Blu-ray gathering momentum in Australia

[voorhees]

Hi

There seems to be a bit of a push on in Australia for Blu-ray in Australia at the moment & Sony have had a numbers of advertisments during key sporting events and also in newspapers & film magazines.

Anyway, i was at my local shopping center (in Western Australia) and went into an EZYDVD store (probably the biggest DVD retailer in Australia if I'm not mistaken).

Near the counter were 2 HD-DVD racks in front, while there were 3 Blu-ray racks further back.

I said to the girl at the store "Hey - whats the deal with the HD_DVD being in the front and not Blu-ray?"

She said "Thats what head office told us to do - whatever they say - we do."

Anyway, i selected 2 Blu-ray disks then asked her "So how many people are buying HD-DVD versus Blu-ray"

She told me some months ago, when HD-DVD & Blu-ray first appeared in the store, people would come in, look at both formats and she reckoned the split was about 50/50 over what format they purchased. But now she said, when people come in they don't mess about and just make a bee-line for the Blu-ray disks. HD-DVD is dead in the water here by the looks of things (well in my shop at any rate).

So with the momentum definately in Blu-ray's favor here, its unlikely i think for HD-DVD to claw back much ground in Australia.

Cheers - Jason