Interest in Blu-ray prior to PS3 was next to nil, but Sony managed to lure studios to the format with promises that PS3 would single-handedly guarantee it's success. Problem, it didn't happen. So maybe it was just a $150 mil. in cash that lured Paramount to HD-DVD, but it's more likely that Paramount jumped because HD-DVD sells more titles per HD-DVD player & those $200 HD-DVD players are on the way.

Including Blu-ray in the PS3 was an astronomical mistake by Sony because it created a single point of weakness for 2 extremely formidable adversaries, Toshiba & MS.

In the beginning, Disney and especially Fox chose BD because of the storage but especially because of the extra layer of security on the disc called BD+ http://www.afterdawn.com/gl...

Paramount was the only one that accepted the bribe because Universal chose to side with HD DVD from the beginning.

If they truly saw the advantage of going strictly hd-dvd then the 150 million announcment would have not existed.

Neways blu-ray will still dominate because they still have Disney, Sony, and WB. These are the top 3 companies that grossed the most amout of money from both dvd sales and theatre sales.

The sales of blu-ray discs are still beating the sales of hd-dvd sales just over a 2 to one margin.

Its funny how hd-dvd enthusiasts/ xbox fans say blu-ray has such a low attach rate. Lets put things in perspective at a statistical standpoint hd-dvd is still pretty much a luxury item just like blu-ray players. But the only ppl REALLY buying the hd-dvd discs are those early adopters who went out and bought the standalone player. And early adopters tend to buy a crap load hence making it seem like a high attach rate.

As for ps3 which makes up 90 percent of the blu-ray players out there and 60 percent are not ware of the blu-ray capablity YET. The ps3 represents more of the casual market, and it just takes a couple million dollars here and there to open up these 60 perecent potential from the casual market.

The difference is blu-ray already has hardware inside homes of casual users, even though most of them dont know they have the potential to play high quality movies.. While looking at the other side hd-dvd does not have this yet even if you factor in the xbox addon (cuz quite honestly most xbox fanboys dont want to purchase the hd-dvd because of the extra cost and percieved notion that it is a non useful feature)

IMO the attach rate of hd-dvd seems pretty artificial right now for the hd-dvd camp. Because we only see enthusiasts buying the disc.

I've been to many households and I can assure you a good portion of them have less than 100 Standard DVD's bought for their whole collection over a ~10 year life cycle. Yet alot of hd-dvd enthusiasts mentioned they have like 50 disc already for their hd-dvd collection.

100 discs for dvd is not so much imo, and this brings up the idea that most ppl rent movies or trade with friends and family. As long as BDA can increase their shelf space in rental stores and retail stores
over hd-dvd , hd-dvd will not survive. BDA has taken the first step already, getting exclusive rights from blockbusters and target.

It's crazy to think that the only money exchanging hands is on the HD DVD side of things.

Looking at the HD market, if bluray outsells HD DVD 2:1, that means multiple studios are willingly giving away a THIRD of their HD sales! If I was a Disney or Fox stockholder, that would not be going over very well with me, unless there was some sort of compensation for the loss of revenue from the HD DVD sales loss.

If anyone honestly thinks that any exclusive studios except Sony and Universal are exclusive because they just believe in one format over the other, you're crazy. Companies believe in one thing, the bottom line. In fact, Sony and Universal are only exclusive because if their side wins, there are benefits.

If you are to believe that Disney is bluray exclusive because they don't mind giving up a third of their HD sales, since the HD market is so small right now, then why is it so hard to believe that Paramount would give up part of its equally small market. If you are to believe Paramount could not possibly give up some of its sales without a payoff, you cannot believe Disney could possibly give up some of its sales without a payoff.

I think there was money going around. Obviously, there has been, but its been from both camps. Bluray is no more innocent than HD DVD if you consider business deals a terrible thing.

None of it matters, though. Unless HD TVs and one of the formats can become affordable ($150 or so for a standalone player) for the average person, the format war will not end. HD DVD is oh-so-close to the affordable player, and is at the upper end for some people, and will obviously get there first. The problem, though, is that HD TVs are still too expensive to justify going out and buying one when you're old TV is still working, and all those analog sets still have a couple years before they're trash.

The simple fact is that people will have to want HD before this war will end. As it is now, most people I know still record with VCRs, don't know what bluray is, and think HD DVD means holograms.

nor any of its board members (Sony, Panasonic, Disney, etc) have bribed anyone to show full exclusivity for the format. Target looked at how much shelf space was being wasted on a failing format, and dumped HD-DVD to the curb. Walmart looks to do the same. Another big retailer on the East Coast just did it. Even Blockbuster found out that inch-for-inch (in terms of shelf space) they were making twice as much off of Blu-ray than HD-DVD.

These were all sound business decisions that were decided upon after almost a year of careful analysis and full support of both formats.