Right now since there are more HD-DVD players than Blu-ray players (at least according to what I've heard), their choice is a bit muddied. However, if Sony can get on the ball and get partners to come out with cheaper players and get more Blu-ray players into the wild than HD-DVD, then the remaining studios will have little choice but to switch.

On the other hand, Microsoft could literally flood the market with HD-DVD players if they wanted to. They have the money to do it.

Unfortunately, though, for HD-DVD, content is king. And from what I hear Blu-ray beats HD-DVD about 2 to 1 for available content.

What Microsoft really needs to do is bake Blu-ray into the 360 to take away that advantage Sony currently has for pushing the PS3...even though they are currently at a marked disadvantage in content (games) for the PS3 vs the 360.

It's all very interesting and makes me glad that I haven't bought one of the newer players on either side.

Although I do own a 360. Gamerpoints FTW!

same here.. I waiting for the next generation of combo players from Samsung.. due out later this year. it will have the profiles built into it.

I like both formats.. and both have strengths and weaknesses.

It may be less a matter of who can offer the most cash incentives and more a matter of whether changing sides can accelerate the end of the format war and start making up for the lull in DVD sales...

Of the current high definition DVDs, approx 75% are slated for Blu ray and only 25% HD DVD. Disney is all Blu Ray, now Universal and Lion's Gate. Soon to be Paramount as well. At CES, Microsoft said they would scale back HD DVD add-on players and soon offer a Blu ray add-on player for the XBox 360.

I'd say 2008 is the year HD DVD finally goes away.

I suspect HD-DVD will indeed fade away, but not right away. Warner, Paramount and Universal all have HD-DVD projects in the works that are far enough along that they will put out HD discs for a while. Warner said so itself when it announced its switch to Blu-ray alone. Where we may see the first indication of HD-DVD drop-off is if sales of HD-DVD players start falling off in the near-term.

Warner is doing what Paramount didn't do last fall - they are following through with the already-announced releases in HD-DVD before discontinuing support for it, whereas Paramount simply pulled all Blu-ray support (including titles that had already been put into production). The format won't disappear, but I do wonder what sort of sales numbers it will see.

Universal isn't with BD openhelix...

When I posted, every major news outlet had released Universal would support both formats. And, in fact, the might still one day... just not today - http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=180

There were a bunch of articles about that, but the ones I saw seemd to be mostly FUD - when you read them closely, all they said was that they believed Universal's contractual deadline for staying HD-DVD exclusive had already passed, meaning that they could change to Blu-ray without any penalty. Even that hasn't been officially confirmed at this point, though.

Not sure if this is simply rumor mill or hard news, but I pass it on -- reports that Toshiba will be dropping HD-DVD.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKN1451010520080215

Also, Walmart is dropping its support of HD-DVD, stopping sales of HD-DVD players and discs by June.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/15/technology/wal-mart_blu-ray/index.htm?postversion=2008021511