It seems that the initial reports that we heard about Target going Blu-ray only seem to be half correct. After some clarification and back peddling, our understanding is that the large US retailer will be Blu-ray exclusive only on stand alone players, while it will continue to offer movies in both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats.

Target spokeswoman Brie Heath says, “We are not proclaiming one format vs. the other as the preferred consumer technology, and software will continue to be available to our guests in both the Blu-ray and HD DVD format.”

Additional reports seem to suggest that Target is getting some marketing dollars from Sony to put Sony’s Blu-ray player and technology on a highly visible end cap display during the holiday season.

Right now, Target does not carry any stand alone HD players. Target offers both the Sony Playstation 3 with its Blu-ray playback ability and Microsoft’s HD-DVD add-on drive for HD-DVD playback on the Xbox 360. Target did not state or suggest that they were going to stop carrying Microsoft’s HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 because of this deal with Sony.

The Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps continue to feed stories into the spin machine and all of these announcements may, in fact, be doing more harm than good. Consumers still appear to be confused as to the difference in formats and the announcements being made by the factions. In the end, we have to wonder if all of this one-upmanship has done nothing more than slow the adoption rate of either format - as many consumers, even early adaptors, do not want to invest money in a player or in movies that they will not be able to use in the end. After all how many times are consumers going to buy the same movies in a different format?