1. Price won't win the war.
There is fairly solid reason to believe that Toshiba is subsidizing their players right now or at best, breaking even. They just want market share, and while this may not matter to anyone who is purchasing, it is most definitely a sign of a company that is praying for market share and royalties from disc sales to make up for player losses. The real world downside is that there isn't one additional consumer electronics manufacturer who has been willing to step up to the plate and make one stand alone HD DVD player other than Toshiba.
What does this have to do with price? Well, it means a couple of things - it means that HD DVD pricing is artificially low. It also means that while some may claim HD DVD pricing will always be less, at some point it is far more likely that Toshiba will actually want/need to make a profit on players. Since HD DVD and Blu-ray use very similar technologies, and Blu-ray has actually seen a higher price drop rate since player inception, it is more likely that Blu-ray and HD DVD will be priced within about $20.00 of each other within a couple of years.
2. Studio support matters a great deal
Within a couple of years, with pricing likely to be nearly equal, suddenly every article and magazine, and news story will be telling people to buy Blu-ray. Heck, many already are going that route. But, it won't be just a bunch of Internet chatter about this, it will be the general newspapers and on the radio. It will be the word: Blu-ray delivers studio support that HD DVD can't match.
Of course, that's based on studio support remaining the way it is now and Fox and Disney ramping up production.
3. Blu-ray won't win on technology, they will win on actual CE and studio support. It won't be one $120 player out there, it will be Denon, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony, Sharp, etc. all with their own $120 player, and then Toshiba, and only Toshiba with their $100 player. You don't gain market share when you are $20 less expensive and your lineup of competitors includes a list of the absolute top names in consumer electronics, while you are only capable of delivering about 50% of what Hollywood actually has to offer.
In my opinion, HD DVD simply has no chance, they are far to weak of an entity to survive long term. Universal going neutral would be devestating to the format. Microsoft seems (to me) to be far more interested in developing their X-Box 360 in a manner that allows for HD downloads directly to PCs, Vista, and the 360. They don't really care about HD DVD, but more likely care about their codecs, the menu system, the level of acceptability for their codec. No, the format war may go on beyond this year, but I have little doubt that Blu-ray will come out on top.
The next format war - between Blu-ray and DVD... that one is still definitely up in the air.
