[QUOTE=JustLikeHeaven]
[QUOTE=Atarifever]
Well in that case I vote it's a case of UMDism. The buyers of the expensive PS3, while waiting for the library to be worth the money they spent on the console have to buy something to avoid buyer's remorse. Given that there are 1 million PS3s sold to consumers, and that HD-DVD and Blu-ray are new and haven't really been sold in huge numbers period, I'd imagine that can more than account for the difference. Still, UMD isn't exactly a universal format because of that situation arising early on the PSP, so this will likely be temporary.
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Normally I would agree with you, but there are a few differences between Blu Ray and the UMD format. First the UMD could only be used in the PSP. Second who wants to watch a movie on a tiny ass screen? Nobody...had they waited until the PSP had a decent install base to start making movies it might have faired a little better. Probably not though. Putting movies on UMD "seemed" like a good idea, but financially it wasn't too well thought out.
Pretty much everybody has a DVD player by now...if Blu Ray "wins" this so called format war it isn't going to die off. You are correct in saying that people with new PS3 are buying Blu Ray disc, but its also people with new HDTVs. Blu ray offers something better than what is available right now and as more people get into HD quality television they are going to want their movies to follow suit. If HDDVD is no longer around they will have to choose Blu Ray movies. This probably won't happen for 3-5 years, but in theory the Blu Ray format could survive and even become a new standard.
Of course it could still go down the toilet and Sony's executives will be begging on the street for spare change...
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Well I'm not saying it will definitely fail, just that the current difference is likely due to PS3s. Actually, Ive had a bit of a conspiracy theory for some time about this. It goes like this:
Sony knows that the PS3 will do fairly poorly as a console, because of the expensive Blu-ray inclusion. They have known this from the start. However, they know that even a modest selling Sony console (say 40 million) would become the dominate High def. movie player. As Sony owns patents out the yingyang for Blu-Ray they stand to make a lot of money from movies, computers, software, etc that use the Blu-ray format. If it really becomes standard, they may even make money on the next next gen. consoles if they all have to use Blu-ray not to seem obsolete. In the end, Sony "loses" a round of videogame systems (while still staying alive in there), and gains entire markets elsewhere. Then, it'd just be a matter of trying to battle back into the top spot in videogames, or at least holding on until they're in a position to try at it again.
