Blu-ray Still Dominates in Week of Bourne/Potter

[sj001]

http://www.hollywoodinhidef.com/blog_detail.php?id=149

It must be hard to try to find a tune to trumpet when your orchestra instruments are rapidly deteriorating.
Universal's HD DVD champion Ken Graffeo tried desperately last week to find a good note to play about the resurging HD DVD with the exclusive release on HD DVD of "The Bourne Ultimatum" and the dual-format release of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
Without including any explanation about how many more high-def players overall are in the market now than two months ago when "Spider-Man 3" was released (including all those fire sale $99 and $199 HD DVD players), Graffeo boasted how first week sales of "Bourne" at about 60,000 units doubled the first-week sales of "SM3."
He conveniently failed to note that "Pirates 3" sold more than 87,000 exclusive Blu-ray units just a week earlier and has reached more than 127,000 after only two weeks.
Graffeo and Universal were also touting how Harry Potter HD DVDs were closing the gap, having reached 45% of overall sales on the newest movie, "Order of the Phoenix" (and all Potter SKUs, to give them even more credit than they cited).
Nevermind that Harry Potter is not the core demo for either high-def format and primarily appeals to the same consumer who is also only interested in players priced at the bargain-basement $99 and $199. Even at that, 55% still preferred to purchase "Potter" on Blu-ray in the first week.
To be fair, Mr. Graffeo is correct in noting that HD DVD did, in fact, make inroads the week ending Dec. 16 by narrowing the gap slightly from the typical and yearlong overall 65% - 35% sales advantage for Blu-ray to a 61% - 39% advantage for Blu-ray that week.
But it's a little sad to consider how desperately weak you have to be to point out that even on your best week with your biggest titles and everything going for you in terms of slashed prices on hardware, "Hey, HD DVD got slaughtered a little less badly than usual last week."

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by sj001

"Hey, HD DVD got slaughtered a little less badly than usual last week."

Classic.

[sj001]

I love reading Scott Hettrick's take on things, always puts a smile on my face.

[toocheezy]

If that article isnt a slap in Ken's face, then I dont know what is.

[quetzalcoatl]

Originally Posted by sj001

"Hey, HD DVD got slaughtered a little less badly than usual last week."

That is just painful.

It is only a flesh wound.

[johnno1986]

G'day all,

Awesome article. Nice to see someone saying how it is and not skewing the facts.

[gandley]

Ouch, do you want wine with that volley to your nuts sir....

[gandley]

first response says it all

Seriously, what's left? Their most successful attack on Blu-Ray this year was some HD-DVD fanboy hacking the BDA site for a few hours.

[Razzy]

I think Ken also failed to mention the spider man trilogy sales numbers did he not?

[gandley]

yep, heres the link to the VB articule in its corrected form

Notice the retailers stacking up in the comments section who arent impressed. Quite an eye opener

http://www.videobusiness.com/index.a...der_id=6497439

How silly you think the HD DVD fans boys trying to back up Ken when the real figures show he was pulling a fast one

[Seretur]

Hettrick can throw a barb with the best of them, but this time he's entirely justified. As the official number were late, for almost a week all the industry had to go on were Graffeo's comments in VB -- biased, overhyped and just plain untrue.

Graffeo deserves to be called out on what he said, and not only by Hettrick -- by Universal shareholders, and the media representatives at CES. Seriously, by flogging this dead horse format, he's doing a huge disservice to his own studio and the talent they have there.

I'm sure Paul Greengrass would be the first to welcome a Blu-ray release of the Bourne movies.

[Razzy]

Originally Posted by gandley

yep, heres the link to the VB articule in its corrected form

Oh, so VB took out the spider man sales numbers altogether. Great journalism there.

[JAGUAR1977]

Originally Posted by toocheezy

If that article isnt a slap in Ken's face, then I dont know what is.

Looks like some in the Blu-ray camp know Ken's ass is on the line, and are turning up the pressure, comfronting him directly, rather than the usual tippy toes, softball bull we've been used to.

[zombie]

A lot of great responses from those who operate video stores. Many of them stating that HP BD sales outsold HP HD DVD sales by a margin of 4:1. One guy says 6:1 in his stores!

After reading those comments I'm feeling even more optimistic for Blu-ray's longterm goal of becoming the new DVD.

[mystiksuicide]

From now on when i see some one lying I am going to replace the word lying with Graffeo.

Wow I guess Universal just can't stop Graffeoing(lying) to the public about they're abysmal hd dvd numbers.

[jubaiweaponx]

Is it the 1st of the year yet so we can start a new year of beatdowns on hddvd, ignorance is truely bliss for them .

[mo_jt]

I loved the comment from one HD owner crying that the "ps3 was a trojan horse"! HD-DVD would have kill BD by now, if it weren't for that! ---waaaaaaa

[Seretur]

Well, George Lucas' American Graffitti is a Universal title, and I guess it's obvious that it's never going to be American Graffeoitti.

It's also going to be nice, owning it in Blu. And they won't be allowed to produce yet another gimpy catalog encode there, nossirree.

[PeechCobblerPie]

idk, I was looking on amazons best sellers list today on all dvds and there was maybe one blu-ray in the top 25 and about 10 hd-dvds. no potter blu's in top 25 but 3 or 4 were hd-dvd

[JAGUAR1977]

Originally Posted by mo_jt

I loved the comment from one HD owner crying that the "ps3 was a trojan horse"! HD-DVD would have kill BD by now, if it weren't for that! ---waaaaaaa

Funny wasn't it.

And if Toshiba stopped producing HD-DVD players...........