Walmart to only sell Blu-ray?

[Dadds]

http://www.psu.com/Walmart-to-only-s...0002466-p0.php

While nothing is official just yet, many people are already beginning to write off HD DVD and declare Blu-ray the winner. To help support that fact, Stephen Pope, Chief Global Market Strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald Europe, got a chance recently to sit down with CNN to discuss the current state of the Blu-ray vs HD DVD war.

Pope started out by revealing that Walmart will soon only carry Blu-ray players in their stores, “Walmart said physically in our stores, we’re only going to sell Blu-ray players. You can get the high definition player [HD DVD] if you shop online with Walmart, but if it’s in the store, just Blu-ray.”

Later he was asked if it was just because of the recent Blu-ray success, does it really mean that it is the better system? Pope responded with, “I think it probably is this time around, in Sony’s favor. The sales have come through with the PS3 which has a Blu-ray player and that has really taken off because they’ve made a smaller capacity model which is more price affordable”

As for how this will effect Sony from a financial point, he commented, “I think you’ll start to see now that the money will begin to roll in towards Sony because people have now seen that there is a definitive decision….the balance has heavily tipped towards Sony favor.”

Later he was asked what will Toshiba do now, he had this to say, “I think what you’ll eventually see is that Toshiba will have to realize that as good as the technology is, it is, is not going to be the winner this time around, and they’re going to have to shelve it and eat humble pie and probably under franchise manufacture their own version of blu-ray players.”

Stephen Pope also said that the Blu-ray market will eventually become a 20 billion dollar market, almost tripled that of DVD.

great news!!

[Petra_Kalbrain]

This would be the definitive death knell for HD DVD... IF it actually comes to pass as stated in the article.

[CAB]

Holy balls. I wanna be there when this is posted on AVS. Walmart as to be their messianic retailer. Everyone knows Walmart sold over 80K of Transformers the nano-second it shipped.

[Sonar5]

Video is here, it's from the 7th I believe.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bus...ef=videosearch

Here is the text of that spot...

The Video shows Stephen Pope, Chief Global Market Strategist of Cantor Fitzgerald.

And he did state at 1:10 that "Walmart said physically in our stores we are only going to sell blu-ray players",

"You can get the high definition player if you shop on-line with walmart, but physically in the store, just blu-ray."


Those are his exact words, Interesting, eh?

Nice find.....

BTW - For those who don't know, Cantor Fitzgerald is an Investment house who deals mostly with the bond markets, and had more than a few employees lost on 9-11-2001 in the World Trade Center attacks.

Pope is their Chief Global Market Strategist, and so he follows the world as it relates to the market and not just US Centrist in his reports.

They keep locking threads about it at high def, as the fudders think he meant Target or Europe....

Nothing since except repeated stories referencing the same video

[mystiksuicide]

Rumor has it Best Buy is not far behind.

[Stinkin Mushroom]

they are talkin about thee players, not the discs

[CAB]

Originally Posted by Stinkin Mushroom

they are talkin about thee players, not the discs

Which will kill Toshiba. Kill the head won't the tail die?

[nhaase]

Originally Posted by Stinkin Mushroom

they are talkin about thee players, not the discs

If they don't sell the players in store, do you think they're going to push the discs? Go to a Target and look at that, they have just a few token HD DVD disc rows.

Also, Mystik, that would be amazing. I'm too much of a cheap bastard, but I took some cell phone pics at a BBuy right before Xmas, and in two different spots in the TV section they had S300's stacked ~6 high. One area was about 5 of these stacks w/ a big sign, the other was a single row of these stacks well over 10 feet long. Right beside the long stack they had two small stacks of about 10 HD DVD players total. I asked a salesman about it, he said the Sonys where selling "like mad."

[Banjo]

Right now, they are selling (ugh) Venturer HD DVD players in Wal-Mart stores across Canada for $199.99 each. It's basically a repackaged Toshiba HD DVD player (A3, I think).

[g.k.]

Pope started out by revealing that Walmart will soon only carry Blu-ray players in their stores, “Walmart said physically in our stores, we’re only going to sell Blu-ray players. You can get the high definition player [HD DVD] if you shop online with Walmart, but if it’s in the store, just Blu-ray.”

This would be great if it's true, but it really sounds like he's getting Walmart and Target mixed up, because that was Target's policy.

Need another source before getting too excited.

[Memnoch71]

I went by the Wal-Mart by my work at lunch to pick up The Rock(on Blu of course) & I noticed there were only 3 HD-DVD's in there at all. I started looking through the players and there were no HD-DVD players and no places on the shelves. However there was a nice big Sony HDNA Display with a S300 sitting there.

[Blu-ray Fanatic]

Well, I still see HD DVD stuff at Walmart so I don't know if the rumors are true. It doesn't matter to me because I buy blu-ray due to owning a PS3. I believe all studios should support both formats. If people wanna buy HD DVD stuff thats their ordeal, and if blu-ray consumers wanna buy only blu-ray let them buy blu-ray. That way all movies will be on blu-ray and hd dvd and no one will be disappointed

[galz]

Originally Posted by mystiksuicide

Rumor has it Best Buy is not far behind.

Not according to this:
Last week, Best Buy spokesperson Brian Lucas said the retailer would continue stocking HD DVD so long as studios release content in HD DVD and there is a market for the format.

“As far as we’re concerned there are still two formats and the format war is not really over,” Lucas said.

He said Best Buy would continue telling customers about the two formats and not take sides so they could make “an informed decision.”

Lucas said as more BD titles are released, stores would offer increased shelf space for them. He said Best Buy is responsible to its customers and not studio decisions.

“Unless one format drops out, it’s business as usual,” he said.

http://www.allthingshidef.com/ME2/di...E4ACC0201F3C1F

[TheRealBob]

Originally Posted by Blu-ray Fanatic

Well, I still see HD DVD stuff at Walmart so I don't know if the rumors are true. It doesn't matter to me because I buy blu-ray due to owning a PS3. I believe all studios should support both formats. If people wanna buy HD DVD stuff thats their ordeal, and if blu-ray consumers wanna buy only blu-ray let them buy blu-ray. That way all movies will be on blu-ray and hd dvd and no one will be disappointed

The obvious rebuttal to this is that it will take twice the shelf space to support the same numbers of movies, and no retailer is interested in that when the formats are so similar in capability.

And it's kind of late in the game, with HD DVD barely clinging to life, to be advocating a dual-format future. Even a lot of the HD DVD supporters said while they're unhappy that their side lost, they're happy that one of the sides won (most memorably stated on AVS by an HD DVD fan who said, "I, for one, welcome my new Blu overlords").

It's the endgame now, and people want to see this wrapped up ASAP so we can get back to talking about movies, PQ, AQ, and stuff like that instead of worrying about a silly format war.

[sackexchange]

The Walmat's and Targets in my area have 2 to 3 times as many Blu-ray as HD-DVD. FYE is the only place that has equal numbers but they are so expensive nobody really buys either.

[elwaylite]

Originally Posted by mystiksuicide

Rumor has it Best Buy is not far behind.

Your boyfriend hear something?

[Drewza89]

Even if it's true, it won't matter at my local Walmart. The last time I checked, they only had like six Blu-rays and two HD DVDs. The local Target has a very nice selection, but their prices are too high. This is why I have to buy all of my Blu-rays off Amazon.

[TheRealBob]

Originally Posted by galz

Not according to this:
Last week, Best Buy spokesperson Brian Lucas said the retailer would continue stocking HD DVD so long as studios release content in HD DVD and there is a market for the format.

15% of sales may just barely register as "there is a market for the format". If it dips much below that, and it will, then forget it.

And keep in mind these companies have an official policy, and they just restate it every time they're asked until they change it, so it's pointless to put any meaning into anything they say between press releases.

Finally, the insiders here have indicated the retailers don't want to alienate Toshiba for future business, so they're apt to just quietly stop restocking HD DVD without saying anything publicly about it.

So the mostly likely scenario is they'll just keep repeating that they're supporting HD DVD until there is no HD DVD product being sold in the stores, and then they'll say something about how they're just giving the consumer what they wanted and they found there was no longer any demand for HD DVD. Don't expect anything to be announced in advance.

The best guide will be in the thread here about what people are seeing in stores.

[flynho_PS3]

Originally Posted by galz

Not according to this:
Last week, Best Buy spokesperson Brian Lucas said the retailer would continue stocking HD DVD so long as studios release content in HD DVD and there is a market for the format.

“As far as we’re concerned there are still two formats and the format war is not really over,” Lucas said.

He said Best Buy would continue telling customers about the two formats and not take sides so they could make “an informed decision.”

Lucas said as more BD titles are released, stores would offer increased shelf space for them. He said Best Buy is responsible to its customers and not studio decisions.

“Unless one format drops out, it’s business as usual,” he said.

http://www.allthingshidef.com/ME2/di...E4ACC0201F3C1F

I've heard this before...seriously,...denial first then the real truth comes out...it's becoming the trend of every company who would eventually become blu exclusive...remember BlockBuster,Warner,et al?....one minute they're neutral then next day you know they're blu exclusive......well, I've been wrong a hundred times...

[elwaylite]

I dont think the video is right. He meant to say target.