Amazon - consumers need wider title selection, better blu-ray pricing

[Batman1980]

During yesterday's Blu-Con 2010 conference in Los Angeles, Bill Carr, Amazon's Vice-president of music and video, said outright that "consumers love Blu-ray." However, he also noted that the format needs a wider title selection, and would benefit from easier Internet connectivity. Carr also mentioned pricing and bundling as factors for Blu-ray adoption.

Carr revealed that, once a consumer adopts Blu-ray, the amount that he or she spends on software increases fourfold, and spending stays high afterwards. However, Blu-ray customers still buy as much as 50% of their movies on standard-definition disc, due to Blu-ray's limited selection and price premium, Carr said.

Regarding selection, Carr explained that five years after the introduction of DVD, there were more than 20,000 titles available at retail. By comparison, there are fewer than 5,000 Blu-ray titles available today. Nowadays, Amazon carries 150,000 individual titles on DVD and just 4,000 on Blu-ray. "It will be a great day when those numbers are the same, or Blu-ray is higher."

As to price premium, according to internal Amazon data, if the Blu-ray is priced $10 higher than the same title on DVD, it may only account for "a little less than half" of sales for that title; but if the price differential is $5, then the BD could get more than 70% of the sales. If DVD and BD were to be priced equally, Blu-ray might account for 90% of Amazon sales volume.

The movies most requested on Blu-ray by Amazon customers include the Star Wars original trilogy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy (presumably the extended versions), Finding Nemo, Lawrence of Arabia, and Pulp Fiction.

Source - http://mesalliance.org/blog/2010/11/...th-at-blu-con/

[Terjyn]

Regarding selection, Carr explained that five years after the introduction of DVD, there were more than 20,000 titles available at retail. By comparison, there are fewer than 5,000 Blu-ray titles available today. Nowadays, Amazon carries 150,000 individual titles on DVD and just 4,000 on Blu-ray. "It will be a great day when those numbers are the same, or Blu-ray is higher."

For the love of...IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN 4 YEARS SINCE THE BLU-RAY HARD LAUNCH.

FFS, I wish just ONE of these morons, somewhere, someway, would stop adding a year to Blu-Rays release cycle when comparing to DVD. Stop comparing Year 5 of DVD to Year <4 of Blu-Ray. STOP. STOP!!!!!

[saprano]

Terjyn didn't bluray launch in 2006? Thats 4 years ago.

And in a year i dont see 15K titles being added to BD's catalog. Correct me if im wrong or looking at it the wrong way.

[papaholmz]

Originally Posted by saprano

in a year i dont see 15k titles being added to bd's catalog.

+1

[Blu-Benny]

I don’t understand the price issue people have. $20 for the majority of new releases, give or take a couple $$$$, is pretty reasonable as far as I’m concerned.

I worked @ best buy for 6 years while dvd was taking off and people had no problems spending $24.99 on 2 disc releases.

Lots of 2 disc blu rays are coming in less than that on release day right now….and big name titles too. Iron Man 2 as an example.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

I don’t understand the price issue people have. $20 for the majority of new releases, give or take a couple $$$$, is pretty reasonable as far as I’m concerned.

I worked @ best buy for 6 years while dvd was taking off and people had no problems spending $24.99 on 2 disc releases.

Lots of 2 disc blu rays are coming in less than that on release day right now….and big name titles too. Iron Man 2 as an example.

Agreed.

I'm also a little baffled by the notion that catalog releases should be immediately discounted. I can understand people waiting until the price of a catalog release drops to the ten dollar range but it's ridiculous to expect most let alone all of them to be released at that price.

[FinalEvangelion]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

I don’t understand the price issue people have. $20 for the majority of new releases, give or take a couple $$$$, is pretty reasonable as far as I’m concerned.

I worked @ best buy for 6 years while dvd was taking off and people had no problems spending $24.99 on 2 disc releases.

Lots of 2 disc blu rays are coming in less than that on release day right now….and big name titles too. Iron Man 2 as an example.

It was probably a difference in the economy as well. Blu-ray is doing pretty well considering the state we are in, economically.

It's also a double edged sword that Blu-ray players are backward compatible. Unless combos, DVD players weren't that way.

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by saprano

Terjyn didn't bluray launch in 2006? Thats 4 years ago.

And in a year i dont see 15K titles being added to BD's catalog. Correct me if im wrong or looking at it the wrong way.

Blu-Ray's hard launch was November 17th, 2006. AKA, slightly less than 4 years ago.

No, Blu-Ray won't get to 20k by next year, but that's not the point.

The point is from the day it was released every so-called "Journalist" has repeatedly compared Blu-Ray to DVD as if Blu-Ray had an entire extra year.

It's no wonder people believe Blu-Ray is farther behind DVD than it may be, when every single article compares year 3 of DVD to year 2 of Blu-Ray, year 4 of DVD to year 3, and now year 5 of DVD to year 4 of Blu-Ray.

It's absurd, and it has GOT to stop. By this point it's beyond ridiculous.

Even if you go to the soft launch of Blu-Ray, you are still well under 4.5 years...so WHY would you compare numbers against DVD at the 5 year mark?

*EDIT* FYI, the original journalists were purposely doing it, trying to lump Blu-Ray into the "High def market" as if HD DVD should somehow be counted against Blu-Ray. These people were doing it with an agenda, purposely trying to sabotage Blu-Ray, and they succeeded, because now people don't even think about when Blu-Ray was released, they just auto-add a year...even when trying to say something good about Blu-Ray.

[kdn1221]

There should be a phasing out of DVD titles and replaced by the BD equivalent. Also, there should be more releases of TV series of blu. The price level should be reduced by at least 25%. I'd like to see series like: Batman, Wonder Woman, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Star Trek: TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise, The Flash, Buck Rogers.