Well the war is (finally) over. No, not the one in Iraq but the HD format war. Earlier today (well yesterday actually since its 3am now) Toshiba announced its discontinuation of its HD-DVD business. Things went downhill pretty quickly for Toshiba recently and I think its a good thing they pulled the plug sooner rather than later. See below for an image of their HD-DVD site.
As far as the console war goes I think this is a huge boost for the PS3 since more people will be willing to invest in HD movie players now that Blu-ray is the winner.... and lets face it, if you going to buy a Blu-ray player you might as well get the PS3 and play some games too. I think PS3 sales will reflect this in the coming months and unless Microsoft can counter this somehow by maybe releasing a Blu-ray add-on for the 360 or something similar then this might be the turning point in the console war as well.
Microsoft released a statement saying: "...we believe it is games that sell consoles and Xbox 360 continues to have the largest next-gen games library with the most exclusives and best selling games in the industry." I think they are very naive if they think its just about the games.. why are they investing so much in Marketplace then if it was just games that sell consoles?? I for one would buy a PS3 as a Blu-Ray player first and as a gaming console second but the fact of the matter is that I still bought a PS3 ... and the PS3 install base still grows. Microsoft needs to consider their next move very carefully and not be so arrogant about their position in the market.
Another thing that needs to be considered is that there are over 100 million PS2's out there and most of those people have not upgraded to next-gen yet. Once they start doing so it is more likely for them to go to the PS3 than to the 360. Microsoft needs to be doing all it can to start winning over some of those PS2 owners.
