Who can tell, but DVD-A could still win out in the end. There millions of DVD players being sold and millions more will be sold in the next year or two. Most of these are 24bit/96mhz. As with all things electronic, DVD-A technology will be standard someday soon, replacing 24/96. These future players will most likely sell for the same $200 to $300. Joe Consumer who only wants to watch movies and listen to music on your typical mass market system will be (and currently is) very happy with his DVD machine that also plays CDs. This natural progression in the DVD player gives DVD-A hundreds of millions of potential customers assuming the typical mass market DVD player will have this technology someday soon.
Also do not forget that four years ago, HDCD superiority was suppose to make regular CDs obsolete. Now ordinary 24/96 machines sound about as good as HDCD, so HDCD is probably obsolete already. DVD-A is basically 24bit/192mhz. How soon will these DAC chips be standard, and inside the typical DVD player I mention above??? We will see ??