The last hold-out for HD exclusivity has apparently joined the Blu-Ray team, as reported by the USA Today.  Many blogs and pundits were predicting the largest seller of DVDs would announce its exclusivity at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show.  With Blu-Ray discs outselling HD-DVD more than 2 to 1, Warner Brothers’ move is likely to expedite an end to the high-def format war with Blu-Ray as the winner.

In August, Paramount went HD-DVD exclusive even though Blu-Ray had a small lead, prolonging the format war.

The announcement makes me wonder about another prediction spreading around the internet about an Ultimate Xbox 360 to be announced by Bill Gates’ keynote at CES.  The Ultimate 360 sounds like a geek wet dream with improved hardware, silent fan, built-in WiFi, IPTV service, 320 GB hard drive and a built-in HD-DVD drive.  The IPTV is probably happening (screen shots have already been leaked) but how embarrassing would the HD-DVD drive be should the format fail. As exciting as the prospect could be, the truth is the next week would be all about bashing Microsoft desperately jumping on some anti-Sony bandwagon.  It also lends credence to director Michael Bay’s theory that Microsoft wants the format war to continue so it can bolster its video download service.

Also, if Microsoft decided to include the HD-DVD drive, what happens to game makers?  Can they make games using the HD-DVD discs?  If so, that means Microsoft single-handled spreads the format war into video games where no format war (except consoles themselves) existed.  And that’s just mean. 

This is of course total speculation and quite a segue from the subject of this post, so just consider this my pre-CES posting.  Go Gears of War 2 announcement!