Answer?

1) Difficult to say. From a general commercial point of view, it could have been too soon. Many still don't have it, and the format is still not so widespread. On the other hand, Blue-ray was competing with HD DVD, and the one which could progress more quickly could have had more chances to win the race... 2) Until February 2008, it was quite risky to buy Blue-ray, because of the format war: "On January 4, 2008, a day before CES 2008, Warner Bros., the only major studio still releasing movies in both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc format, announced it would release only in Blu-ray Disc after May 2008. This effectively included other studios which came under the Warner umbrella, such as New Line Cinema and HBO, though in Europe HBO distribution partner the BBC announced it would, while keeping an eye on market forces, continue to release product on both formats. This led to a chain reaction in the industry, including major U.S. retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Circuit City, and Canadian chains such as Future Shop, dropping HD DVD in their stores. A former major European retailer, Woolworths, dropped HD DVD from its inventory. Netflix and Blockbuster – major DVD rental companies – said they would no longer carry HD DVDs. Following these new developments, on February 19, 2008, Toshiba announced it would end production of HD DVD devices, allowing Blu-ray Disc to become the industry standard for high-density optical disks. Universal Studios, the sole major movie studio to back HD DVD since inception, shortly after Toshiba's announcement, said "while Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray Disc." Paramount Studios, which started releasing movies only in HD DVD format during late 2007, also said it would start releasing in Blu-ray Disc. Both studios announced initial Blu-ray lineups in May 2008. With this, all major Hollywood studios now support Blu-ray. According to Adams Media Research, high-definition software sales were slower in the first two years than DVD software sales. 16.3 million DVD software units were sold in the first two years (1997-1998) compared to 8.3 million high-definition software units (2006-2007). One reason given for this difference was the smaller marketplace (26.5 million HDTVs in 2007 compared to 100 million SDTVs in 1998). Former HD DVD supporter Microsoft has stated that they are not planning to make a Blu-ray Disc drive for the Xbox 360. Blu-ray Disc began making serious strides as soon as the format war ended. Nielsen VideoScan sales numbers showed that with some titles, such as 20th Century Fox's Hitman, up to 14% of total disc sales were from Blu-ray, although the average for the first half of the year was around 5%. Shortly after the format war ended, a study by The NPD Group found that awareness of Blu-ray Disc had reached 60% of U.S. households. In December 2008 The Dark Knight Blu-ray Disc sold 600,000 copies on the first day of its launch in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. A week after launch the The Dark Knight Blu-ray Disc had sold over 1.7 million copies worldwide making it the first Blu-ray Disc title to sell over a million copies in the first week of release. According to Singulus Technologies AG, Blu-ray is being adopted faster than the DVD format was at the same period of its development. This conclusion was based on the fact that Singulus Technologies has received orders for 21 Blu-ray dual-layer machines during the first quarter of 2008, while 17 DVD machines of this type were made in the same period in 1997. According to GfK Retail and Technology in the first week of November 2008 sales of Blu-ray recorders surpassed DVD recorders in Japan. According to the Digital Entertainment Group the total number of Blu-ray Disc playback devices (both set-top box and game console) had reached 9.6 million by the end of 2008. According to Swicker & Associates Blu-ray Disc software sales in the United States and Canada were 1.2 million in 2006, 19.2 million in 2007, and 82.4 million in 2008." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#End_of_the_format_war_.26_future_prospects 3) "Blu-ray as a holiday gift? Tread carefully [November 26, 2008] Back to my friend asking me about buying Blu-ray as a gift for a family member. I suggested to buy the DVD version instead. Here are the reasons I outlined to choose DVD over Blu-ray this holiday season: 1. Blu-ray is best at 1080p TV and despite prices plummeting, most people still don’t own 1080p-capable TVs. You might as well buy the DVD version if it won’t be watched at 1080p. Buying Blu-ray for TV sets that are at lower resolutions is a waste. 2. Blu-ray selection is still too anemic compared to DVD, particularly if you enjoy watching old TV shows. Take the complete series of Get Smart for example which I recently bought for $109 at Best Buy. The other day I saw a Blu-ray 4-set of movies selling for $90! Let’s see, 66 hours of content vs. 8 for close to the same price? 3. Too expensive. Every time I think about buying a Blu-ray movie, I have a hard time justifying the prices. $25-35 for one movie? Sure, you get it at the best quality ever, but unless it’s a movie you’re going to watch many, many times over, you might as well get 2 or 3 DVD movies for the same price. 4. Too risky. The chance of the Blu-ray format making it another couple years is not very good. If you want to build a library in Blu-ray it better be with a collector’s mindset. If the person you’re shopping for has a 1080p-capable TV — and if you don’t know, just ask them (if they don’t know chances are very good they don’t) — and IF the person has a PS3 or standalone Blu-ray player. If they don’t have the equipment already and/or don’t plan to upgrade, buy the DVD version instead. If they are 1080p equipped, Talk to them about the type of movies they like and how they feel about their Blu-ray player. If you asked me what I’d rather have: one Blu-ray disc or a TV season on DVD, I’d choose the latter 9 times out of 10. Again, it’s not that I don’t like Blu-ray, because I think the quality is awesome, but I’d rather watch 65 hours of Get Smart than 8 hours of movies I’ll probably only watch once or twice at a higher resolution." Source and further information: http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20081126/5711/