[gehenna]

so i was in town yesterday and wandered into one of the retail cd/dvd chain stores in Wellington. I saw they had Casino Royale on Blu-Ray in the shop window, so when I approached the counter and spoke to the staff asking when they would get in some HD DVD titles, I was again met with the response "oh the cd/dvd store is going with Blu-Ray, we won't be getting any HD DVD in, we just think Blu-Ray is the way to go".

what followed was a conversation with my girlfriend in the car on the way home that i'm sure she would rather not have been a part of....including such tidbits as "there's something going on here, there's no way a company can pick one format over the other at this stage unless there is something going on in the background". yes, i had my mulder hat on but i just think it's so strange that 2 major chains over here are going with only one format. ps3 has only just been released, xbox has been out for years. hddvd addon for xbox is $250 so for all those thousands of people who already own the xbox, spending $250 to get hddvd is much more logical than spending $1300 to get a ps3. seeing a dominant format will only happen here by the time ps3 catches up with the xbox's market penetration. it makes NO sense to back one format over the other at this stage UNLESS there are some dodgy dealings going on here.