81:19 Nielsen/VideoScan Weekly Sales Numbers

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by monkyman

I think there will be quite a few HD-DVD exclusive people going neutral for Spiderman and other BD blockbusters as well.

But we're talking about the marginal impacts of the releases here. The fact is that everyone has known for a very long time that Spiderman would only be available on Blu-ray. On the other hand, nobody knew Paramount would go HD DVD exclusive, and when you couple that with the "wait" for Universal titles, you've got a few previous Blu-only people panicking and going neutral. At the margin, the effect of the "unexpected" Paramount fiasco will be larger.

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Winning this week's Nielsen's without any BD releases was like winning a battle without firing a single shot.

LOL. Great way of putting it!!!

[PS3Maniac]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Winning this week's Nielsen's without any BD releases was like winning a battle without firing a single shot.

"It is the greatest warrior who lets his sword rust in its sheathe..."

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Winning this week's Nielsen's without any BD releases was like winning a battle without firing a single shot.

How true.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

With the studio support for both formats as it is now, it sure looks to me like most weeks are going to be around 60% - 40% Blu-ray winning. This last week was a little worse than that and next week should be a little better, but the domination week after week at 2-1 ended with the Paramount defection. Until things change again, that is just the way it is likely to run.

Chris

I think the Fox releases at minimum will compensate (and maybe even over-compensate) for the Paramount loss and with the other big titles coming from Warner, Sony, and Disney, I fully expect 2-1 and even 3-1 in some weeks for Blu-ray.

[Slapper]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I think the Fox releases at minimum will compensate (and maybe even over-compensate) for the Paramount loss and with the other big titles coming from Warner, Sony, and Disney, I fully expect 2-1 and even 3-1 in some weeks for Blu-ray.

Going into '08 I think we'll be looking at a greater than 3/1 ratio with Blu-ray pulling away fast.

[FFObsessed]

Great win this week.

Looking at the release lists for both formats for the remainder of the year, HD-DVD is going to get slaughtered

[LynxFX]

Basically this just shows how weak HD DVD's buying power really is. This is considered a near best case scenario for HD. Two day and date, highly advertised discs plus some filler against zero BD. So HD's strongest buying power still can't beat BD's weakest.

Like my sig says, the streak continues.

[scott1256ca]

I was referring to a previous posters sarky use of "Toshiba Math", although I'm not sure what it refers to. Sony did use revenue numbers for their 63% of the player market comment at IFA, which is not the same as the Sony talk showing them selling more units a week for the recent past.

Do you need me to explain it to you? By the way, what is sarky?

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by scott1256ca

Do you need me to explain it to you? By the way, what is sarky?

Sarky is emo for sarcasm or sarcastic.

And what is emo? I just found out last week. Guess I'm not one of them.

Now I need to find out if paidgeek can help Fox with the encoding job so that MAYBE DH4.0 can be released unrated to make day and date.


fuad

[w_tanoto]

rather disappointed by 56:44 number..... but considering BD has no release this week, that is acceptable. HD DVD will be killed comes 18 September.

[frank_t]

Originally Posted by w_tanoto

rather disappointed by 56:44 number..... but considering BD has no release this week, that is acceptable. HD DVD will be killed comes 18 September.

not if they don't kick their advertising into high gear.

i'm disappointed to see this week (yet again) a decent ad in the best by flyer for hd-dvd but NOTHING for blu-ray.

[Chris Gerhard]

Originally Posted by Esox50

But we're talking about the marginal impacts of the releases here. The fact is that everyone has known for a very long time that Spiderman would only be available on Blu-ray. On the other hand, nobody knew Paramount would go HD DVD exclusive, and when you couple that with the "wait" for Universal titles, you've got a few previous Blu-only people panicking and going neutral. At the margin, the effect of the "unexpected" Paramount fiasco will be larger.

Only one exclusive major studio wasn't enough for that to happen often, but two sure is. What you suggest is happening now and it won't pull HD DVD ahead or to even, but there isn't the firepower remaining for Blu-ray to hold the 2-1 edge. The market will still remain very small as long as both of these formats exist, but a good percentage of the small group already owns both and that percentage will get much larger quickly. It is likely most dual format owners have a preference and will have libraries of discs lopsided in favor of one format or the other but that won't cause the second place format to end its run.

Although a belief there is little chance of the format war ending anytime soon is understandable, the best thing for all of the die hard Blu-ray fans to do is hold on. If things remain as is and after 18 months Paramount and Universal decide to continue HD DVD exclusivity, you can count on both of these next generation formats being tiny niche markets for as long as they last is my belief. Blu-ray will just be about 50% larger and all companies involved in these two formats can write off their investments and move on to the next greatest thing. Unless something big happens in favor of Blu-ray, our dreams of a knockout victory have ended.

Two things that can help Blu-ray some is the Fox titles show up and are sold at a price that generates significant sales and Warner catches up and releases all HD DVD releases on Blu-ray as well. If Fox tries to be the high price leader and Warner continues to release about 20% more titles on HD DVD and doesn't bring the back catalog to even, the format war will move much closer than the YTD breakdown.

Chris

[Slapper]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

Only one exclusive major studio wasn't enough for that to happen often, but two sure is. What you suggest is happening now and it won't pull HD DVD ahead or to even, but there isn't the firepower remaining for Blu-ray to hold the 2-1 edge. The market will still remain very small as long as both of these formats exist, but a good percentage of the small group already owns both and that percentage will get much larger quickly. It is likely most dual format owners have a preference and will have libraries of discs lopsided in favor of one format or the other but that won't cause the second place format to end its run.

Although a belief there is little chance of the format war ending anytime soon is understandable, the best thing for all of the die hard Blu-ray fans to do is hold on. If things remain as is and after 18 months Paramount and Universal decide to continue HD DVD exclusivity, you can count on both of these next generation formats being tiny niche markets for as long as they last is my belief. Blu-ray will just be about 50% larger and all companies involved in these two formats can write off their investments and move on to the next greatest thing. Unless something big happens in favor of Blu-ray, our dreams of a knockout victory have ended.

Two things that can help Blu-ray some is the Fox titles show up and are sold at a price that generates significant sales and Warner catches up and releases all HD DVD releases on Blu-ray as well. If Fox tries to be the high price leader and Warner continues to release about 20% more titles on HD DVD and doesn't bring the back catalog to even, the format war will move much closer than the YTD breakdown.

Chris

I think we'll push past the usual 2/1 ratio and move to 3/1 and consistently stay close to that ratio once Spider-Man hits shelves. Universal and Paramount together have 5 boxed sets/films that I want that will be coming to HD-DVD during the holiday buying season. I don't have an HD-DVD player so I'm not in the neutral camp so these are films I'm just going to have to patiently wait for. There are over 20 releases in the Blu-ray camp that are "must-buys" during that same time period. This puts me at a 4/1 ratio over HD-DVD if I actually had an HD-DVD player.

And that's just what's been announced. Paramount and UNI have nothing waiting in the wings to announce that I would want besides the Spielberg directed movies. But, we all now how he feels about HD-DVD, don't we? On the Blu-ray side there are a lot of movies from the studios that support Blu that have not yet been announced that I WILL buy.

[Razzy]

Sony and the rest of the BDA really need to start advertising Blu Ray more. Disney seems to be doing their part with the tour but c'mon, Blu ray commercials/ads should be everywhere. Especially during prime time on television. LETS GO BDA!!

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

Only one exclusive major studio wasn't enough for that to happen often, but two sure is. What you suggest is happening now and it won't pull HD DVD ahead or to even, but there isn't the firepower remaining for Blu-ray to hold the 2-1 edge. The market will still remain very small as long as both of these formats exist, but a good percentage of the small group already owns both and that percentage will get much larger quickly. It is likely most dual format owners have a preference and will have libraries of discs lopsided in favor of one format or the other but that won't cause the second place format to end its run.

Although a belief there is little chance of the format war ending anytime soon is understandable, the best thing for all of the die hard Blu-ray fans to do is hold on. If things remain as is and after 18 months Paramount and Universal decide to continue HD DVD exclusivity, you can count on both of these next generation formats being tiny niche markets for as long as they last is my belief. Blu-ray will just be about 50% larger and all companies involved in these two formats can write off their investments and move on to the next greatest thing. Unless something big happens in favor of Blu-ray, our dreams of a knockout victory have ended.
...

I'm a pessimist too, but there are some indications something may be wrong with that line of thought.

1) The suggestion is that software exclusivity (for HD-DVD) will limit BD to no more than a 50% advantage (whilst the market remains small). But BD gained its present lead in disc sales through a hardware advantage. (The number of released titles on both formats have been about the same.) And this advantage is very likely to be extended in the same way it was originally gained: via sales of the PS3. Up to this early point, the adage that "software drives hardware" actually hasn't been true. Instead it's been a matter of PS3 owners casting about for something to do with their shiny new machines. Against growth of the PS3 (some 75K units weekly) dual-format ownership won't make a much of a dent even in this small market. It's likely that Blu-ray will extend its lead well in advance of mass consumer acceptance.

2) Studio support is a means to an end. The customer really wants movies, not studios. It will come down to the ability of the supporting studios to out-release each other in quantity and quality.

3) A recent announcement by the HD-DVD camp gives a strong hint that HDM will not in the end be relegated to niche status: a major advertising campaign on network TV. I don't know offhand how much it costs to place a 30-second spot during a Sunday night NFL game. However, I certainly don't recall seeing any network TV ads for either DVD-Audio or SACD. With an investment in major advertising, the war is starting to look more like VHS vs Beta or Atari vs Intellivision than SACD vs DVD-A. At any rate, this is evidently the belief of those placing the spots.

[Chris Gerhard]

Originally Posted by Teazle

I'm a pessimist too, but there are some indications something may be wrong with that line of thought.

1) The suggestion is that software exclusivity (for HD-DVD) will limit BD to no more than a 50% advantage (whilst the market remains small). But BD gained its present lead in disc sales through a hardware advantage. (The number of released titles on both formats have been about the same.) And this advantage is very likely to be extended in the same way it was originally gained: via sales of the PS3. Up to this early point, the adage that "software drives hardware" actually hasn't been true. Instead it's been a matter of PS3 owners casting about for something to do with their shiny new machines. Against growth of the PS3 (some 75K units weekly) dual-format ownership won't make a much of a dent even in this small market. It's likely that Blu-ray will extend its lead well in advance of mass consumer acceptance.

2) Studio support is a means to an end. The customer really wants movies, not studios. It will come down to the ability of the supporting studios to out-release each other in quantity and quality.

3) A recent announcement by the HD-DVD camp gives a strong hint that HDM will not in the end be relegated to niche status: a major advertising campaign on network TV. I don't know offhand how much it costs to place a 30-second spot during a Sunday night NFL game. However, I certainly don't recall seeing any network TV ads for either DVD-Audio or SACD. With an investment in major advertising, the war is starting to look more like VHS vs Beta or Atari vs Intellivision than SACD vs DVD-A. At any rate, this is evidently the belief of those placing the spots.

Inception to date, the software lead is about 50%, with the breakdown 61% - 39%. Blu-ray had a huge hardware lead almost immediately after PS3 launch and just lost software support, how does that equate to increasing the lead? The cheap HD DVD players are going to sell, not much, but enough to mean some new consumers will buy software. I can't come up with anything other than the lead shrinks from the YTD 2-1 advantage and settles at or about the ITD number until we get another big announcement. There may be no more really big announcements until the Paramount deal ends.

Chris

[Rob Zuber]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

...and just lost software support...

Due to low volumes, the week to week numbers are dramatically influenced by the specific new releases that week. You're mistaking noise for signal.

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

...
Blu-ray had a huge hardware lead almost immediately after PS3 launch and just lost software support, how does that equate to increasing the lead?
...

PS3 is selling about 75,000 units per week (I think that is worldwide) and that number will increase. As their new owners pick up BDs, however sparsely or casually, Blu-ray HDM software market share will gradually increase as the size of the (puny) market increases. This will be because BD player sales will continue to outpace HD-DVD player sales (as a proportion of all hardware sales) -- massively -- despite lower attach rates.

I'm only assuming that this is the case; I don't have any argument for it. There is only past experience. This is exactly the reason why BD got to 60:40 in the first place: through masses of PS3 sales (massive relative to sales of all HD-DVD players). Hardware market share is set to increase, so software market share should increase.

I suppose $199 "Venturer" HD-DVD decks could change things, but if there is to be a shift somehow I doubt that will be the factor.

[WickyWoo]

I suppose $199 "Venturer" HD-DVD decks could change things, but if there is to be a shift somehow I doubt that will be the factor.

Looks like virtually every major retailer is refusing to carry them.

I don't think it'll matter at all