It's content that drives the adoption of new technology

Many companies still seem to be missing the point.  Outside of a small number of tech-heads, it's content that drives the adoption of new technology, not how cool the technology actually is.

Two areas where this simple but trustworthy rule of thumb has been forgotten are home entertainment and games consoles.  Take the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray format war.  There's only one way that this format war is going to be won, and that's when one side or another attains a critical mass of quality content that the other side doesn't have.  Not many people are going to shell out a few hundred bucks on a HD DVD or Blu-ray player just for the privilege of being able to play a few films, especially when you can get the content on DVD format that works almost as well. 

I remember when I made the shift from VHS to DVD.  I waited until there was enough content about to justify buying my first DVD player.  Within months of that purchase I'd amassed quite a DVD library (although I'm still adding to it at the rate of several discs per month at least).  I now own several DVD players and can watch a DVD pretty much anywhere in the house.  The other day I started looking at some HD DVD and Blu-ray titles available and what I was looking for was extras on the disc.  I'm not going to buy an HD DVD or Blu-ray player just to have it working as a DVD player and there's no way I'm re-buying a movie I have on DVD on either of the new formats unless there's a significant amount of new, compelling content.  In the meantime I'm sticking with DVD.  I also don't care that much about which format is cracked to make copying possible since the file sizes are so large as to make any rip too big to handle conveniently.  Again, DVD is more than adequately meets my needs.

Same is true for games consoles.  Both Microsoft are desperate to push games consoles but when you look closely at them there's little in the way of compelling content backing up the games console.  Sure, each console has a game or two that's unique, but again, how many people are willing to buy a games console for a couple of games?  Not many, and the sales statistics back me up.  Sony has made some serious blunders during the marketing of the PS3 by concentrating too much on the technology inside the box rather than the games available for it.

Thoughts?