A lot of the black Friday and holidary specials are putting some of the stand alone players under $400, with some getting down close to $300, but the PS3 is the best for the price being the best on the market.
This reminds me sort of the DVD-R+ and DVD-R- wars of the early 2000s. What won out wasn't either format, but dual-format recorders. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the same thing happens here -- neither format will "win". What will win is having a player that plays both bluray and HDDVD.
Since you don't live in the US, the outlook might be somewhat different. I haven't really looked at worldwide figures in a while, but I was under the impression that the only region where the two formats were really "competing" was North America. In Japan, Australia, Europe, etc., I think Blu-ray has been pretty much the only format (I can only recall a 95% marketshare figure from Japan, although I think I remember something like 75% for Blu-ray in Europe at some point). Of course, that probably doesn't really matter much. If a format comes out on top in the US, that format will probably win out in the other regions as well.
