The Christmas shopping frenzy is approaching fast and this has spurred yet another conflict between the two parties involved in the next-generation format war, namely the supporters of the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. This time, we're talking about the number of discs sold, which, as market research studies indicate, point out to Blu-ray to be the victor by a landslide.

Thus, according to a report by Reuters, the latest study from Home Media Research, a division of Home Media Magazine, indicates the fact that the total U.S. sales of Blu-ray discs totaled 2.6 million units from January 1 through Sept 30, versus 1.4 million HD-DVD discs sold. Thus, it would seem that the Sony's format is dominating Toshiba's version 2 to 1. Or is it?

As mentioned earlier, the figures were recorded in the January 1st - September 30th period, not taking into account the huge success enjoyed by Paramount's "Transformers", which hit the shelves in mid-October and sold more than 100,000 HD-DVDs on its first day of release. Thus, Toshiba's next-gen format might really pick up the pace over the next months and especially during the all-important Christmas shopping season. Furthermore, the study from Home Media Research says nothing about HD DVD or Blu-ray rentals, which are an extremely important issue and seem to seriously favor the former.

Since both formats launched in the spring of 2006, an estimated 4.98 million high-definition discs have been sold, including 3.01 million in Blu-ray and 1.97 million in HD-DVD through the end of September, according to Home Media. However, this is a relative low number, compared to the number of consumers, which means that the rate of adoption for the next-gen formats is not exactly as high as either Sony or Toshiba had hoped for.

Nevertheless, this whole battle and "format war" might become just a hilarious part of technology's history soon enough, due to one very simple reason: people won't be keen on spending too much money on standalone players compatible with a single format, especially since most major studios have already chosen sides and will release movies in just one format. Instead, they'll go for dual-format machines, which work with both HD DVD and Blu-ray, much like the devices announced by both Samsung and LG. And after all, who among you would be willing to pay good cash for a device that is capable of playing only half of the movies you want to watch, instead of paying a bit more for a device that lets you view both formats?

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