The appeal is not having to use ink, not needing a seperate printer at all, and never having to worry about your image fading or rubbing off. I have one of those printers, the disks are more expensive, nearly as much as light scribe is now and they are a pain to use in comparison.

I even have light scribe on my laptop, I went over to my sisters on mothers day and burned her a disk with a bunch of pictures on it, then flipped the disk over and burned our family photo on the other side of the disk. It was quick, easy and very nice, not something I could have done at all with my cd printer unless I brough my luggage.

I can tell you that I own a Wii, PS3, and a 360. After all I have read I agree that the format wars will eventually be won most likely by HD-DVD only because it's technology is more stable. However I see that being a LONG battle so it will most likely still be carrying on until the death of the PS3 and 360 with the birth of whatever comes next...

I am a technician, I actually repair 360's and PS3's, which is how I own both systems. I had to purchase my Wii because seemingly, they don't break.. that is unless kicked through a window when someone gets over zealous playing on it.

I can tell you from the over 100 of each broken systems I have that the PS3 and the 360 were both initially garbage. However, the 360 is easier and cheaper repaired garbage so that helps them out a lot. The poor sales of the PS3 are the only thing that kept Sony from a recall, they have to have a certain % with a particular problem before a recall can be enforced. Sony has stock piles of original PS3's they haven't sold and are pushing the newer 40g model which will offset the return % since the 40g model seems to work more reasonably.

What this means for consumers is that the original packaged 60g PS3 will someday go up in value for the ones that work, since it will play PS2 games and has other features that newer models will be lacking. However, if they break then, you will likely get a newer model motherboard and end up with what you avoided buying in the first place.

Software and movie developers are both getting scared with Sony. Blue ray and the PS3 are not turning the proffits they should and their returns are huge as with the 360. I think in the end software support will win the battle between the 360 and the PS3 and most likely turn that victory towards Microsoft which has far more software rescources than Sony ever will.

Though one thing I fail to ever see in the next gen wars is the Wii. Which I consider sad because Nintendo has more sales than the 360 and with it's low return rate has more systems in homes (which means people still buying games) than the 360 and the PS3 combines. Nintendo has 8 of the top 10 best selling software titles in the world and with their advancement I would put down $$ that the next "Next Gen" system that will hit the market will be made by Nintendo. Remember, nintendo only lost the market in the first place because Sony ripped them off on the PS1 which was originally designed to be a CD drive for the SNES (much like the Sega CD). Because of that Nintendo had to start from scratch with their only CD-Rom manufacturer betraying them which is why N64 still used Ram carts. Nintendo is catching on though and recovering fast. With more and more software developers wanting to make games for the Wii Nintendo will be able to afford to develop while Sony and Microsoft will still be licking their wounds on the PS3 and 360.

And in the end, You all know Nintendo WILL make ANOTHER system that has WORKING backwards compatability that you won't have to return because it breaks 10 minutes after you plug it in. Yeah, the Wii isn't the AMAZING graphic machine that the PS3 or 360 are, but it works and has games AND will play the game cube games too.

In the end, I say Nintendo will win the war with the 360 coming in second. Nintendo made a few mistakes, but theirs are honest ones. All in all they make the most reliable systems and out out great games themselves. By the time the next "Next Gen" systems are out I think sony will be far behind, maybe even too far behind to compete. Eventually Microsoft and Nintendo will be the ones battling it out, but sure as the air I am breathing, Microsofts next system will break, a lot, and Nintendo's won't and eventually people get sick of shelling out a ton of cash for stuff that dont work.

PS. I remember buying the $399 Saturn, which I would NOT have if Sega made games that broke. Though I still wish I hadn't since they dumped it before it got any good. I have owned every game system made with the exception of the Virtual boy (nintendo's big flop) which hurt my eyes. Look into the past a bit... The PS3 is much like the 3DO or the home NEO GEO. Great system, but WAY over priced for it's time. The only difference is Sony has more money than they did so it will be a slower death, but make no mistake, it will be a death.

PSS. I borrowed a couple PS3 games to try my system out after I got one, it hasn't been played since. It works great (anyone want to buy it? lol) but there are no games I am interested in. I wont waste my money on blue ray movies when I can get the same quality from DIVx or Xvid on my media drive. My 360 gets played by my son only, but that's because the system has been around longer and there are reasonably priced used games for it ($15-$20). The only system I have purchased new games for is the Wii... those are acutally fun, even if the graphics aren't as good... And of course the PC (Direct X 10 FTW!). Which by the way the blend of compatibility for PC and XBOX is another HUGE pushing point. Since I can use my PC to play movies I download through my 360 onto my TV...

Anyway this rant is getting way too long... End result:
F**K Sony, their systems are pieces of crap... I don't care if yours worked out of the box for 4 years... MILLIONS of returns on EVERY system can't be wrong, you just got lucky!
XBOX Has an unfair advantage wich will help them survive when the PS3 dies a slow horrible death!
Nintendo will make good WORKING systems until the end of time, the over 100 year old company will still be making mario games for our kid's kids.