The Video Game Critic

Many of us thought HD-DVD would win the HD wars and that PS3 crippled its success by inluding a blu-ray player. Blockbuster thinks just the opposite.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6762621.stm

[QUOTE=andrew]Many of us thought HD-DVD would win the HD wars and that PS3 crippled its success by inluding a blu-ray player. Blockbuster thinks just the opposite.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6762621.stm

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Blockbuster?  Blockbuster?  I'm sorry, I seem unfamiliar with the company in question.  Oh wait, do you mean that obsolete relic that saw it's stock drop by something like 300% because they were completely blind during the last format war?

In any case, the format "king" won't be either.  It will be DVD until the actual non-stopgap format comes out.  Blu-Ray is the Zip drive of the home video universe.  Sure it's better, but not that much, and certainly not enough.

I think that to say at this point that this marks a victory for the PS3 is a bit disingenuious, because we really don't know how many people who watch Blu-Ray movies are using a PS3 to do it, as opposed to a stand-alone player (even though the PS3 is cheaper).

And even if more people are using the PS3 for Blu-Ray movie playback, it's tough to say if that's actually helping Sony's system sales now.

Totally agree DVD is king for a few more years anyway. This maybe huge though in the wars. As for the PS3, we all said the blu-ray drive would cripple its success. But if blu-ray wins, it won't be as much of a boneheaded move by Sony to include it on the PS3, but still a limiting bad choice to begin with.

To say that Blockbuster's choice means the end of HD-DVD is very presumptuous.  Lot's of much more influential companies have had to pick a side, like Disney, and it hasn't made a clear winner.

You'll know which format made it when poor shmoes like me are able to afford a player. I'm not a big movie watcher anyway, I watched more taped TV shows on my VCR. To me, the selling point of DVD was not "no rewind" or better picture (hard to tell on my 8 year old RCA-jack TV set anyway) but the introduction of DVD SETS of Tv shows like M*A*S*H, all the STAR TREKS, FAMILY GUY, SOUTH PARK and so on...I had basic cable while married and didn't even GET a lot of these shows! So being able to see SOUTH PARK (and more recently THE BOONDOCKS) was the reason I got DVD.

The only two reasons I'd move up (when I can afford to) would be 1) you can RECORD as well as play on the units (can you? I haven't been following....I would guess yes on HDDVD) and of course 2) the medium becomes so popular, DVD stuff ceases to be made (as happened with VHS).

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/8283/9307/Blu-ray-disks-rot-problems-reported.phtml

Apparantley there are problems with the blue ray disk.  I am going to wait a couple of years and see if they iron out the bugs.
As for Blockbuster they are dinosaurs who just have not worked out they are dead yet.  They will. 

how can there be a next gen winner, when HDTV has yet to penetrate even 40% of the market? its a battle of videophiles to see which format is the next laser disc, and it wont really matter for 2-5 years.

[QUOTE=Astrosmasher]As for Blockbuster they are dinosaurs who just have not worked out they are dead yet.  They will. 
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Are you sure about that?  Remember, Blockbuster is owned by Viacom, a huge company, and they can just keep putting money into the venture if they want to.

In addition, with the Blockbuster Online thing, they allow people to rent online and even go to the store and get new stuff if they don't want to wait.  Whether they can take down NetFlix with such a system remains to be seen, but you have to admit that they've got their finger on our ADD, "I need everything now" culture, and that will undoubtedly help them.