I have always approached the next-gen format from the eyes of Mr Average Consumer.

Mr AC is not reading the technology news every day. He is not reading every Engadget post about the subject. He's reading what little he sees in the Post or WSJ. He's finding out about this stuff from Mossberg. All these sources cater to him, because he doesn't get all that technical mumbo jumbo.

Mr AC thinks "I don't have one of those plasmas or LCDs. And those Playstation 3's are going to cost a heck of a lot of money. Oh yeah, and this tiny Cyberhome DVD player I picked up at Best Buy only cost me forty bucks."

Mr AC isn't dumb. He saw the obvious advantage of purchasing DVDs over VHS. He saw the smaller cases and those nice discs that reminded him of those CDs he already owns. VHS reminded him of those cassette tapes he threw away years ago. He remembered his crummy VCR that ate the tape from his VHS movies. And rewinding. Oh, he remembers rewinding. But these new DVDs? He doesn't see the difference. It's the same size. It all looks the same to him. He's going to stick to what he's got.

Those are my main arguments as to why neither is going to do well. As for who is going to "win"? Well...

Mr AC is a simple person. He has DVDs now. If he's going to switch to something because he's hearing that this "high definition" stuff looks good, well, there's that "HD-DVD." That makes sense to Mr Average Consumer!


ps- all that aside, I've been saying since before Mr Gates did that media is going to go digital next. Physical media's days are numbered as we increase storage sizes. Only the transfer speeds and the greed/distrust of the record and movie industries hold us back now.

pps- I'm only hoping for BR because of more data, but again, Mr AC doesn't know what that translates to.