Early adopters always get Fuc*ed. It's just goes with the territory of electronics. Just ask those hd-dvd people.
I don't understand this philosophy. Unless you have never been an early adopter then you really do not understand the mindset of an early adopter.
Early adopters are leaders into a new technology. We already know the product is going to be:
A) overpriced
B) under supported
C) not matured
D) specs will change
For this we overpay for product to be the first to have and use it. We know that we are the guinea pigs for the new tech and hope that bug fixes come down the pipeline quickly. We also know that the new product is usually not fully spec'd and that changes will come to the format as features are fully debugged and the format and the tech become mature.
And, shockingly we just don't care about the price -- or lack of features in first and second release product!! We expect that by the third generation:
A) Prices start to come down
B) Support starts becoming automatic with bugs being fixed rather quickly
C) We expect the tech to finally start reaching maturity
D) We expect the specs to be fully flushed out and supported
And, shockingly we don't expect this to happen at the end of the first year out! Maybe by the end of the second year we expect to start seeing 3rd gen tech that are fully spec'd and mature. And finally, we expect to buy more then one product using the tech.
Maybe what is so hard to understand is that with BD we all knew what the specs were and also what the TIMELINE was to a fully featured BD player. Those in the know purchased a PS3 because we knew going in that 1st and 2nd gen players were not going to be fully featured players. We also knew that the PS3 would be upgraded everytime a new feature was rolled out in a BD standalone player. Those who decided to purchase a 1.0 standalone knew that those players would not be able to upgrade to 2.0 so they also knew that 2 to 3 years down the road they would be buying a new BD standalone.
If you really want to know who got messed up in the whole HDM format skirmish -- it was the HD-DVD supporters. You spent money on a doorstop. That is what it will be two years from now. And if you are not an early adopter then the lowballing of those HD-DVD players sucked you into a dying format. Those who were early adopters will just buy a BD player and keep enjoying HDM on disc for the forseeable future. Those who thought HD-DVD was going to win and really can not afford to be an early adopter then you feel cheated, betrayed, screwed, tossed aside, and you blame Sony primarily, and then you vent on BD supporters because you feel you had the superior format.
The reality is that HD-DVD was NEVER the superior format. iHD was never going to be as fully fuctioning as BD-JAVA 2.0 and HD-DVD was never going to surpass the basic specs of BD. The reality was that Toshiba was able to mature their product very early in the product cycle and then decided that the best way to get to the consumer was lowball the price to the consumer. This screwed the retailers and other CE manufacters that might of jumped on board as the move made sure nobody could make money selling HD-DVD. No, the BDA did not screw its supporters and consumers -- it was the HD-DVD forum who screwed its supporters and consumers. Simply, HD-DVD lost and BD won -- it is time to move on.