Here's something to mull over, if it took two competing formats combined to penetrate barely 10% in shares, what will that equation be if one falters? This is what the OP was getting at. Will the old HD DVD faithfull pull ranks come over to the blue side and try and keep penetration at roughly 10% or just hold on to their defunct format untill the NBT (Next Big Thing) arrives, some claim that'll be downloads. I'm not 100% sold on that yet, physical media appeals to a large number of people, it's like cash, it feels good in the palms of your hands. So that being the case, the end of HD DVD might bring an early retirement to Bluray if numbers don't improve and consumers don't bite, then it'll be a real niche player just like LD, just something to think about. Remember the economy and this past Christmas sales numbers!
I think it's actually far less than 10% at this time. But, the numbers for Blu-ray have outpaced the numbers compared to DVD at this point in the release of DVD. It isn't a sprint, but a marathon when you are talking about steering billions of dollars of resources and getting them out to consumers. So, while it could end up a niche, the end of the format war means that the general consumer has a much more directed and focussed buying strategy. It isn't "Do I buy Blu-ray or HD DVD?" - It becomes "Do I buy the Panasonic, or the Pioneer Blu-ray player?" When you remove doubt from consumers, consumer confidence grows and buying trends increase. This means that owners of existing players will also buy more discs because they are less concerned about their investment becoming worthless.
Yet, the future of Blu-ray most definitely is not assured. It isn't, as some would like to claim, destined to be a niche format - not when the buzzword in EVERY piece of CE advertising is HD. People want HD, and as player prices fall over the next few years (yes, years) more and more people will continue to buy in to HD, and they will gain consumer awareness of HD optical discs in the Blu flavor.
I'm not sure of how many formats have come to market which have ended up so prominently displayed on showroom floors, with so much CE backing, with so much studio backing - then went on to become a 'niche' product.
I sure didn't see this level of marketing from DVD-A or SACD. How much market was there for laser disc? A good technology, but not widely embraced - which is the model that Blu-ray should not be following.
10% would be phenomenal market share of a multi-billion dollar industry to take ownership of in 18 months. It isn't that much, but it would be extremely encouraging to investors (CE corporations and studios) that they are going down a very good road.
Warner Brothers claimed that Blu-ray was worth 63 million dollars MORE to them last year than HD DVD. Not sure if the 'more' is correct, or if the number represents net profit or gross sales. But, considering that Blu-ray had barely begun to walk (6 months) a year ago, it seems like a pretty amazing number to me.
