High-Def Format War a Moot Point Courtesy of Dual-Readers

The “war” between Sony’s Blu-ray and Toshiba’s HD DVD has been debated ever since the two have existed, but as recent reports unveil, the war in itself might become a moot point in a few years. A new study from ABI Research notes that the high-def market will be worth $2 billion by 2012 and that a full 66% of that will consist of dual-format readers.

I had the same idea the other night when perusing Newegg. Though Blu-ray writers are still pricey, the dual-format readers retail for just under $300. That means you can have both HD DVD and Blu-ray content right from the comfort of your… computer chair. This same drive would have cost close to $700 earlier this year, and price-drops don’t look to slow down anytime soon.

There. The war is over. Kind of.

If ABI Research is correct, a market dominance by universal players will render the format war moot as consumers would not have reason to prefer one format over the other from a hardware perspective and it would reduce some of the competitive drive behind the competing formats to negotiate exclusives for one format over another is the majority of users could view both formats.

Source: DailyTech