I was one of the folks who thought that Blu-ray was going to eliminate HD-DVD and by this time HD-DVD would be toast. In fact, I was one of the analysts who helped convince Time Warner to hedge its bets and go with both formats.
However, this was all before I knew the cost of the Blu-ray technology, and it was based on the assumption that Sony would never be stupid enough to price itself out of the game console market, effectively giving it to Nintendo and Microsoft.
Not only was Blu-ray too expensive, the technology wasn't as far along as Sony led us to believe. The delays not only make the PS3 too expensive; they made it late. That was effectively a one-two punch, knocking Sony out of the lead so far in the game console business. Now, Sony is dead last by a significant margin.
This means that developers, instead of favoring Sony with their best stuff, are now concentrating on the Xbox first, and increasingly the Wii. That's because both have more homes, and thus represent a greater revenue opportunity, than Sony does.
So instead of the PS3 ensuring Blu-ray's success, right now it appears that Blu-ray may have effectively killed the PS3, at least in terms of market leadership. We'll have to wait until the PS4 before Sony has a chance to come back.
I think all realize, or should, time isn't unlimited either. We are already talking about what comes after HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and scalers are getting so good that increasingly many are arguing that you don't need either now.
In other words, while Blu-ray can't win, in my view, there is still an excellent chance the market will simply bypass both if one doesn't ramp to high volume this year. In that instance, everyone loses.
