Blue Ray will come and go. Moving parts are always expensive and unreliable - your next format will be SD chip or similar. I still have my collection of of CED movies, and I know people who have Beta! JAF (just another format).
I just posed this question at work about 2 weeks ago after I bought a 1080 HD TV, and the majority answer was only the PS3 option was worth it.
First - You need a 1080 TV. Many stores are still selling 720 sets to get rid of inventory. So, unless you buy a 1080 (Full HD TV), no blue ray for you.
Second - The cost of the player. Most players average around $250, so the only decent option is the PS3. Unless you get one for Christmas, the player is expensive as well and not worth it.
Third - Buying movies. Now I have a kid, and we probably got around 50 or so kids DVDs (Barney, Shrek, Wiggles, Kung Fu Panda, etc). Will he care if they are in Blue ray format? Probably not. Do I want to shell out the extra cash so he can watch the Wiggles in Full HD? No thanks. DVDs just fine.
Fourth - Get a good HD package. Cable, Dish, and Satellite are pushing more and more HD format. Get more from your provider. We use Comcast with DVR option so we can record a certain amount of programming for repeat use. Additionally, more and more movies are coming over as HD which can be viewed as well. So, this makes a blue ray player less viable in my opinion as we have a lot of HD content coming in from the provider. Would I like more, yes, but there is a good amount already.
Price points have ot come down before I would consider getting one. Unless your a movie buff with lots of disc media, I would hold off for a while.
Dear author of ten years ago: Blu-Ray makes for good picture, but streaming has won out in popularity - I suspect by being much more source agnostic. Don’t get me wrong, I still purchase the films I really like in Blu-Ray + DVD combinations, because it’s nice to be able to watch a film on my laptop when I’m on the road or otherwise not near the entertainment center. But the overhead given to BD was just too much for effective mass adoption.
Agreed, the goalposts have shifted to 4k, which is a bit more difficult to stream due to the incredible bandwidth required (4x the resolution of 1080p).