Over at TECH.BLORGE.com this past week, I’ve been writing a bunch of stories about the HD DVD vs Blu-ray war, and it’s getting more and more interesting.

It seems that hardware manufacturers are getting more enamored with the idea of releasing dual format players. LG has already done this, but ringing in at a cool $999 (list price of $1,049.99), it’s not exactly a super fast moving device. Now there are rumors that a sub-$500 model may appear next week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and this is followed by news that by 2012, 66% of the HD drives in computers may be dual format.

So, is it the hardware manufacturers who are behind this?  Have they seen that their lack of sales of the HD players is due to the studios being stubborn, and it’s time to take the decision away from them and the consumers?  One has to wonder what’s causing this move.  They obviously see the war as being in a stalemate or else they wouldn’t be investing the money in these new players.

Could it really be this simple?  Could we really see the ‘war’ settled with both formats just co-existing for their entire product life-cycle?  It would make me laugh if this is how it all finally shakes out.