Microsoft's Xbox 360 HD DVD drive add-on has sold 92,000 sales in the US by the end of 2006 according to the NDP market research group. While this is still far off the 687,300 PS3 sales where each PS3 natively plays Blu-ray movies, it is worth noting that PS3 shoppers have no choice about the built-in Blu-ray drive. This means that while the consoles effectively brought about 7 times more Blu-ray players into consumer homes than HD DVD, those who buy the HD DVD add on do so to play HD DVD movies, while PS3 buyers end up with a Blu-ray player even if they bought their console to just play games on.
Of the Xbox 360 HD DVD drives sold in the US, 42,000 units were sold in November, followed by 50,000 units sold in December. However, with the Xbox 360 console itself selling 4.5 million units in the US, the total amount of HD DVD add-on sales just accounts for over 2% of Xbox 360 owners. On the other hand, this shows that about 98% of Xbox 360 owners don't see the need to get HD DVD movie playback despite Sony ensuring that all of its PS3 owners get the option of playing Blu-ray movies.
HD DVD is not low tech. Generalizing a bit, the only real difference between the two is HD-DVD opted for for a more traditional approach in focusing the laser the same distance through the plastic layer as with a DVD. Blu-Ray data is much closer to the surface, hence the need for the "scratch proof" coating.
Of course this had the negative side effect of reducing the capacity of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. Real world difference from what I understand is 22GB vs. 13GB.
Of course the potential burn capacity was the main reason all the fanboys jumped on the BluRay bandwagon. However, the future is lining up that Flash hard drive and other technology will eclipse blue laser disc burning before it ever really matures.
The reason you don't hear a lot of the news about BluRay is because a lot of news sites aren't POSTING it...
I've been wondering why myself
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