Following is an interesting quote from Finance insider Maxpower @ BR.com.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=127

"The biggest EU nations are the same ones they have always been, UK first followed by France then Germany with Scandinavia and the Med following.

The market for players is doing very well and with price cuts coming soon I would expect it to pick up the pace much faster.

There will be marketing efforts for standalones, but atm everything is centred around the PS3 while standalone players are localised. Once BD-Live and BonusView comes into its own, expect a massive show of strength by the BDA with regards to standalones.

The PS3 effect is more pronounced because of the generally lower sales of standalones around the EU (we didn't get the Samsung until October, and even then it was horribly overpriced), but expect that to wear off in the coming months.

As far as PS3 sales go, yes the PS3 does sell very well in Europe, but this is because Sony popularised console gaming across the continent and most people here just assume that the PS3 is the only console worth buying, plus there is a lot of antipathy towards MS around these parts which isn't going to help them.

As for disc sales, the EU nations will catch up by our estimates in December to January once all of the Xmas buying is done."

With the PS3 price cut rumour in mind, discussions of Blu-ray being a PS3 format & weak hi-def disc sales compared with NA in mind, I find his opinion interesting.

If you're thinking of getting a BD player, go with the PS3 or wait it out until "the show of strength" (???) to get a Bd standalone.

To most of us posters at HDD, the notion of the PS3 being the main Bd player is nothing new. My hope in presenting this quote from Max is to put the role of the PS3 in the BD format into perspective; currently it's the most recommended & pushed BD player. However, once Bd-live & bonus-view "come into their own" the BDA CEs will most likely be producing affordable standalones designed to 1 up the PS3 in regards to Home Theatre features.

So, my question to all is: What are your thoughts on this?

HD DVD fans feeling pressured into buying BD, is this a disappointment or acceptable? Are posters going to wait for the rumoured price cuts?

...OR, does this all simply confirm that HD DVD was a better format to begin with since BD currently relies mainly upon the PS3 for hardware?

Thanks for discussing?