The epic struggle between Microsoft and Sony to control the future of disk media may be a lot of bright lights, loud noises and little else, according to Ars Technica. Although the competition between the two formats appears to be omnipresent in commercials, trade shows, and any other venue, the sales reality paints a vastly different picture.
Regardless of claims as to the total HD market share held, HD sales are still nothing but a drop in the ocean compared to DVD sales:
The DVD of Happy Feet sold over 4 million copies during the last week of March, which is almost twice as much as the total next-gen disc format sales since their launch over a year ago. It’s a vicious cycle for the next-gen formats: sales won’t grow significantly because of consumer uncertainty, that uncertainty won’t lessen until there’s a clear winner, and a clear winner won’t emerge until sales of one format are significant enough to bury the other.
For consumers without HDTV’s, HD format disks are basically meaningless, and sales of both formats have actually been on the decline. Whatever Sony may try to tell you, Blu-Ray confers no advantage whatsoever in graphical quality, especially in a marketplace where multi-disk games have been commonplace since the Playstation era, effectively canceling out the advantages of a single, high-storage disk.
