Experts and analysts have always agreed that when Blu-ray players legitimately reached the $199 pricepoint the format would go mainstream. It’s not exactly working out that way.

$200 Blu-ray players are a dime a dozen this holiday season, but according to ABI Research only 8 percent of holiday buyers were considering upgrading to the format. This comes as quite a surprise considering half of American homes have gone HD and its old rival, HD DVD, is all but dead. We’ll have to see in January, when the smoke clears, if this is due to the recession or the public’s general hesitance to pick up another movie viewing format.

Last month, Sony gave us a treat with the release of firmware 2.50 for their PS3. Now, as a bit of Thanksgiving cheer, the company has readied firmware version 2.53. The update will hit the wires sometime on November 26th and will bring along full-screen Flash support. Finally. The update will also offer a power save option to save your dying controllers.

Get your PS3s ready for their download now, before the turkey.

With recent disappointing news that the much awaited Amazon Kindle 2 is being delayed, Sony has released their $400 PRS-700 Reader and initial reviews say that it is difficult to read.

I can already see publishers across the country, sighing with relief that Sony struck out with their latest ebook reader which had potential to be very cool. Sony improved on this reader by including a touchscreen, a sidelight as well as a simpler interface but forgot to making the screen easy to read. The design flaw is the horrendous glare caused by the translucent layer used by the touchscreen and sidelight, rendering the device useless.

Sony also made no improvements on the software side of reader.

I guess they totally dropped the ball on this one. What could’ve been very cool improvements to last year’s reader did nothing but reduce the paper replacement to a paper weight.

For those of you looking for a great deal on the PS3, look towards Amazon. The company is charging $199 for an 80GB PS3, bundled with a game, a Blu-Ray collection and a PS3 remote. Yeah, great deal right? There’s a catch. Such is life.

The deal is part of Amazon’s yearly "Customer Vote" promotion, which calls upon customers to vote on which bundle you’d want to buy given the chance. Then, if your ship comes in, you are given a chance to race against other consumers to snag one of the rare bundles. Sounds like a pain, but it is a deal that could potentially save for hundreds of dollars.

Here is the breakdown:

PS3 Blu-Ray Sci-Fi Bundle – $199.00 PlayStation 3 80GB, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Firefly: The Complete Series, PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc remote.

PS3 Blu-ray Action Bundle – $229.00 PlayStation 3 80GB, Far Cry 2, James Bond Collection 6-Pack, PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc remote.

PS3 Blu-ray Family Bundle – $199.00 PlayStation 3 80GB, LittleBigPlanet, Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy, PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc remote.

Don’t leave it to chance. The Family bundle is running a solid lead and only the winning bundle will be available on Friday.

Various sources indicate that just hours before Microsoft’s Netflix-enabled Xbox 360 dashboard update hit, Sony made a lion’s share of their content unavailable for viewing on their rival’s gaming console. The same goes for Sony’s subsidiary Columbia Pictures. Netflix officials chalk it up to the "ebb and flow" of licensing agreements and say it’s only a temporary suspension. The Sony and Columbia content can still be streamed on other devices, just not on the Xbox. The console wars may be heating up again.