by Jeff Haynes

February 19, 2008 - Now that the format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD is officially over thanks to Toshiba's surrender today, many analysts and industry professionals are trying to forecast just what kind of impact that will have on consumers. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter stated that he expected sales of the PlayStation 3 to rise up to 10 percent as a result of the end of the format war.

"Longer term, I think it's a huge boon for Sony, as most retail clerks will be instructed to push Blu-ray along with sales of HD monitors at holiday, so we should see a large increase in PS3 sales year-over-year at holiday," Pachter said. This wouldn't be surprising for many consumers looking for a Blu-ray player that can do more than play movies or highlight high definition content; in fact, the inroads made by Blu-ray was most likely based on the strength of the PS3. According to a secondary article on GamesIndustry.biz, global sales of the PS3 alone have reached 10.5 million compared to the 1 million installed HD DVD player base. Without including standalone Blu-ray players, this gap could've been significant enough to finish off HD DVDs by itself. What's more, Blu-ray also accounted for 96 percent of technology sold in Japan in the last quarter of 2007.

As a result, more people could find themselves gravitating towards the PS3 because of the benefits of the system along with its features as a Blu-ray player. According to Ed Barton and Richard Cooper, two analysts from the audiovisual research company Screen Digest, "With the format war over, and the end of the consumer indecision resulting from it, video consumers are likely to purchase the PS3 as the most cost effective, future proof Blu-ray player."

"In the longer term lower price, higher specification set-top Blu-ray players will take on the role as best entry level Blu-ray player but not within the next 12 months. This could result in a small but significant rise in the number of PS3s bought over the next 12 months as Blu-ray players," they said.

Sony has not officially commented on the result of the format war.

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