I realise that this may belong on the other thread, but bear with me here:
👍
So many questions, but I'll try and answer them as briefly as I can, but not so brief as to not offer anything useful in respone.
Also, so as not to derail this thread any long, beyond this I'd suggest we take it to another more appropriate thread.
my understanding of the 360/PS3 war was that Sony has been criticised for bundling the PS3 with a blu-ray player, thus putting the price out of reach for many consumers & losing sales. Now, abruptly, M$ is being criticised for
not including a HD player with the 360.
I suspect the recent criticism of MS is mostly based on the poor quality fo the 360's design, but yes, many also have critized MS for not designing the 360 to support games on HD DVD. Before the PS3 came out, I suspect most didn't realize how large games have gotten, and that using a 10+ year old optical disc format that developers were already maxing out before the 360 was even released was a very poor decision in terms of offering a console with any hope of longevity.
As the PS3 has come down significantly in price, it is now highly competitive with the 360, especially if it is to be used as a blu-ray movie player as well as a gaming machine.
Apple to apples, the PS3 has always been the better value, as an equally equipped 360 would be nearly twice the cost of a PS3, but yes, now with the PS3 being even lower in price, and not only having a Blu-ray player for movies, but more importantly for many... much bigger games, and free online gaming and server support.
I had pretty much decided to go out & buy a PS3 in the near-future, thereby throwing my lot in with the blu-ray side. The prospect of M$ putting out a new & improved 360/HD player at the end of 2008/beginning of 2009 strikes me as being too little, too late.
Possibly, but as many have said, MS is really in a tough sport, as they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They certainly have next to no chance of ever recouping their $7+ billion dollar losses from the Xbox & 360 if they do not make a significant change... but a significant change will also likely alienate much of their current 360 customer base.
Does this mean that Sony's strategy with the PS3/blu-ray is turning out to be the winning one?
Well that remains to be seen. The only real winner financially right now is Nintendo, and by a wide margin at that, but the Wii is such a unique design, it really can't be accurately compared to either the 360 or the PS3, and as such, many Wii owners also have either a PS3 or 360 as well.
That said, there is a reason one often hears the tale of the tortoise and the hare, and that the first one out of the gate is not always the one to win the race. Only time will tell for sure, but financially, Microsoft’s Xbox divisions is by far the worst off, and by a massive margin at that... the good news is, MS makes so much money from their business and software divisions that at least for the time being, they can afford writing off over a billion dollars every year in hopes to monopolize the console market.
Considering though how poorly the 360 is selling compared to the PS2 and Wii, I, and may analysts suggest Microsoft will have to either completely re-o their console hardware design and marketing, or else pull the plug on hardware and focus all their efforts on selling highly profitable software.
If everyone has lost money to date with their respective technologies, will there be an eventual payback?
Traditionally, that's been the business model of the console industry. Lose money in the beginning, and make up for it in software sales once the market is saturated.
Sony lost a lot of money on the PS2 initially, but with 25 million sold in the first two years, and huge software sales, that changed rapidly, and even today, the PS2 is still selling extremely well, even outselling both the 360 and PS3 most months, and is still a money machine for Sony.
The Wii is breaking that rule as they decided rather than make a truly next-gen console, to go cheap, and make a fun family friendly party console... and it's paying off in spades!
Finally, for a simple-minded techno-phobe like myself
, is now the time to get a PS3, & is the PS3 actually a decent, functional blu-ray player for movies?
The answer is an easy yes. Heck, it was a yes for me last year after comparing the Blu-ray playback functionality and performance of the PS3 to the $1,200 Panasonic Blu-ray player... and since then I have been enjoying the PS3 as a blu-ray player now for nearly a full year and couldn't be happier with it. 👍
I bit the bullet and picked up a G25 yesterday.
. Nowhere near as aggressive as the DFP and far less responsive when changing direction. Perhaps something I just have to get used to. 
The Dirt demo wasn't much better. That said I haven't tried tweaking any of the FF settings in Dirt yet.
). But too pay that much for a wheel. I'm having a hard enough time justifying the expense for the PS3 alone(getting it after the holidays). 
