You Win Some, You Lose Some

Over the holidays, I became the new owner of both a Sony PSP as well as a Toshiba HD-DVD player.  The former has proven quite satisfactory - I only have a handful of games for it, but it’s been really fun playing both Jeanne D’Arc and Ratchet & Clank (which I’ve been wanting to play for some time).  There definitely seem to be enough of a library to keep me occupied for the foreseeable future, and the slim design is quite nice - although the analog stick feels a little flimsy.  My only real complaint is the anemic battery life, which just looks worse relative to the DS’s never-ending power supply.  I don’t think this is anything you haven’t heard before, though.

On the other hand, my joy in owning an A3-HD was considerably dulled by Warner Bros.’ announcement today that they are discontinuing HD-DVD support.  Whether this puts the nail in HD-DVD’s coffin is still, I suppose, up for debate, but things don’t look great.  I have two reactions: first, waiting until after the holiday shopping rush to make the announcement was a pretty classless move on Warner Brothers’ part, and one that is likely to engender some ill will with consumers.  And second, I don’t see myself buying a Blu-Ray player in the near future.  The cost difference between HD players and BR is still enormous - standalone Blu-Ray players are starting on Amazon at around $320, whereas I bought my A3 for only $170 with 10 free discs.  I had - and have - no real preference for one format over the other per se, but this cost difference is prohibitive for mainstream consumers.  In my opinion, at present the PS3 is far and away the best Blu-Ray option out there.  But it’s still going to take a while for the cost to drop into a feasible range for me… the A3 does a great job with upconversion and it’s still not worth it to me to go fully HD when the media themselves are still much more costly than a DVD (and likely to remain so if HD-DVD goes away and removes that competitive pressure).  In sum, I’m rather irritated with Warner, but I don’t see this having a big impact on my short-term purchasing decisions.