HD DVD Games Consoles

Of course there’s always a third way. While HD DVD and Blu-ray have all but monopolized the battle for the hearts and minds of DVD consumers, there’s still a huge raft of consumers for whom it’s a moot point.

For years, Sony and Microsoft have taken the lion’s share of the impossibly lucrative worldwide gaming market. The Playstation and X-box have found homes and fans everywhere. And for these consumers, it’s not HD or Blu-ray that’s going to win them over to the new DVD format, it’s the question of which games console supports which format.

As the brains behind Blu-ray, Sony will continue to push it as part of their Playstation package. At the time of writing, Microsoft are releasing the Xbox 360, complete with its own external HD DVD drive.

Gamers are lapping it up. With the extra high quality graphics afforded by digital HD TV, and the huge possibilities for enhanced gaming, the games console is fast turning into the single most essential leisure appliance, beyond the television. With the potential to play games, music and DVD video, gamers argue that nothing else comes close to providing the same sort of all-in-one entertainment package.

Could the games market decide the fate of the High Definition DVD formats? We think there’ll always be proponents of both formats. They each have their own particular advantages; just as you can’t tell a Mac user to cash in his Apple Mac for a PC, or persuade a Playstation devotee to switch to the Xbox, there’ll always be room for HD DVD and Blu-ray.