Well is it ? At the moment it looks like that's the case. PS3 is equipped with the new Blu Ray format and Xbox360 is offering HD-DVD drive as a peripheral (for AU$250).
A lot of people compare the battle between the two formats to the battle of Betamax and VHS, and VideoCD and DVD. The winner of course was VHS and DVD. But can't the 2 formats co-exist together ? In the case of Betamax and VHS, it's impossible because the size is different in the first place. But with Blu Ray and HD DVD, it is more likely. A lot of "neutral" manufacturers are developing a player that will support both formats. I say "neutral" because they are not taking sides (yet).
However, Blu Ray might have the lead in Australia. JB Hifi, one of the popular retailers for CDs and DVDs, has said that they will only stock Blu Ray movies. Hmmm.....I don't how much Sony need to fork out to get JB to say that.
JB is not the only onw influenced by Blu Ray, it turns out that Xbox360 might go with Blu Ray format as well if it wins the battle of the next generation format. A Microsoft representative in UK mentioned this. This might happen or it might not. But does this portray a defeat for the Xbox camp ? The answer to that might still be a long way ahead of us.
Right now, people are still happy with DVD right now, the price is right, the collection is abundant. The high definition (HD) revolution has only begun to be embraced and people are still learning about HDMI, 1080i, 1080p, etc etc.
So until we see $100 players for both formats and a whole stack of movies in the new format, we might not know the winner just yet. And as far as the consoles are concerned, I think it's should be up to the games to decide who wins instead of the format they support.
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