a blu-ray player, it will remain a niche technology.
as for internet downloads of hd movies, i don't think that's really going to gain a foothold for years. i just don't see people integrating their computers to that extent. how many people do you think would really like having PC's sitting in their living room next to their wall-mounted plasmas? plus, imagine how long it would take to download a 40 gig movie...even if it's cheaper, people would much rather drive to best buy and pick up the movie in 15 minutes than deal with downloading for days, imo.
I have a Sony Blu-ray unit (BDS-S1) and it does play our standard DVD's. The PS3, which is a Blu-ray player, also plays standard DVD's.
I believe the success of Blu-ray is contingent on the success of Sony's PS3. PS3 will (should) be a trojan horse just as PS2 was for DVD. But unless Sony can increase the availability of PS3 they will lose out on both fronts; next-generation HD and next-generation gaming. Nintendo's Wii is proving to be a strong front-runner to both MS Xbox 360 and PS3.
Well kinda, the Xbox is well in the lead with 3.4 million consoles sold. The Wii only has 476,000.
i think for that stat to be more meaningful, you would need to either compare the xbox sales during the period that the wii has been available, or the xbox sales during its first month against the wii's first month(or however long its been available)
so for the month of Nov, the xbox 360 sold 511,000 (the whole month) while the wii sold 476,000 in the last two weeks alone.
granted, this is the initial release, and both sold out completely during release...however, I believe with the media behind the wii like it is, whatever it ships to NA in December, it will sell, thus reducing the total sales of the xbox360...i still think the 360 will sell b/w 750k-mil for Dec...less if Nin can ship alot of wii's