In other news, Microsoft is late to the party AGAIN. (I know it’s a lame analogy. At least I didn’t say “LAN party.”)

The HD DVD player for the XBox 360 is “officially” $50. Not recommended unless you have the shelf-space to buy one of every “limited edition”, made in China toy and keep it in the original packaging…

The killing blow was probably Warner’s well-timed (or poorly-timed, depending on which side of the battle you were cheering for) pre-CES announcement that it was dropping publication of the HD DVD format. A big studio switching formats like that likely motivated the quick one-two of Blockbuster and Netflix officially supporting only Blu-Ray. After all the bad news Toshiba’s concession quickly followed the final Friday announcement by Wal-Mart that they would follow suit.

I’m actually shocked that Toshiba dropped out of the race so gracefully. Their losses may be into the hundreds of millions of dollars, but the move should save consumers a bundle as higher sales should lead Blu-Ray drive and disc prices to fall.

Speaking of falling prices, new and used XBox HD DVD drives accompanied by stacks of games are already littering eBay. Prices are only half what they were last week – and they’ll probably be half that after the holiday on Tuesday.

If you’re now in the market for a Blu-Ray player, the PS3 is future-proofed with support for version 2.0 of the Blu-Ray format. Oh, And, it plays games too.

This won’t be the last nail in HD DVD’s coffin, but it’s a major one. It also means you should cancel your order for that XBox 360 HD DVD add-on. Microsoft has already admitted that they “could still develop a Blu-ray Disc drive for the Xbox 360.” Get with it already Microsoft, you’re falling even farther behind PS3 in the tech race.

Anyone reading this actually buy an HD DVD add-on for the XBox 360? It’s hard to be sympathetic to money bags, but tell about it in the comments and we’ll try.

Update: It looks like Best Buy has followed the Netflix lead today. They’ll be pushing Blu-Ray players in stores, though they’ll continue to sell HD DVD discs.

What makes the 2.0 spec so hard to meet? Unless you’re reading this on an iPhone your PC already meets the requirements: two secondary decoders, 1GB of local storage, and an internet connection. The Playstation 3 meets all those requirements, with its hard drive and Ethernet port covering the last two items and the extra graphics horsepower covering the decoders. On the other hand, I figure most PC and laptop Blu-ray R/RW’s probably meet the standards too. If you dropped the cash on one of those hold your breath and hope your manufacturer is around long enough to dish out the firmware upgrades.

[via Ars Technica]