No, really, 2009 will be the year of Blu-ray (maybe)

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Oh, Blu-ray. Is this your year—wasn’t last year supposed to be your year?—or will you wallow in relative obscurity while the world falls apart all around you?

There’s several things at play here, most of which you’re probably already aware. Generally, Blu-ray players are dropping in price, so buying one won’t necessarily ruin your credit (should you still have credit); actual disc prices are still on the high side. But DVDs are good enough, right! Then you’ve got IP-based services, like that streaming Netflix deal or Vudu. There’s no discs to clutter up the house with, provided your kids (or younger siblings) don’t break them in half while playing Blu-ray frisbee. But we’re at the mercy of the ISPs here: you can kiss these services goodbye if they start charging by the gigabyte.

So yeah, more or less a rehash of arguments we’ve had here every other day for the past year. May CES clear all this up for us.