In the end it really doesn't matter, better tech always wins out...
I believe that in the end both formats are going to kill each other off. This reminds me of the next gen CD format war, remember Super CD and DVD-Audio. Which of these two formats won, some might say DVD-Audio, but in reality the iPod or mp3 won. In other words downloadable music, both legal and otherwise, won over shrink-wrap media. We as a society are migrating away from retail and towards online. Video-On-Demand, IPTV, P2P and a host of other emerging new technologies will replace next gen DVD and relagate them "old school" in a similar way. BluRay may gain the upper hand in market share, just as DVD-Audio may have, but this a diminishing market, honestly who actually buys DVD-Audio discs. Its like these companies are jockeying for the best deck chairs onboard the USS Titanic, it simply doesn't matter anymore. BluRay and HD-DVD are quickly becoming obsolete and out of touch with the times. The future is online not off.
One other consideration is the recording aspect of BluRay and HD-DVD. As someone mentioned in another post the movie 300 at full 1080p resolution was only 10.2 GB. That would fit easly on either BluRay or HD-DVD, no need for the extra space. Movie sizes I've seen at their very largest are only in the 20 GB range, most coming in around the low 20's or high teens. But my point is personal recording, and their you can never have too much space. If I were to chose one format over another, recording capacity would be an important factor. BluRay's 50 GB capacity is obviously better than HD-DVDs 30 GB, but this too may be going "old school" as well. A new technology is emerging called Holographic Versatile Disc or HVD. These new discs are an order of magnitude larger in capacity than either BluRay or HD-DVD ranging in size from 300 GB to 1.6 TB. The future recording format to replace existing recordable DVDs will likely come from this technology, BluRay and HD-DVD are mearly a stop-gap measure along the way for those who can't wait. Does anyone remember the format war between LS-120 and ZIP, the high capacity PC drives to replace floppy back in the day. Who won out in the end, neither. Recordable CDs eventually replaced floppys. LS-120 and ZIP were really only a stop-gap for the recordable CD and later DVD. In this sense history is repeating itself and the technology has come full circle. And now here we are today debating which format is better, which one will win, one only needs to look at the recent past to see the near future.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
