HD Format Wars Over? Playstation 3 Here I Come.

While I doubt I'm the only person out there who's been eager for the digital format wars to end, the recent events were honestly a blessing in hammering those last couple nails into the coffin:

• Toshiba drops the manufacturing of all HD-DVD players.
• Netflix and Wal-Mart drop all HD-DVD support.
• Microsoft drops the HD-DVD add-on package for the Xbox 360.

My reasons for thinking the coffin was a good thing for us all?

• There's the technical reasons of course, Blu-ray discs do technically hold a lot more data on them. This enables content creators to go a bit more hog-wild with content creation for us, both in movies as well as in video games (more cut-scenes!).
• There's also the pricing model of the Playstation 3. From some basic hunting and pecking around on the net, your average Blu-ray player costs you around $350. For an extra $50, you've got a really good Blu-ray player and you've also got a really sweet gaming platform that Sony is apparently investing upwards of 10 years into.
• Another sweet aspect here is because the PS3 is completely wifi-enabled, you can always keep your player up to date with the latest firmware updates from Sony, while a standard player wouldn't likely have a reason to have wifi on it in the first place.
• We won't have to own both players or wait for the creation of dual-format players. Enough said.

Needless to say, I took the plunge this weekend and picked up a PS3 and a couple games to boot, very impressed with the system as well as my game choices thus far. Definitely looking forward to seeing an increase in quantity of Blu-ray content on Netflix.

Disclaimer: By no means is this post geared toward proclaiming one particular gaming console better than the other. I believe each have their strengths and weaknesses. It all boils down to the individual and the game selections available. While I personally don't have an interest in owning an Xbox 360, I would also eventually like to pick up the Nintendo Wii, but given the lack of stock in the US, that might not be until next Christmas :).