Despite the fact that Blu-ray won the next-gen forum war pretty handily, one fact is abundantly clear–DVD isn’t going away any time soon.
But according to the folks at In-Stat, an analysis firm, “any time soon” might not be as long as some think.
The price of Blu-ray players is falling through the floor. We all know that, just from looking at the huge list of Black Friday bargains back last November. It’s getting so that a Blu-ray player for under a hundred bucks isn’t such a preposterous idea any more. And if this is all the farther it’s dropped just a couple years after the format wars ended in the first place, how much longer is left until most everybody’s got a Blu-ray player?
In-Stat gives it until 2013.
This actually makes some sense, especially given that a Blu-ray player can also play regular DVDs. The last format war hurt a lot of people who were forced to abandon their VHS collections for DVD, but if Blu-ray can play DVD, it really improves the reasons to get one.
So by this time three years from now, we may no longer see a DVD on shelves, but by then, we may well no longer care.