Crumpled

okay so, the xbox 360 is $299
and the blu-ray enabled ps3 is going to be about $499

an xbox 360 will be able to play hddvds given an added drive.
lets be really nice and pretend that drive is only $100, although that price is probably stupidly low. making the retail for an hddvd enabled console $399 vs the blu-ray enabled console at $499

okay now, as far as power goes, the xbox will have nothing on the ps3.
as far as formats go, the blu-ray disc stores more data than the hddvd (a cumbersome acronym)

one might argue that whoever wins the (so called) format war, wins the console war. I'm not sure anybody will win the format war all that quickly. there are enough consumers these days to justify a lingering format, especially one that's going to stay in the living room anyway, whether you watch videos on it or not.

i could try and argue that the superior format would finally be the one adopted by the blockbuster videos of the world, (the netflixes could probably accomodate either), and then the superior format would win. but i know that hollywood doesn't utilize all the advantages of a format when it goes against consumer intution. for example: all those two disc dvd sets; most of those would have fit on one disc. all the bonus features on the same disc, but less discs seems like less features.

now, manufactuing costs for the two consoles have been calculated by various analysts and the cost to build either of them seems in both cases more than the cost of selling them. yes, they cost more to make than they do to buy. depending on where you get your data, the manufactuing cost is anywhere from $50-$250 more than retail for the xbox, and $100-$300 for the ps3. i think warren buffet said that anytime you can spend a dollar and make two dollars you should do it. i don't think he would scoff at a buck fifty, but then again you cant spend a used console like cash so i guess that doesn't apply, but it is interesting.

consider this: a stand-alone video player in either blu-ray or hddvd will probably initially cost $1000, i'm not sure if it was david folkenflick that said that or if it was on wired.com. i'd say that price is a bit high, so lets say $800-$900 added consumer value that's disregarded in order to get these systems into your home.

why? because it's obviously not the sales of the consoles that's going to please the manufacturers. it's the liscencing of rights to sell games that people can play on them. it's fun for me to think that if somebody bought every single one of "product x" ever manufactured, that product would be a huge success, but if one person bought every single one of the consoles, it would be a horrible failure.

that's where the console war gets really silly. i'm no economist, but it seems to me that a console that's got so much processing power that it'll take the game makers years to utilize the potential of the hardware (ps3), has a much longer lifecycle than a console whos games are running on last generation technology (xbox360). it also seems to me that it wouldn't matter if one console was released an entire year later than the other one. wouldn't that just mean that you weren't competing against the other manufacturer in sales so much. the people who waited would finally buy one, and some of the people who bought the other one last year will be willing to buy this one. and new shoppers who haven't decided between the two systems will buy the one that is actually in stock. (xbox is having trouble not running out) and it doesn't matter if xbox is already in a few million homes, because the sales of the system itself does nothing for the company if people stop buying games for it. therefore, everything that happened so far while the ps3 has been finishing up its hardware doesn't matter. xbox will compete only on price, and eventually, people will demand the power that the ps3 can deliver and that the xbox can't. then what happens? you buy a new xbox? as far as technology goes, microsoft might be ready for a new one right about now anyway.

this is all just my opinion. it might not be finacially sound. but check the scene in 2 or three years. microsoft's xbox will get no love. sony's ps3 will still be rockin, and people will party together on nintendo's wii. it's a swell future. maybe they lost betamax, but sony will probably eventually prevail in the great format war; the last one, some say, before it's all downloads.