Looks like the format war might be in its final months. If retailers continue to be as aggressive as in the first two weeks, we could see Toshiba capitulate by the early summer, which would then give everyone enough time to thoroughly prepare for the "Christmas of the HD" season. With a single format, everyone will jump on board. HDTVs have been selling quite well despite the clear situation with the optical disc formats. Final resolution to this case could catapult sales of everything HD, which just might stimulate this dreadful economy.

vasic, you actually expect that the sales of HD & Blu-ray are significant enough to impact the economy in any significant way? If so, what percentage of the economy does HD & Blu-ray sales account for?

Meaningless percentages. For all we know, it just means they sold 30 BlueRay devices over last weeks' number of 23.

Recent history shows what happened after the introduction of CDs, DVDs, and even when VHS became dominant. In every case, there was a huge impact in the billions of dollars. This will create focused competition, prices dropping rapidly, and consumer adoption. Billions of dollars of stimulus is always a good thing no matter what the actual figure and can assist in regaining manufacturing and consumer confidence.

I dont see it having a massive impact, DVD sales will start going down, HD sales will start going up. Players will be the only new factor in this with players being bought to support a format. But again I cant see much effect on this either as the benifits will be negated by DVD player sales dropping.

Testudo, you need to take your fingers out of your ears. How about these numbers: In the first week, Blu-ray sold 15,257 players, a number that jumped to 21,770 in the second week. In the same time span, HD DVD sales fell from 14,558 to 1,758 players. Ouch. This does not include PS3s or XBox add-ons. Is it any less "meaningless" now?

Oh, BTW, it's Blu-ray, not "BlueRay." Yeah, you sure know a lot about the format war.

Well it was always likely that Blu-ray would win as its a free component in every PS3.

Unfortunately for HDDVD, it didnt have any mass market product to promote it and get it into peoples living rooms.

But i'm glad we now have a clear winner. It means that i can now buy HD with certainty when i get round to upgrading.

OMG! I said BlueRay instead of Blu-Ray! My life is over. The world will come to an end! Its the end of days! Next thing you know, you'll be writing XBox instead of Xbox, HD DVD instead of HD-DVD, so I guess you don't know much about the format war as well, because spelling the names of devices is indicative about your knowledge (then again, who the h*** cares anything about the 'format wars' until one side wins, since you'd be stupid to pick a side until one wins).

Then again, you suggested someone take their fingers out of their ears in order to read an article.

No wonder everybody calls you an idiot. I'm done with you if you don't know either the official, trademarked names of Blu-ray or HD DVD. Gave you the figures you demanded then you just ignored them completely. You really are an imbecile.