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So according to industry insiders, Casino Royale on Blu-Ray sold over 100,000 copies during it's first week after release. In comparison, this is greater then all the HD DVD titles sold in the month of February in the U.S.A. Official announcements are expected within the next week.

Does anyone really think HD DVD can still *win*?

It definitely doesn't look good for HD DVD.

I suspect there are some sleepless nights ahead for the HD-DVD camp. <speculation mode on> Sony hasn't won a format war in a while (with the minor exception of radio station's acceptance of minidisc), it may go to their head !

Grain wrote:I suspect there are some sleepless nights ahead for the HD-DVD camp. <speculation mode on> Sony hasn't won a format war in a while (with the minor exception of radio station's acceptance of minidisc), it may go to their head !

That's not really true.... their DVCam format has HUGE market share, and their HDCAM format is quickly becoming the #1 used format for movie production. In the professionaly industry, Sony is #1 for technology without a doubt. But they license the technology out for other manufacturers to make as well.

Really, the only format WAR that Sony lost was Beta vs. VHS, and that was only on the consumer level, as Beta went on to become the basis of their hugely successful Betacam format in the professional industry. MiniDisc was not involved in a format WAR per se, it was a niche product, which ended up making money for Sony, so it's hard to call it a failure, although it was never a huge success by any means.

Sony makes a *LOT* of mistakes, and a LOT of crap, and they're very easy and fun to make jokes about. But at the end of the day even their failures often can be turned into minor successes. Look at the PS3 game Genji and the huge fame of the Giant Enemy Crab. You can't BUY that kind of viral advertising, and I for one want to play the game that started it all, even though normally I wouldn't care for the game whatsoever.

I'm actually not one of the many Sony bashers out there, I'm more of a M$ basher , although I must admit the 360 is looking more attractive to me than the original XBox ever did.

OT, I'm in the process of converting a couple old LD titles to DVD (unreleased on DVD Criterion LD's with great extras). Something to look forward to when/if the HD war is ever settled and our favorite DVD's aren't released on a new format. At least we'll be able to load DVD content directly to a computer, I don't have a computer LD drive (what sized case would that take )!