generation of DVDs but an outright win is an unlikely outcome, 
Predator.
On one side is the giant Sony corporation, which is its PlayStation 3 games consoles. Facing it across the global battlefield is Toshiba, backed by Microsoft and Intel, promoting the rival (and incompatible) HD DVD format. The stakes are very high indeed for both companies.
Yet Sony, which have made their movies available on Blu-ray, is nowhere near delivering the early knockout blow it was hoping for.
Instead, early defections from the Blu-ray camp and lagging win. Samsung broke ranks with Blu-ray last month by announcing it move by LG.
In addition, most analysts acknowledge that the PC Microsoft and Intel behind HD DVD is significant. Neither of these Toshiba allies has shown signs of switching camps so far.
Meanwhile, PS3 sales in Britain, the European market where PS3 has had its most successful launch, were 165,000 in week one but fell to 28,000 in the second week, a trend that has been echoed in other markets as well.
Sony took a big gamble bundling the Blu-ray player with the PS3, Ken Kutaragi, the "father of the PlayStation", recently paid the Computer Entertainment unit.
With the sales of PS3 lagging, the new machines may not be the cornerstone of a recovery at Sony, with videogame-related losses ($2.4 billion) - twice the original expectations.
Sony has a lot riding on the success of the PS3, especially iPod. It certainly doesn't want to have another Betamax or MiniDisc story, either. For Sony, the PS3 and Blu-ray are part of an dictated by Sony.
Toshiba also has an important backer on its side in Microsoft's Xbox.
for Blu-ray. But those who choose to buy an HD DVD attachment for in the new HD format.
On the retail side, the battle is also taking some interesting twists. In a recent blog on the website Digital Trends, Rob Enderle number of low cost HD DVD players for Christmas". Such a move, although unconfirmed by Wal-Mart, could be decisive.
Wal-Mart uses between 40 per cent and 45 per cent of all DVD sales in the US.
In Europe, the HD DVD Promotion Group has also been busy signing up smaller European studios to the Toshiba format, hoping to "build a local ecosystem" for HD DVD software. The group is able to regional code controls.
European countries, a fact that the HD DVD camp hopes to exploit by having more of these titles available on its format sooner. In France, for example, 40 per cent of the DVD market is for titles from independent studios, according to Screen Digest. "We expect to third of them will be local," says Xavier Bringue, HD DVD European group manager.
At the moment, 180 Blu-ray titles are available in Europe, the weight of titles, the number of HD DVD discs that are bought discs. In Britain, this so-called "attach rate" for HD DVD discs is 28 a year on average, while for Blu-ray it is five, says the HD DVD Promotion Group.
standalone players) is five-to-one against HD DVD hardware sales, Blu-ray's software sales figures are also a lot less impressive, at 2.
3 discs per player, according to a recent report.
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