In January, as Toshiba's plans for HD DVD finally entered a death spiral, I pointed out that Blu-ray was still far from ready to win the hearts and minds of consumers for a number of reasons. Today I'll look at who, if anyone, actually won the so-called format war.

Sony

 The obvious answer here is Sony. After all, they have the most to gain from Blu-ray's success. The only problem is that Blu-ray has yet to be a success by any commercial standard. So far Sony has spent billions to develop and market the technology, including hundreds of millions paid to movie studios to secure their backing and put the final nail in HD DVD's coffin. Blu-ray is also a key component of Sony's PS3 game console and AVCHD camcorders. For those of you not familiar with AVCHD it's the consumer counterpart to the BD-MV format used for commercial Blu-ray production.

 With all this money spent and little in the way of return it's hard to find any real gains for Sony. While PS3 sales continue to rise, there's no clear indication that Blu-ray has played a major role in the console's success. The PS3 remains the most technologically advanced Blu-ray player on the market, but there are no accurate figures on the number of buyers who even care about Blu-ray. Depending on how you interpret the recent decline in non-PS3 Blu-ray players it may be a sign that the PS3 is benefitting from being the only player with support for BD-Live. Of course the surge in standard definition DVD players with up-converting capability would appear to be a sign that consumers still don't care.

Certainly Sony can't be remotely close to breaking even on Blu-ray so no winner here.

Toshiba

There's an argument to be made that Toshiba is better off after cutting their losses and abandoning HD DVD, but they never recouped the cost of development and promotion, not to mention the money they, like Sony, spent enticing studios to their side. In addition their abandonment of the technology, apparently with no word to their studio partners in the venture has no doubt left a bad taste in the mouths of many in Hollywood.

Consumers

 There's no doubt in my mind that a single high definition DVD format is better for consumers than two, although with Blu-ray sales still low enough to be nearly a statistical anomoly in the home video market there's no evidence that the average person has been convinced Blu-ray is the future. The collective yawn from the general public seems deafening.

 Perhaps the biggest problem for consumers is the continued disinterest among player manufacturers to sell them anything. Once they secured the backing of all the major studios many analysts expected Blu-ray supporters like Sony to switch their focus to wooing consumers. To date that hasn't happened. If anything the lack of   price cuts have served to further alienate potential customers who by and large weren't particularly interested in either Blu-ray or HD DVD to begin with. Meanwhile HDTVs remain expensive enough to ensure a large percentage of those (like me) with old fashioned analog (and standard definition) TVs won't be participating in the HDTV revolution any time soon.

 For people who want to take advantage of the improved audio quality available on Blu-ray titles the situation may be even worse. If you have an older home theater receiver with only S/PDIF connections for surround sound you'll have to buy a new receiver to take advantage of the lossless surround sound used on Blu-ray discs, which requires either six channel analog inputs or HDMI.

Depending on which components you need to buy, the cost (in the U.S.) starts at about $400, and could easily reach over $1000 for even a very basic configuration. No winner here either.

Electronics Retailers

 As with consumers, retailers benefit from a single HD disc format, and many have thrown their support behind Blu-ray, at least publicly. As DVD sales, which had risen consistently for years, remain flat Blu-ray shows no sign of being the next big thing. Meanwhile the shelf space and inventory costs associated with the technology make it difficult to see any kind of success to date, or in the forseeable future. At the same time customer confusion and disinterest continues to fuel standar DVD player sales, particularly for up-converting models.

Panasonic

 Arguably the dark horse in the race is Panasonic. Sharing the top spot among Blu-ray patent holders with Sony, they would benefit greatly if Blu-ray becomes the next major home video format. Although high player prices have relegated Panasonic to an also-ran when it comes to sales, with Sony taking the lead in promoting the format they've also managed to keep a low enough profile to be relatively untouched by the PR battles which have so far dominated Blu-ray's short history. If the format succeeds Panasonic may be in the best financial position in the short term, but until that happens the best they can hope for is to come out looking better than Sony, making them winners in the same way that having nicer weather than the North Pole makes Antarctica warm.

But wait, there's more....

I could go on and on about online video and the nearly invisible HD VMR format that uses cheaper red laser technology of DVD to reduce production costs for HD discs. Either or both of these could have a significant impact on the success or failure of Blu-ray, but to date both have had negligible impact on sales compared to the missteps of the format's own backers. Other factors, like a U.S. economy that's shaky and unpredictable at best, may also play a significant role in the coming months.

If Blu-ray's future doesn't look significantly brighter by the beginning of next year the debate may be settled once and for all by forces outside the consumer marketplace. Maybe the question we should really be asking is at what point do shareholders and corporate board members see the investment in Blu-ray as equivalent to piling up their money and burning it?