Major releases still coming out, and enthusiasts collecting discs.
Am I wrong to feel like Blu-ray was always something for the enthusiasts?
DVDs were good enough for most people, Blu-ray was more expensive and it didn’t feel like it ever dominated the market before streaming took over. I often see impressive DVD collections, I rarely see more than a handful of Blu-rays anywhere.
Yup, in my country it’s basically just in specialist shops. Thanks to SCART (universal European RGB A/V cable) and PAL (576p for movies), DVDs look better here than in the US, quite good up to about 40".
You’re also forgetting the precursor to streaming: digital movie downloads, like on iTunes. I’m sure that also helped Blu-rays never really take over.
Which, in some way, is a shame, because I distinctly remember watching a movie on a plain DVD on my parents’ HD TV in very early 2006 and thinking, “Wow, this somehow looks like shit!” and I know I would’ve felt differently if we had a Blu-ray or HD-DVD, but since this was very early 2006, they didn’t even exist yet.
I remember its rival, HD DVD, and how Microsoft bet on HD DVD. The Xbox 360 had an expensive add-on that enabled the use of the discs. No games supported it.
Meanwhile, the PS3 shipped with a Blu-ray player in it and retailed for about half of what Blu-ray players were going for, in 2007. Just like PS2 helped push DVD adoption (though it was well on its way when the PS2 came out), the PS3 definitely contributed to Blu-ray. Both formats offered promising results, but only one was given away with every PS3.
I specifically bought a second-hand PS3 to use as a Blu-Ray player. And to play Journey, which was PS3-only at the time. Other PS3 games didn’t really appeal to me, I already had everything I wanted on PC. But for Blu-Rays the PS3 was indeed an excellent player.
