BD Hardware Sales Are Fast Overtaking DVD's

[Blu Titan]

A nice little read from HMM. It is obvious that Blu-ray is the current and future king of optical home entertainment media. However, Blu-ray's emergence into the homes of everyday people is happening sooner rather than later. I see evidence of this every time I go into Blockbuster or Best Buy. Do you guys thing that FINALLY those very few remaining Trolls will be silenced? No, don't think so. What else would they write about then? Anyways, here's part of the article that deals with the emergence of 3D in the HT. Basically consumers are not willing to pay a premium for the feature.

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — Consumers may love new 3D content, but they sure don’t want to pay much more to watch it at home.

That’s according to consumer research presented by In-Stat Digital Sept. 18 at the 3D Entertainment Summit, which featured studio and consumer electronic company executives, research firms and 3D technology experts.

Michelle Abrahams, principal analyst with In-Stat, shared research that showed 64% of consumers surveyed expressed at least some interest in 3D content, but 25% of consumers said they wouldn’t pay any premium for a 3D-enabled TV. On the software side, 33% of respondents said they wouldn’t spend more money for a 3D disc over its 2D counterpart.

Blu-ray Disc player owners, however were a different story.

“Those who already own a Blu-ray player were more likely than other respondents to spend more,” Abrahams said.

Here's the part about Blu-ray hardware sales overtaking DVD.

...He said the fact that Blu-ray hardware sales are fast overtaking DVD hardware sales (with DVD projected at 53% and Blu-ray at 47% for 2009) is good news for future 3D-on-Blu-ray ventures, especially because “at the moment consumers can only get the full benefit [of 3D] in the theater.”

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/3-d...-3d-home-17088

[Glee7007]

Personally not very interested in 3D though I would love for the technology to get to a point where it's really impressive. Right now it still seems like a gimmick, but who knows until it's really developed. I'm just happy if we can start getting consistently great HD picture and sound.

[owa]

Good news on the blu-ray hardware front. Thanks for the link.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by owa

Good news on the blu-ray hardware front. Thanks for the link.

Yep, but that's sad news on the software front. If hardware is selling at almost 1:1 with DVD hardware, software should be equal or greater than that.

People with BD players are still buying DVDs. That's messed up.

[Elandyll]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Yep, but that's sad news on the software front. If hardware is selling at almost 1:1 with DVD hardware, software should be equal or greater than that.

People with BD players are still buying DVDs. That's messed up.

I honestly think that BR has been doing better than people would think against DVD. But on the software front, there is a phenomenon that is the cushion of DVD sales, and that will be super hard to overtake, until we have a similar cushion (that I estimate between $50M & $80M for the DVD) for BR sales:
The $5-$10 Supermarket bargain bin sales.
Thsi is why even when we will have the top 3/4 best sellers of the week close to the 1:1 ratio (I think by the end of 2010/ early 2011), the overall market share will still be off by $50-$80M in favor of DVD imo.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by Elandyll

I honestly think that BR has been doing better than people would think against DVD. But on the software front, there is a phenomenon that is the cushion of DVD sales, and that will be super hard to overtake, until we have a similar cushion (that I estimate between $50M & $80M for the DVD) for BR sales:
The $5-$10 Supermarket bargain bin sales.
Thsi is why even when we will have the top 3/4 best sellers of the week close to the 1:1 ratio (I think by the end of 2010/ early 2011), the overall market share will still be off by $50-$80M in favor of DVD imo.

You clearly have no idea.

The best sellers are typically about 20% software market share for BD (or less even!). Best we've had was opening week of Watchmen at 37%. That's barely close at all to 1:1 sales.

You're right to note that DVD outsells BD by a large margin because of it's available library, but even comparing a single title, BD is still lagging far behind 50% in most cases. Only older catalog titles have broken 50%, and of them, it's not uncommon to see 80+%. Braveheart and Gladiator recently hit with a 96/97% I believe it was.

[hanser]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Yep, but that's sad news on the software front. If hardware is selling at almost 1:1 with DVD hardware, software should be equal or greater than that.

People with BD players are still buying DVDs. That's messed up.

Not necessarily. You forget there are hundreds of million of people out there that have already a DVD player. To compare software sales you must compare it to the total number of players in the homes, not the new acquisitions.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by hanser

Not necessarily. You forget there are hundreds of million of people out there that have already a DVD player. To compare software sales you must compare it to the total number of players in the homes, not the new acquisitions.

Touche! How silly of me to not realize this.

But my point still stands even if it's made to be not directly relevant. There are far too many owners of BD players who are refusing to buy movies on BD. Even if DVD players were discontinued completely and BD players were 100% of the hardware market, it wouldn't mean a thing if DVDs were still outselling BDs 9:1.

[boxterduke]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

People with BD players are still buying DVDs. That's messed up.

Price determines a lot of buying decisions. For the average person, going to a store to pick up a movie is the only way to get a movie, and when seeing the difference of prices between DVDs and BDs, that determines what people would buy.

I myself have stopped buying DVDs, I still watch then and rent them since the collection at my local Blockbuster is more than BDs but I don't buy them anymore.

If I really want a movie and the price on the DVD is way cheaper then I wait for the BD to drop in price.