I made a trip to Best Buy this evening to pick up my first HD-DVD movies before the upcoming Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive becomes available, and "beat the rush".
While "one swallow doesn't make a summer", there were 2 sections of HD-DVD titles versus only 1 section for Blu-Ray. Perhaps my wish is coming true, and Sony is already losing out. It doesn't hurt that HD-DVD players cost significantly less, no doubt mostly because it is a more evolutionary step than Blu-Ray. While Sony may have designed Blu-Ray for the long haul by developing a better technical solution, that didn't do Betamax any good.
(Just for the record, the two HD-DVDs I bought were "V for Vendetta" and "Mission Impossible III" ... I promised myself I wouldn't buy into Tom Cruise's loony behavior, but choice was limited and I had most of the other releases already on DVD)
My only regret is that I bought a Sony HDR-HC3 high-definition (well, HDV, which isn't quite hi-def...) instead of waiting for better (i.e. non-Sony) alternatives to come out.
Ah well. I guess we'll see what happens in the next month.
I can't help thinking that the HD-DVD drive is a better bet to ship in quantity just because Sony is potentially constrained not just by the short supply of blue laser diodes but also the cell processors and all the other high-end hardware. At least they won't be constrained by the supply of vibration motors, because the PS3's Sixaxis controller won't have any, despite all evidence that gamers think that makes the games more immersive.
It seems they're determined to die a long slow death.