[baccusboy]

These are grave times for Sony if they don't get this issue figured out. The need to put the screws to Samsung to fix these problems NOW, and fix their own problems as well.

Samsung's BR players have been receiving a lot of heat on the web. You can go to amazon and read the approval ratings of HDDVD players and BluRay players, and you'll find much lower rating on virtually all of the BR players.

Now that I've bought into the PS3, I'm a little concerned, although I guess I can always buy a cheap HDDVD player and still enjoy PS3 games for a long, long time, should BR lose.

People want something that works, and they want something priced around $200. The HDDVD players are cheaper, will likely hit that magic $200 price point around Christmas, and will be cheaper for a long time (Sony has a habit of trying to be more expensive). I also don't see Sony/Phillips allowing additional companies to make the BR Players anytime soon, but I can see HDDVD players produced by many.

The HDDVD players almost all have very high ratings.

If these Sony issues aren't cleared up FAST, then a lot of people are going to avoid Bluray.

Another concern I have is that the numbers of BR disks are inflated due to PS3 ownership. In the long run, that's not going to help much as people pick up more and more players based on price. When prices drop well below the price of a PS3, people won't be buying the PS3 for BR playing if they aren't gamers to begin with.

HDDVD will have cheaper players, and they appear to work better too (at this point).

My biggest fear, as a BR owner, is that by Christmas time, the following would happen:

1. Sony players might still be too expensive/unavailable/have a bad rep due to playback issues, while HDDVD players have a proven track record, are around that $200 to $300 price-point.

By this time, studios that were in the BR-only camp just want to cash in on the many HDDVD players for sale. They make more HDDVD disks available, where they were exclusively BR before. Computers with internal HDDVD drives become affordable, and are included in more computers.

All this time, Sony scoffs, fails to match player prices, and suffers from its own hubris, due to a multitude of disks available in the HDDVD format, proven players with high customer satisfaction, and lots of brands of low-priced players available.

The PS3 ownership bumping-up BR disk numbers mean very little at this time, IMHO.

If Sony loses, this is how it will go down.