HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Ver. 2.0

Oh crap.  I admit it, I picked the loosing team.  Crap.  You may have read in my article here that I purchased a HD-DVD player not long ago.  I'm sure you all heard as I did that Warner Brothers has gone Blu-Ray and a bunch of other studios seem to be ready to follow.  This will make Blu-Ray the most supported next generation DVD system as far as movie studios go.

Confirmation for me was to a local Target this weekend. It sure didn't take them long to flip-flop.  What used to be a equal shelf space ratio HD-DVD to Blu-Ray has now greatly swayed in favor of Blu-Ray.  I counted 5 columns of HD-DVDs to 11 columns of Blu-Ray DVDs.

I am bummed out about this.

Then I read this article on The Consumerist where they are saying that all the existing Blu-Ray players will not be able to play upcoming Blu-Ray DVD's because the new Blu-Ray disks themselves will have features that are not compatible.  Most of this incompatibility seems to revolve around online features.  It seems that the only Blu-Ray player system that will work is the Sony PlayStation 3 because it is upgradable.

I find this interesting because my seemingly outdated HD-DVD player can already support these online oriented features and is firmware upgradable.  I know this because I have upgraded my firmware via the players built-in Ethernet port connected to my broadband connection.

So if I have to purchase a Blu-Ray player in the future I am happy that people who were early adopters of Blu-Ray will have to purchase new players also.  Bastards.