what percentage of US households can afford Blu-ray players and the HDTVs?  

Great question.

I think now less than 25% have a HDTV ...

Welcome to modern day capitalism. For anybody in the US that could afford a million BD players and HDTVs there are a million people who cannot afford a single one.

So I guess the real world percentage is shockingly low - lower than in many other "developed countries".

At this point not that many however, prices will come down its just a question of how many HDTVs can get into homes. Plus is Bluray necessary considering the software prices compared DVDs.

Another thing and it might sound funny but not everyone has 20/20 vision I can vouch that some of my friends fall into this category and they're not that wowed by HDM vs DVD. Lets not forget though that the PS3 is the throttle behind Blurays victory and its still selling as we speak.

the last i heard 6 out of 10 people in the US has more debt then they can handle. this doesnt mean they cant make a hdtv purchase and get a Blu-ray player "for free". Its going to take a while for the economy to recover. Its going to be a hard road the next few years for Blu and they will have to offer deals as they have been doing. But during every presidential ellection i can remember the economy always takes a downward spiral and hurts consumer confidence for some reason. We will see in 2009 how the economy goes.

soon you wont be able to buy a standard def tv if you try....so why bitch and moan about it in a sad anti-blu way?

Sony and it's partners have until 3rd quarter to get profile 2 BR players out and make them and new BR movies affordable or risk geting permanantly moded to niche technology.If Sony insists on artificially keeping the prices of BR players and movies high, then it(and other BR supporters)will lose the one chance it/they have for BR to be somewhat a commercial success.If affordable profile 2 BR players do become available at least then people won't be forced into buying PS3s anymore.

One thing that won't happen is BR or any future physical medium will EVER take the place of DVD.DVD is effectively the last totally successful physical movie format.The best BlueRay can hope for is to share the market with different types of VOD/DD until the day when HDTV/12MPS VOD has permeated consumer households(1-3 years away).With the state the US economy is now and will be for the rest of the year at least, i don't see the road for BR being a very bright one(here in the US).Everyone pretty much has to buy new tvs by 2/09 so that likely won't leave much expendable income for the average person with alot of debt as is.$400 baseline BR players and $30 BR movies likely aren't to be the first thigns on consumers "to buy" lists unless things start gettign better with the economy fast and/or people start paying down some of their darned debt.

I kind of dissagree with this. i feel since BR has just begun to establish itself and people are slowly making a purchase they have probably a couple of years to get the prices down. things dont happen overnight. everything takes time. But when talking about niche status i think we are moving into a niche world. there are so many different ways to get media today that i think everything may be a niche status. At my house alone i now have 4 options for tv alone. comcast, dish, vios, or OTA. now with the first three there is alot of programming that is competing for my viewing. the more options the less viewers each will have. Then you throw hard media into the mix and it has to offer something for it to be worth it for people to buy or rent. The less you can do with the hard media the less worth it will have. illegal or not the very fact that i can rip dvds adds more uses for the media and makes it more fun to have. For example; if i want to take some movies on a trip i can burn them and not worry about losses or damages along the way and then i can just toss them when i get home. I dont think i would ever bring Blu with me on a trip.

Sorry, this thread is just pure speculation. Nothing really related to BD players. HDTVs are in, at most, 25 million households according to recent data.

larry