Strategy Analytics (account needed for the full report) recently released a report that estimates there will be close to 30 million households around the world (US, Japan and Europe, actually) with at least one Blu-ray device by the end of this year. With HD DVDs demise this makes quite a bit of sense, but ALL of the Blu-ray players are dated with the exception of the PS3. Without the latest firmware the current BD-R players are useless unless, of course, you don’t care about the online features. At least with HD DVD you didn’t have to worry about that. It was already there whether you wanted it or not.
Our forecasts for BD players, games consoles and PCs indicate that total annual device sales will reach 57.4 million units annually by 2012. We estimate that nearly 30 million households worldwide will own at least one BD device by the end of 2008, and predict 132 million BD-owning households by 2012.