Digital Home Thoughts: HD-DVD vs. BlueRay - The Winner is... Perhaps Neither

"While some enthusiasts are calling the market for HD-DVD, it's not quite clear to me that these folks are correct. I say this as an enthusiast (believe me, I've bought gadgets in the past you've never even heard of) and this thing doesn't pass my second law of consumer electronics. Unlike some of our colleagues at other firms, who have called a winner, then changed their prediction and then changed it again, we haven't said who think will win the war for HiDef optical disks. That's because what the analysis we see in the data we collect tells us consumers aren't that interested."


The path to new format success

The key step to consumers adopting a new format, according to Michael Gartenberg, is "visible consumer value proposition". Basically, he says consumers may not be interested because the step up from DVD to an HD format is less visible than, say, the step from cassette to CD was. Until consumers can look at the product and say "That's clearly better than what I've currently got," said product will have a hard time making it. I'm not sure that's really the case here though. The industry is obviously moving toward HD formats, and with the PS3 and XBox, HD-DVD and Blu-ray are going to creep their way into many peoples' living rooms anyway. And once someone's got an HD-capable player, they're going to start buying HD formats to play on them (or at least hybrids). What do you think? Are both formats doomed because they're just not 'better enough', or do you think at least one format is here to stay?