Could adult entertainment kill Blu-ray?

First we begin with something of a history lesson. Back in the early days of the VCR there were two rival formats, VHS and Sony's technically superior Betamax.

Sony didn't want any filth appearing on Betamax, so the adult entertainment industry went with VHS and the rest is history. Betamax may have survived among professional broadcast users, but VHS won the living rooms of average consumers.

Step forward 20+ years and we have a similar situation, with HD-DVD and Blu-ray fighting it out for dominance of the living room once more. And again reports have suggested that Sony doesn't want adult entertainment on its disks. But how true is that?

"There is not a prohibition against adult content," Marty Gordon, vice chair of the Blu-ray Disc Association announced last week. "The BDA is an open organization that welcomes the participation of all companies interested in using and supporting the format, including those that represent the full spectrum of genres in the content industry."

However Sony announced last week that it will not allow Sony DADC, its disc replicating subsidiary, to manufacture adult films. The company says it will not duplicate movies over a certain certification rating or if movies haven't been certified by a local motion picture association. In response, the adult entertainment industry seems to moving towards HD-DVD as its chosen format. At least for now.

Wicked's Jackie Ramos told PC Magazine that her company chose HD-DVD because of the high cost of Bluray production, lack of market share and general low costs. The company hasn't ruled out releasing on Blu-ray in the future, but for now HD-DVD was the easier option.

"For the adult industry, no one is really replicating on Blu-ray right now," said Jay Grdina, president of Club Jenna. "The process is really difficult, obviously. The render times are two weeks or more and the costs associated with it are really high."

Reports have suggested that in Japan many early PlayStation 3 adopters chose the console as a cheap media player, rather than to play games, which may explain the console's low attach rate. Yet if the story of Blu-ray follows that of Betamax, Sony could be left with an expensive console that really could have lived without its expensive drive, Technical superiority doesn't always count.