In the same form as US Presidential elections, before the final count has ended, I am finally ready to announce my opinion of who winner is of the next-gen disc format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD:

The Winner is: Blu-ray.

I've always backed Blu-ray from the beginning, as i've always believed it's a bigger 'step forward' in terms of advancing from the regular DVD formats of the present: a 15GB single-layered disc on HD-DVD compared to a 25GB one on Blu-ray? That's 66% more data per layer on the Blu-ray disc.

Plus, I think i've been sucked in by the whole coolness of the 'Blu' marketing campaign, it's so much more snazzier to me.

Anywho, the reason behind this announcement of a winner by myself, and also most other news agencies and industry commentors in the past few days, is that most have seen the the tide turn in the past few months irrevocably in favour of the Blu-ray camp.

With the defection of Warner Bros from publishing on both formats to going exclusively Blu-ray, there is now only 2 out of the 6 major studios still exclusively supporting the HD-DVD format, and those studios have hinted that they soon might also drop their exlusive support in the near future.

Also with reps from other staunch HD-DVD supporters like Microsoft saying that "It should be consumer choice [if the Xbox 360 could have a Blu-ray drive]; and if that's the way they vote, that's something we'll have to consider", you just know that the end is nigh.

Of course HD-DVD major developer and supporter, Toshiba, is not conceding defeat even after these latest developments, but most cannot see any way that HD-DVD could win from the position that it is in now.

With all that said, i won't be going out and buying Blu-ray players and burners any time soon. The equipment is still too expensive, and the price of movies is still too high at around the $40 mark. Niether will i be re-purchasing my entire DVD movie library on Blu-ray: there really isn't that much of a 'step forward' to justify that (for the step from VHS to DVD there was though).

But still, in the not too distant future it is an almost certainty that there will be Blu-ray burners and players in most households.