Why am I buying this again?

I've recently had a few discussions with some friends about BluRay and HD-DVD, and the question always seems to be the same: which one will dominate the marketplace? Which format do I side with? My answer: neither.

It's not that I dislike the concept of next gen media formats--I think they're great. It's just that if we're trying to predict which one will get widespread adoption, isn't presumptuous to think that the public will actually embrace a new media format? After all, what is the real incentive here?

When you get down to it, what advantages does BluRay offer when it comes to movies? As far as I can tell, the main ones are: a) much higher data capacity, which means movies can be stored in High Definition, and b) Better copy protection, which makes the movie studios happy (but probably annoys consumers).

While I can certainly envision several people I know racing out to buy a BluRay player to take advantage of watching high-definition movies, it's a bigger leap for me to imagine average Joes shelling out big bucks for this. Even though the prices for HD TVs keep dropping, there is still a huge investment to take advantage of BluRay, especially since it's only been about 7 years since DVDs replaced VHS as the dominant format.

Why won't BluRay replace DVD just like DVD replaced VHS? DVD had numerous advantages over DVD that consumers embraced: a) better picture quality and sound, b) more compact, c) ability to skip forward or ahead (i.e. no more need to rewind), and d) ability to add special features like audio commentary, subtitles, etc. Ultimately, DVD enhanced the movie watching experience in so many ways that consumers would pay for a DVD player (probably about $300-400 in the "early" days).

But with BluRay, we're talking about $1000 to buy a player, and this is assuming you've already invested in the TV. Just to get a better picture, but no other value-add. Why should I, or anyone else, get excited about this? The most common response to my skepticism has been, "Haven't you seen the picture that BluRay gives you? It's amazing!" Probably true. But DVD Audio and SACD formats were also a amazing upgrade in audio, and those formats never quite took off either.

This isn't to say that people won't eventually be ready for BluRay. It may take years, but eventually players will get cheaper and HDTVs will be more common. But by the time that happens, it's not too hard to imagine that some other new format will have appeared and brought something more to the table. Perhaps this is more a matter of market timing than anything else, but I just can't see the general public getting excited about BluRay OR HD-DVD.

On a final note, conversations I have with people about BluRay are usually linked to the Sony PS3 and its BluRay capability. Let me say now that when it comes to the video game console wars, it's pretty easy to make a case that Nintendo has already won this battle. Wii has sold three times the number of PS3s, and they're STILL not available in stores. Not saying that one's better than the other, just that it's easy to see which console is going to grab the biggest slice of the video gaming pie.