The death of HD-DVD - Who is responsible?

DISCLAIMER: I am not a PS3 or 360 fanboy. I am not a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD zealot. I am simply providing a point of view. Thanks for reading.

HD-DVD from Toshiba and Blu-Ray from Sony have been going toe to toe for a long time to claim superiority in the battle of the next gen media format. Whilst DVD itself is a secure format, the two afore mentioned formats offer high definition playback to media consumers looking for something a bit more premium.

Perhaps HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have gained the most attention in the video game console markets. It is in here that Microsoft and their Xbox 360 adopted HD-DVD whilst Sony and Playstation 3 chose Blu-Ray.

Technically both formats are reasonably similar with the exception that Blu-Ray can handle 50GB on a dual-layer disc compared to HD-DVD's dual-layer capacity being 30GB. Both formats have been well supported on a movie front with the occassional studio being paid to be exclusive to a certain format. For example Dreamworks were exclusive to HD-DVD and Warner Bros. recently became exclusive to Blu-Ray.

However the demise of HD-DVD was probably caused by a factor not related to the movie studios. Allow me to explain. Sony's PS3 incorporated the Blu-Ray drive into it's harware architecture. This meant that for every Playstation 3 sold, via way of a technicality, so was a Blu-Ray player. Additionally the PS3 games all come on Blu-Ray discs.

On the other hand, Microsoft sold it's Xbox 360 with HD-DVD drive as an optional extra. Consider also that Xbox 360 games were not sold on HD-DVD format. Essentially Microsoft were providing their userbase with the option to access High Definition movies for an additional price.

Now consider the total sales to date for Xbox 360 and PS3. Discount the fact the PS3 has had less time to make an impact than the competition and look at the rough sales figures to date. Xbox 360 has sold around 17.42m units whilst PS3 has sold around 10.7m units.

BUT the difference is whilst PS3 by virtue of it's hardware architecture has also sold 10.7m Blu-Ray players, reports say that of the 17.42m userbase there has still been only 10% adoption rate on the optional HD-DVD unit.

Granted Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were both available in standalone players for movie fans. BUT I can't help but feel that if Microsoft had chosen to make the HD-DVD drive part of it's internal architecture I believe it would be a battle that would still be going strong right now, or even that would have left Blu-Ray feeling distinctly bluer than they are right now!!

[LJWooly]

Microsoft don't like taking risks, or putting their faith in a product. Sony, on the other hand, took plenty of risks this generation (the biggest of which being Blu-Ray) and came out on top. That has to leave Microsoft a little sore.

Eventually, MS will include a Blu-Ray player in the 360, but it'll no doubt burn a hole in your pocket.