The movie rental chain had been trialling out both Blu-ray and HD DVD disc rentals in 250 out of its 1700 US stores since last year. But Blockbuster Vice President of Merchandising, Matthew Smith told The Associated Press (AP) that the company will be offering Blu-ray discs only going forward, as customers were choosing Blu-ray discs more than 70 percent of time during the trial period.

However, Blockbuster will continue to rent out HD DVD titles in the 250 stores involved in the trial as well as online.

Smith also told AP that the content available on Blu-ray was a deciding factor in consumers choosing Blu-ray titles over HD DVD, with all major studios but Universal supporting the Blu format.

Another aspect helping the Blu-ray format over HD DVD, according to Smith, is Sony's Playstation 3 console.

"We intend to meet the demands of our customers and based on the trends we're seeing, we're expanding our Blu-ray inventory to ensure our stores reflect the right level of products," Matthew Smith said in an official statement.

"While it is still too early to say which high-definition format will become the industry standard, we will continue to closely monitor customer rental patterns both at our stores and online, so we can adjust our inventory mix accordingly and ensure that Blockbuster is offering customers the most convenient access to the movies they want, in the format they want. 

"Obviously, when customers are ready we can expand the Blu-ray offering into more stores and add HD DVD to more locations if that's what customers tell us they want," he added.

Whether Blockbuster will follow through its decision to its stores in Australia is yet to be seen.

Blu-ray's other significant victory is back here in Oz, with successful retailer JB HiFi's decision to stock only Blu-ray products in stores, over the HD DVD format, which is backed by Microsoft and Toshiba.