I’m pretty surprised actually that the studios have allowed BR to pull through here since it seems such a technical mess. I don’t consider their strategies rational. Disregarding Sony (who should just split up already) it really seems they should pursue an any and all format/medium model.

MSFT probably need to ship a BR player fairly soon (at least by the end of the year) despite public waffling. They should also try to more effectively emulate the feature set of the HD formats in Marketplace. Marketplace HD is not at the quality level of an HD disc, has no extra (which I dont care about) and is not loanable, watchable in multiple places, etc.

My expectations for immediate HD penetration were diminished by this:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6495849.html

> I think a lot of people have been fence-sitting waiting for a winner

I guess my point was “I think a reasonable number of current fence-sitters with HDTVs big enough to care already own a PS3.” But then, my estimate of the number of fence-sitters probably differs significantly from yours. On a personal note: my HDTV is pretty darn big and I couldn’t care less about next gen DVD because I get HD content on demand via cable and/or Marketplace.

> as HDTV hits mainstream, the Wii becomes less attractive

I disagree. It’s pretty clear that people aren’t buying the Wii for the graphics, and I haven’t noticed any of my guests’ enthusiasm for “Wii Sports” diminished by the relatively large size of my plasma TV. Quite the opposite, really.

> boo for not including an HDMI cable connection with 98% of them

Don’t look at me — I’m portfolio manager, not hardware guy. :-)

I have to disagree with your analysis (if perhaps not your conclusion) about the impact of Blu-Ray winning the format war on machine sales. First, a lot more people have HDTVs than I thought, and the adoption rate is accelerating much faster than I anticipated (not that anyone asked me :-). But, more importantly, I think a lot of people have been fence-sitting waiting for a winner. If this is the ‘end’ of HD-DVD (and if Toshiba is giving up, I think you have to accept that), then people aren’t going to rush out to get Blu-ray, but when they replace that aging DVD player that doesn’t have HDMI or upconversion, they’ll definitely have to consider the marginal cost of the PS3 (effectively $0 right now) in the equation.

Moreover, as HDTV hits mainstream, the Wii becomes less attractive and although the other consoles more so. Congrats to MS for Live Arcade, it’s a great move, but boo for not including an HDMI cable connection with 98% of them. People are going to look at the field, see the ‘family friendliness’ perception of PS vs Xbox (fair or no) and have to consider it.

Now, since MS hedged it’s bet from the beginning by not including an internal HiDef reader, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the 360 Blu-Ray player come out soon (depending on contractual agreements that I don’t know) which takes the whole topic back out of the console argument.

Basically, and I’ve taken far too long to say this, format matters because of two things. Mainstream acceptance of HDTV will be more important than most people realize, and perception is reality in the adoption curve. MS has yet to truly break out of the ‘hardcore’ mkt (a statement I expect you do disagree with) because while they are good at predicting business adoption, they’re terrible at predicting consumer behavior.

Thanks for the inspiration, as always.