VHS won out in the consumer marketplace, but Beta was technically superior and won in the pro marketplace. SuperVHS came along to try to make up the tech difference, but it never was as good as Beta.
This time around, the technically superior one won, partially because there was never going to be a way to record HD-DVD at home (even with a computer) and there already are BluRay burners on the market.
I’d say it won mainly to PS3 having a Blu-Ray on board. Stand alone units HD-DVD has sold far more since launch than Blu-Ray but PS3s sales dwarf all of the rest combined at 10 million worldwide.