Blu-ray in stores - no anecdotes, just picture evidence

[dobyblue]

Here's a look at what's around my town.

First - The Brick. They have one HD DVD player not hooked up, a bunch of HDTV's all tuned to 1080i component boosted feed, and then up at the front which is the first thing to catch your eye.....Sony HDTV, Sony BDP-S300 and Sony HTiB playing Disney's "Cars" - could there be any better choice to make you say "wowza! - there really is a huge difference"





Then to Wal*Mart where they have the typical four sided HD display, of course three sides are Blu-ray and only one is HD DVD.











Now I've read on High Def Digest's forums that Wal*Mart are pushing the HD DVD of Bourne Ultimatum. Well in this pic you can see one column of Bourne discs. So what about the standalone Bourne display? Well here it is - not even a mention of the HD DVD on the display (unlike the Pirates 3 display which mentions that it's also on Blu-ray)







Yeah - that sure looks like they're pushing Bourne on HD DVD doesn't it? Silly HD DVD fanboys, all arguments are smited with a few clicks of the camera.

So onto Future Shop where a table greets you as you walk in the door. Beside this table was another stack of Blu-ray discs like the one on the end of the main HD section you'll see a picture or two down - but was filled ONLY with Warner Blu-ray titles.

Anyway here's a shot of the table - there was one other card on it which was the same as the "Available on BLu-ray" thingy, turned around to show the flip side which was the HD DVD one of course, but as you can see far more Blu's on the table. There were some High School Musical 2 Blu's on the table as well as some Lost Season 3's but those seem to have either been bought or moved to the New Release section.







A lot of Blu eh?

Now for the main section - looked about equal for space, but you can see the endcap is Blu and there's nothing on the other end related to HDM at all.







There was a separate Bourne display which looked to have about 100 of the DVD, 50 of the metal DVD and 30 or so of the HD DVD, but oddly enough it was not facing the entrance - it was facing the 360 playing area/gaming area. In the shot of the table you can see "A Christmas Story" if you look carefully - the other side of that was the Bourne.

Where most people walk towards the cashiers, they will be passing this display.







At the local Blockbuster the shelf space is almost equal, but the # of titles definitely is not. You can see this by the whole row taken up by just "300" covers. There was one other small metal shelf for Blu-ray which held about 10 other titles for rent.

HD DVD







Blu-ray







So there you have it, more pictorial evidence that Blu-ray is indeed more in the public eye, more supported, just like the sales numbers say.

Feel free to use the pics anywhere you like to FUD-bust.