Fraid as it's very hard to find stuff from 70s format wars on the internet, an excert from Wikipedia will have to do for now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war
Quote:
Market share
When home VCRs started to become popular in the UK, the main issue was one of availability and price. VHS machines were available through the high street rental chains such as Radio Rentals and DER, while Beta was seen as the more upmarket choice for people who wanted quality and were prepared to pay for it. By 1980, out of an estimated 100,000 homes with VCRs, 70% were rented, and the presence of two competing formats meant that renting was an even more attractive choice, since a small fortune (about £2000 or $2600 in today's prices) could be spent on a system which may become obsolete. By the time Betamax machines became easier to rent, VHS had already claimed 70% of the market.
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This is definitely how it panned out in the UK. Betamax was far more expensive than VHS. The similar appears to be happening for HD DVD now vs Blu Ray too. With the cheapest price on a HD DVD player being £204 delivered with 2 HD DVDs, the cheapest Blu Ray player on the market is still the PS3 which can be found for about £375 brand new if you shop around. Blu Ray players start from around £400.
I think for Sony atm with Blu Ray over here, it's a matter of getting HD DVD wiped out before the mass market start to adopt the formats.