... Is that in Japan, most people are buying PS3 consoles.

In the worldwide market the winner of the HD war will be the one with the best price.

Sony PS3 or standalone Blu-Ray player ($500-$800)

Standalone HD-DVD player (as little as $99)

Presumably the player numbers are much bigger than the recorder numbers and so more important. So what are they? I'm always suspicious when someone tells me half a story.

And yes, I mean including games consoles since those seem to buy discs too.

The only players that were $99, were the old HD-A2, a discontinued model, which is rumoured to be unable to play the new triple layer 51GB discs (hence why Toshiba wanted to be rid of them at any cost).

In the REAL WORLD.. Blu-ray is about $100/£100 more than HD DVD, and considering Blu-ray's vastly superior specs and better studio support, that is well worth the price difference.

The Japanese have always avoided foreign brands, this is why the PS3 is doing better than the 360 there whereas elsewhere the story is completely the opposite.

Western consumers seem to go for what they perceive as the best product - sometimes that's the same as Japan, i.e. the Wii, sometimes it's different i.e. the 360 in the west, the PS3 in Japan. What this does mean however is that as Japan loses it's hold in the tech sector which it is in some areas Japan is becoming increasingly irrelevant as a measure of success and I'd argue it's largely irrelevant in this case.

With just short of 335mill people in North America, 800mill in Europe, Japan's relatively small 120mill are again another reason for Japan's irrelevance in measure. Countries like China, India and many south American countries are often following the Western nations trends in purchase of consumer electronics albeit it to a lesser extent due to the relative poverty however of course this poverty is decreasing in these nations compared to much slower or even negative growth in the richer nations of the world.

To put simply then, I'd say it matters little more what's happening in the Japanese market than what's happening in the Spanish, the French, the Canadian or even the British market because in these nations alone the format wars are not going to be won. Japan's biggest problem is that it's strong patriotism to home brands risks leaving it as an anomaly rather than an example of trends should any of the home brands such as the PS3 fail to the 360. It's foolish to treat Japan with the same importance as the whole of North America or Europe nowadays as many sites seem to.

Did you actually read the article?

It is talking about recorders, not players, there is quite a difference between, you know.

If you want to start a flaming war, because you have not read the article, please proceed to Slashdot, were it is almost a virtue not to read the article before posting.

By the way, you might need to check up on your prices. The $99 HD-DVD standalone player was a sale, regularly around $199 now, and the PS3 is down at $399, sometimes lower.

Remember folks that Betamax was king in Japan right up until videotape was superseded by DVD.

All these figures mean is that Sony rules the roost over there. Still cleaning up the bear shit in the Vatican are they?

And what vastly superior specs are those of Blu Ray out of interest?

If anything they're lesser due to a complete cock up of standards from the outset, an overly complex menu creating language and hugely un-optimised extras.... as for the specs, if you want to be pedantic HD probably wins, the main reason being it does have standards... the actual video and audio are IDENTICAL they use the same codecs, so how on gods earth can one be vastly superior than the other? Have a look at the actual costs of pressing a BR compared to an HD DVD, costs of manufacture, ever changing standards and then come back with a reason why BR is better.

I'd hardly say BR has better studio support either, that really depends on what films you want really... i mean if you want a Disney classic you're limited to BR (at the moment, they're showing signs of a shift...) however if Micheal Bay blockbusters are your thing, then you'd better start liking HD DVD pretty soon.

BluRay was designed from the start as a Recording medium; pre-recorded discs were only an afterthought, because the people behind it thought the future was all about people taping stuff off HDTV. So while HD-DVD has many technically nice things about it, its use in recording devices really isn't one of them.

@Scott - as a HD-DVD player owner, I wholeheartedly agree that 30Gb is enough for a pre-recorded title. However, this is the case because the advanced codecs allow you to squeeze a movie in that space easily. When used as a blank disc to stuff video on from off the telly, more capacity is a really good thing. Partly to give you more hours of recording, but also because it means you can use a simpler, cheaper encoding path that well and truly outweighs the costs from the BD-ROM format.

Toshiba is a Japanese Company