Why say it in Europe??
Why do website keep going on about the US studios that have become 'exclusive' to Blu-Ray, or even HD-DVD? Their exclusives will mostly apply only to US distribution as they generally do not have distribution rights to thoses movies in the rest of the world, so its down to the distibuters in all the other countries which format they wish to release the movies on. So a Blu-Ray exclusive in the US could be a HD-DVD exclusive in France, but still a Blu-ray exclusive in Germany (if the distibutor didnt have rights in both countries). So if you Americans wanted these Blu-ray exclusives on your HD-DVD player, you could import them. But I know thats a hassle so will unlikely do much.
The downfall of the cheaper format, which would provide almost identical performance to the more expensive format is being pushed by site like this that either miss-inform or exclude relevent information, causing people to second guess buying a cheaper format.
I know that if I were to buy a HD player, it would have been a HD-DVD, why, its damn cheaper, doesnt have this profile crap, so, if I wanted all the extras, I have them all, without having to check which profile it will play them on.
All studios should just support both formats, the production cost of the film itself far exceeds the production cost of a second format type. It appears to work just fine for the gaming industry, where, the production of another format costs a great deal more than that of the movie industry, so the gaming industries margins would be far less per format produced than with the movie industry.
The only reason that a company would go exclusive (or even exclude from both formats) to a format is if there were minimal sales, which there is on both formats, due to the minimal install base of players, due to their high cost. The other reason is if a company were to subsidise the production costs of the discs, reducing them to such a level that to use that to produce a film on that format will be basically zero cost, so no risk.