Reuters: HD DVD Rallies Consumer Audience in 2007...

[ranma]

http://www.reuters.com/article/press...08+PRN20080107

The funny thing is how they bragged that they gain more studios support in 2007. Oh wait, WB was stabbing them in 2008, so they kindly not to remember that.

[pro-bassoonist]

Too bad terms such as nearly and almost are repeated so many times.

Pro-B

[YouSmellLikeBeans]

Originally Posted by ranma

http://www.reuters.com/article/press...08+PRN20080107

The funny thing is how they bragged that they gain more studios support in 2007. Oh wait, WB was stabbing them in 2008, so they kindly not to remember that.

Are you from another country?

[DepTii]

Yeah, a little amnesia there.

[dialog_gvf]

Hmm, how far into the press release until the first falsehood?

HD DVD Rallies Consumer Audience in 2007 Driving Nearly One Million Dedicated
Player Sales in North America

Ah, can't even get past the title.

[crystal_sun]

Wow..it took them about 2 years to reach 1 million HD-DVD players, while it took Blu-Ray/PS3 player to sell 1.2 million in 1 month or less LOL

[stockstar1138]

yeah since when is 800k near 1 million, nothing like adding an extra 20% to your numbers and thats including add ons.

this article is pure bullsh1t.

hd dvd does not have anywhere near 80% of the HD computer market.

god they are desperate. i cannot believe they are fighting, they are DEAD.

the only plus is i will enjoy watching them slowly die more than if they just waved the white flag. i will enjoy watching them lose millions of dollars on their inferior format.

[Slapper]

Those guys gotta be dizzy all the time with all they spinning they have to do.

God, I wish they would get rid of Graffeo already. The only one that can spin better than him is Amir. Or, maybe rdjam. Why don't we have any dedicated "spinners" anyway? Oh, that's right...we don't need to spin.

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by Slapper

Those guys gotta be dizzy all the time with all they spinning they have to do.

God, I wish they would get rid of Graffeo already. The only one that can spin better than him is Amir. Or, maybe rdjam. Why don't we have any dedicated "spinners" anyway? Oh, that's right...we don't need to spin.

i really think ken is going to be out of a job really soon.

[jeffcapfiat]

HD-DVD forgot to mention that their most popular software distributor (warner) has just left. Isn't that more important than attach rates? What will be left to attach in 2008?

[Slapper]

I think my favorite part of that promo piece is:

HD DVD software sales grew at
nearly twice the rate of Blu-ray...

"...and yet we're still really far behind. But, trust us, next year HD DVD is going to sell at least 10 million standalone players. Well, maybe not that many. More like 5 million. No. Wait. More like 2 million. Well, you know how our projections have worked out for us in the past. Thank you and good evening. Enjoy the rest of CES."

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

god they are desperate. i cannot believe they are fighting, they are DEAD.

the only plus is i will enjoy watching them slowly die more than if they just waved the white flag. i will enjoy watching them lose millions of dollars on their inferior format.

I totally agree and it's so obvious this is not about business any longer, but personal to them (what a way to run a company!). All I know is I will never buy a Toshiba product.

[jw]

Originally Posted by Slapper

I think my favorite part of that promo piece is:

"...and yet we're still really far behind. But, trust us, next year HD DVD is going to sell at least 10 million standalone players. Well, maybe not that many. More like 5 million. No. Wait. More like 2 million. Well, you know how our projections have worked out for us in the past. Thank you and good evening. Enjoy the rest of CES."

HD DVD software sales grew at
nearly twice the rate of Blu-ray...


with a year jump start they should be ahead by a couple million, but blu-ray has outsold them and at a faster pace

[JadedRaverLA]

I'm REALLY confused. So their new strategy (which has apparently changed in the hours since Toshiba's press conference) is to now act as though absolutely nothing happened, and to hope that the media writes up their boilerplate press release as a news article?

I almost wonder if the press release was written prior to the defection, and they decided to throw it out there anyway. It makes no sense in light of the current circumstances.

Betting on no one noticing that your dead doesn't seem like the most sound strategy to me... but then again, neither did getting into bed with Microsoft, releasing a format with no CE support other than your own company, and thinking that you could build a successful video format without the support of most of the movie studios. So, heck, what do I know?

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by Slapper

I think my favorite part of that promo piece is:

Looks like they used multiple tricks in that article. The one there was that growth is from their poor showing Thanksgiving week when the ratio was 74:26 (they used 5 weeks because the all important Black Friday week where they did so poorly was 6 weeks before the end of the year). So, yes, they did improve when it was 61:39 the last weeks of the year. But still a bad sign to be 61:39 in a week where HD DVD had the better special sales and Blu-ray didn't really have a new release advantage.

The Warner move may make this moot, but looks like the HD DVD camp might have been setting themselves up to be able to spin another big improvement, by having very poor releases in January and getting their butts kicked this month. But, now they'll get them kicked even worse, but likely won't ever recover.

Another one that looks like somewhat of a trick is the claim that The Bourne Ultimatum outsold SM:3 according to Nielsen, when it looks like what they did was didn't count the versions in box sets (or shrink wrapped sets). According to Nielsen First Alert data, SM:3 outsold TBU when both the singles and the ones in the sets were included (although only Amazon had a Bourne set). At least it wasn't as bad as that lady who wrote the article which made it look like TBU had sold twice as many, even though SM:3 sold more when the sets were included (since SM:3 split its sales with its set much more).

--Darin

[w_tanoto]

some denial. why compare bourne with spidey 3? why not pirates 3 vs bourne????

still counting on attach rate i see.......

give it up already. BDA will counter this today

[WickyWoo]

hd dvd does not have anywhere near 80% of the HD computer market.

Toshiba is one of the #1 laptop companies out there, and they're adding those drives into their "1 million", while of course as usual not counting Blu computer drives. There are relatively small numbers of Blu enabled laptops out there, hence with selective reasoning, what they say being true, technically

Course it's the usual games they play

[Zyclone]

Originally Posted by w_tanoto

some denial. why compare bourne with spidey 3? why not pirates 3 vs bourne????

still counting on attach rate i see.......

give it up already. BDA will counter this today

i think a counter in the form of a picture of all the BDA and the president of warner playing mini golf and laughing would be a good mature counter.

[Seretur]

Favorite quotes:

...delivering on the promise of affordability, quality and a consistent experience on every machine.

As the industry looks for a format that can break into the mainstream consumer market, HD DVD continues to be the affordable, high quality leader.

Among all high definition formats, HD DVD still maintains the highest attach rates -- more than twice the rate of Blu-ray.

"The HD DVD camp has always stuck to a simple set of principles," said Ken Graffeo. "Give consumers who buy into HD DVD what they paid for."

[simpspin]

The new and improved HD DVD slogan: "Less is More"