I reckon the evolution of source components is likely to be broader than is suggested here. I believe the plum that the likes of Sony, Microsoft etc are after is the open standards set-top box - the network computer in the home that will be as ubiquitous as the TV and which will be part of the digital TV you buy in a few years time. Rupert Murdoch is losing millions a month on his various Digital Broadcast Satellite ventures and is lumbered with truck-rolls and funding set-top boxes that obsolete quickly. The economics say a player that can deliver pay TV to an open standards set-top box that is already present in the home will do better. TiVO and Replay TV tried to get there and failed and Playstation 2 is a poor attempt. What makes it really hard is the lack of a standard for the middleware layer. What did it for the PC was IBM and what can do it for the set-top box is Microsoft, and the X-box. It may be a few years away, but companies like Sony and Microsoft will try to find that device that people will buy in large numbers that allows them to play DVDs on the TV, CDs, SACD perhaps, play games on the TV, surf the net on the TV, play games over the net on the TV, and whatever - that also includes the bit extra that will allow reception of Digital Broadcast Satellite and Video on Demand and interactive TV over say DSL. If they can get something like this to sell like hot cakes, then they will own something valuable. It may be the middleware standard (like owning DOS was valuable to Microsoft in the last two decades), or it may be owning some patents on some valuable parts that need to be in the overall equation. If Sony can make a big thing of SACD so that it needs to be in the package then the royalties will flow. They will obviously want the Playstation standard to be in there too. So how do they make sure SACD is in it? One way is make sure it is in Playstation 3, win this race with Playstation 3 and license it as a package. Another is to make a lot of consumer buzz about it so that having the SACD feature in the package can be a differentiator from say Microsoft's set-top box play. I am not sure I understand all of the possibilities here, and I am not sure SACD is a major part of this picture for Sony, but I wouldn't mind betting that it does fit in this picture. And I reckon that this is what is being raced for - not us audiophiles. But some market acceptance and hype from us wouldn't hurt.
