My thoughts on recent developments in the movie format war below. For the record, I own 19 HD-DVD's and 12 Blu-Ray movies so far. Of those HD-DVD's, 4 are dual-format so I can watch those on DVD too. My new computer plays both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, so I'm well covered both in the living room and the home office.

1. Blu-Ray hasn't "won" anything. It still only represents .8% of movie sales and the jury is still out on whether a next gen physical media device is even viable given the rapid adoption of digital downloads and increasing market penetration and speed of broadband internet access.

2. Blu-Ray beating HD-DVD doesn't suddenly validate anyone's purchase of a PS3. The PS3 needs to be judged as a gaming machine based on its game library and feature set. It would be a sad reflection on the PS3 if its success was contingent on playing movies rather than games.

3. Back to HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray - the consumers never had a chance to make a choice (see .8% reference above). This was decided by movie studio exec's lured by "incentives" the Blu-Ray association paid them combined with the lure of more stringent DRM and region locking to further drive up their profits. Curious how only Toshiba's "incentives" got negative press last year, while Sony's have been praised. Surely, this has nothing to do with how much advertising Sony pays these publications (I'm looking at you Hollywood Reporter)...

4. Since before launch, MS has often stated that the 360 is a modular system. This allows consumers the choice to decide what features are important to them and gives MS the flexibility to respond to market conditions with new add-on's and SKUs. Toshiba dropping HD-DVD does nothing to change that. If market surveys show 360 consumers want a Blu-Ray add-on and/or SKU MS will put one on the market.

5. The phenomenal success of the Wii is all the proof anyone needs that movie formats have absolutely no bearing on the success of a "game" console.