Upcoming games that makes me glad I'm a species born with opposabl

[Lissa]

Taking just what Paramount has said in their press release and the present trend of HDdvd price points I expect they are betting on HDdvd because that format will obviously be the first to have their stand alone players break the mass market $250 price point.

blu-ray is selling more software at the moment but most of that i would suspect is coming from people that bought a playstation. the blu-ray stand alone players are selling like... well they aren't. by the time that HDdvd can get thier players down to $250 (possibly even this christmas) blu-ray players, playstation included, will still be above 400.

this paramount switch is big news for the so-called HD format war, because prior to this the blu-ray camp tended to rely on their "exclusive support" to justify claims that blu-ray was the clear winner. what people don't like to mention is that BD hasn't really done much with all these exclusive studios. most of the movies released are available on both formats and ironically out of all the exclusive movies i find the most interesting ones on HDdvd. Blu-ray has really dropped the ball on their exclusive support (Casino Royal being the only real exception.) This fact really undermines the Fox Announcement that followed Paramounts. Blu-ray studios, fox included, have been saying forever how they will have the most exclusive content but we sure haven't seen it yet. Add to that they've announced movie releases which never panned out, and i still have my doubts as to the effect of the "exclusive content" on blu-ray.

The end result of all this is that yes, Playstation 3 is a big blu-ray benefit now as it is the sole reason that they are moving so much software. All bets are off, however, when HDdvd can lower their player prices down to $250 or below (which will happen much sooner than blu-ray) If a price point down near $200 isn't enough to push the tide in HDdvds favor than nothing probably will.

Edit: and back on topic, Space Giraffe hits this weds!

Another thing to note about the two formats, right now HD has the ability to hit 50 G of space on a single disk while Blueray is struggling to hit 25 G. If the drives get down in price, can achieve rewritable access, and someone produces these drives for computers, HD will get a major coupe. Overall, Blueray has some very steep technology hurdles to overcome that HD has already gotten over. If more information on these techonology hurdles comes to light, HD is going to start looking better and better over Blueray.