Quote Originally Posted by Vivi22
HDTV's are to the point now where you can get them pretty cheap as I understand. Manufacturers are already planning on making them the standard within the next few years which means you soon won't be able to buy anything but HDTV's. Once that happens, there's no reason not to support it. Microsoft and Sony are just getting a jump on that market. It will probably be within the lifespan of both consoles that HDTV's become standard and far more common.
Afaik, the FCC anounced that all TV broadcasting in the US would be going all digital by 2006, thus TVs would be going digital HD exclusively. In other words, Sony and MS don't have much of a choice as to whether to support the HD route. Not supporting it would be forcing an increasing number of gamers to watch games at worthlessly low resolutions.

And for reference, non-progressive NTSC games on current consoles are only about 352x240 (480 interlaced) or 352x480. Quite a poor resolution when compared to 720x480 or 1920x1080 HD resolutions.