Blu:yes Back:no

I'm certainly in no position to buy another console right now, and if I did it would probably be the Wii, but let's imagine for a moment I was deciding whether to drop a couple of grand on a PS3. Two developments this week would have a serious effect on my decision-making.

Bye-Bye backcompat
One thing Sony definitely can't claim over Microsoft on their new gen (no, it's not next gen anymore, the machines are all at least a year old!) console is a larger game library. One would think they would jump on anything that would at least make the game selection on the PS3 seem larger. Backwards compatibility is one such opportunity, yet Sony is apparently giving up on it completely. Sony have announced they they will be dropping the 20GB and 60GB (backwards compatible) PS3 models in favour of the 40GB (non backwards compatible) model in Japan. I very much doubt they will be following different paths in other regions, so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before an equivalent decision is made for the US and Europe. Some argue that backcompat is no big deal, and I'm sure for a lot of people it isn't.. I'm not one of those people. There is nothing game wise that I particularly want to play in the PS3 library, absolutely nothing at all. My main interest in the system is for it's media capabilities and it's ability to play all the great PS2 games I missed out on. I very much doubt I'm the only one for whom this would be a deciding factor.

But at least it does Blu
In the PS3's favour, Warner Brothers this week announced that it will be dropping Toshiba's HD-DVD format and instead focus on Blu-Ray as it's high definition disk of choice. This just ads to the growing list of Blu-Ray only studios and is quite possibly the final nail in HD-DVD's coffin. As far as console sales go, this can only be good for the PS3, though with MS having stated previously that they would support Blu-ray on the '360 if it turns out to have a clear lead, the possibility of a blu-ray addon drive for the Xbox 360 or even a 360 SKU with an integrated Blu-ray drive is not too remote.