Let the Game Begins...or Not Yet?

Yup, guys... HD-DVD and Bluray DVD. Which one will survive? Like movie industry remakes, some people said that this one is the old story of VHS and Betamax. VHS took the lead with support from porn...uhhh...adult industry. The industry printing movies in VHS, creating demand for VHS players (no statistical backup, but it was believed that they influenced consumer demand) and pushing the VHS price down due to economies of scale. Movie industry then went VHS as it allowed bigger margin from lower cost. Betamax has better quality in term of picture, but they lost the biggest selling point, content.
I also believe that iPod video benefitted from the growing service of adult content for iPod, especially outside US. iTunes Store only sells music videos in non-US markets. I bet being able to have porn at your disposal almost anywhere created demand for iPod videos - at some rate. No, I don't have porn in my iPod. :)
I believed that the battle between HD-DVD and Bluray will be decided by adult industry. However, it seems that it won't be the case, as per article here. They decided to wait. They waited for the games industry, the war between XBox and PS3, representing HD-DVD and Bluray. What? So we have a new twist on this remake story....games. Off course, games back then used catridges. They were not part of the equation that time, nor computer industry. So will the success of HD-DVD or Bluray depended on Microsoft and Sony? I think not. It depends on the game software industry. EA, Ubisoft, etc will play major role in this war. They are the ones whom will decide which platform they want to go to more, just like adult industry in previous war.
XBox and PS3 still playing some role, but at the end the content decides. I still believe in that. XBox sold more consoles this year, they are ahead in the game. But it ain't over, nor started. XBox in the hand of users now don't have HD-DVD, they need to fork out extra dollars to buy external drive. Still a question whether users want to upgrade to HD-DVD. Microsoft may wanted to play it safe by not including HD-DVD built-in. They still have option to sell external Bluray in the future. Sony, however, went all the way with PS3 and Bluray. Not surprising as Sony owns Bluray. Sony believes that they have enough content to support Bluray - support from Sony's movie distributions. Still, Sony has to get the buy in from games industry - really, really bad. Sony needs to sell PS3 to them and the customers. Honestly, PS3 is still the cheapest Bluray player in the market, too bad not cheap enough. Sony sees PS3 as a way to penetrate households with Bluray players, and willing to subsidise - PS3 is sold at loss, according to some report. But the market saw it as a game console, not an entertainment centre - as Sony wanted it to be. Game console should be fun, spending a lot of money is not fun, for most of us. Personally, I still go with Nintendo Wii.
There is another player that may actually the biggest player of all. This player tends to lay low and undetected. Pirates. While the others considered content is the biggest investment, for them it is almost none. They can drive low cost production and bring down overall price. They may even drives the production of cheap players. But now they facing a big hurdle. Digital Right Management (DRM). Both HD-DVD and Bluray will implement DRM on contents. My guess is whichever the format they broke first, it will be quickly mass-produced at the quantity unimaginable. Industries will lost from contents, but we will know which one is the popular format.
I am indifference on either format, but it is a hell of a war to watch......