negative1 said:i think that blu-ray is just a stop-gap measure before another standard takes its place, or more people go digital..
just as digital downloads have replaced/outpaced physical sales with music.. it COULD happen with movies also, given the right combination of infrastructure / pricing / availability...
i'd like to think blu-ray will become a high-end videophile niche, much like what happened to laserdisc....
it will never go away, unless and IF, (and that's a big IF), they start discontinuing dvd's, and go blu-ray exclusive.. that would really push the format along....or have some (*AHEM STAR WARS*) movie that would also push it further..
again, the PS3 factor is really fading away.. PS3 sags in battle against xbox 360/wii http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123050978162738293.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_mostpop
"But early results from this holiday season aren't promising. U.S. sales of the PS3 fell 19% last month from a year earlier, while sales doubled for the Wii console and rose 8% for the Xbox 360, according to research firm NPD. "
later
-1
But one thing that never seems to be taken into account is the price of the consoles. The PS3 here is still £299 whereas the Xbox360 can now be got for as little as £100. Plus the Xbox360 & the wii can be chipped/ hacked so you can play backups. The PS3 can't. Once that can be hacked then sales will start to take off as long as they start to get better games for the PS3. The ones available at the moment aren't that great compared to ones on the XBox. But has nothing to do with how well blu-ray is doing.
Digital downloading for movies will never work here in the UK as long as BT continues to charge such high prices for lease of their lines. All but one ISP has download limits. Even ones that say they are unlimited have what they call fair usage policies. You can download a couple of GB (sometimes its even as low as 700mb) and then your speeds drop so much that you only just about surf the net let alone download a movie.
DVD's took a long time to take off because many people said they were happy with their videos. The same thing is happening with Blu-ray. It will be a couple of more years before we see which way the format will go.
But with the way the financial climate is at the moment sales will continue to drop for most things as money becomes tight.