Interesting CES release on the status of Blu-ray

[cyberknight]

Received this article from the virtual press office at CES 2008:

If nothing else it is interesting reading....

Blu-ray Disc Movie Titles Outsold HD DVD by Nearly 2-to-1in the United States and Nearly 3-to-1 in Europe During 2007; Blu-ray Totally Dominates Japanese Market

Blu-ray Disc movie titles outsold HD DVD in the United States by a nearly 2-to-1 margin last year, according to sales figures from Home Media Research, an independent market research firm.

Blu-ray titles outsold HD DVD in the United States every single week of the year, according to HMR. And Blu-ray editions of titles released on both formats consistently outsold their HD DVD counterparts by significant margins. Sales of the Blu-ray edition of "300," the bestselling high-definition title to date, have outpaced sales of the HD DVD version by 2-to-1.

According to the European based market research firm, GfK media control – OCC, high-definition movie title sales in Europe were nearly 3-to-1 in favor of Blu-ray. And in Japan the margin was an overwhelming 14-to-1.

Sales of high-definition playback devices were even stronger in Blu-ray's favor – more than 3 -to-1 in the United States, 10-to-1 in Europe and more than 100-to-1 in Japan.

The strong consumer preference for Blu-ray was cited by Warner Bros. as the principle reason for their January 4th decision to publish solely on Blu-ray Disc beginning in May of 2008.

The Blu-ray Disc Association released the sales figures for high-definition movie titles and playback devices during a news conference at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

A number of major studio executives spoke on behalf of Blu-ray at the event: Danny Kaye, Executive Vice President, Research and Technology, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment; Bob Chapek, President, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Worldwide; David Bishop, President, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment; Ron Sanders, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Worldwide; and Steve Beeks, President, Lionsgate Home Entertainment Worldwide.


Other Blu-ray highlights for 2007:

* Total US sales of Blu-ray movie titles topped six million in December, 2007. It took 10 months for Blu-ray sales to top one million, just over three months to reach the second million, under three months to reach the third million, just over two months to reach the fourth million, and one month to go from four to six million. Despite a significant head start in the market, HD DVD didn't reach the 2.5 million mark until the middle of November and has yet to reach four million.

* Worldwide, eighty-five percent of all hardware sold that is capable of playing high-definition discs plays Blu-ray.

* Sixty-seven percent of all high-definition titles sold worldwide in 2007 were sold on Blu-ray.

* Seventeen of the top 20 selling high-definition titles in the United States are available on Blu-ray.

* In November, despite the $99 HD DVD player fire sale, Blu-ray accounted for nearly 70 percent of all high-definition disc sales in the United States. During the final week of November – including Black Friday – Blu-ray accounted for 72 percent of all high-definition disc sales.

The most recent data from SCA indicates that the total number of Blu-ray capable playback devices in the United states grew from 2.7 million at the end of November, to 3.7 million through the end of December.

[inaz4sun]

Look at the response when I posted this on dbstalk.com:

Originally Posted by phat78boy View Post
With millions of PS3 Blu-Ray players, is this really so surprising? My question would be what is the percentage of movies compared to the amount of players? Selling 100,000 movies for HD-DVD is much more impressive then selling 250,000 movies for Blu-Ray.
The fact the numbers are usually so close, in terms of movie sales, tells me HD-DVD is outperforming Blu-Ray as they have a smaller installed base. Of course, non of that matters if studios aren't releasing in that format.

Only a HD DUD fanboy could spin a loss on every level as a win. Its hilarious, and I predicted it exactly. With them up is down, black is white, day is night.

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by inaz4sun

Look at the response when I posted this on dbstalk.com:

Originally Posted by phat78boy View Post
With millions of PS3 Blu-Ray players, is this really so surprising? My question would be what is the percentage of movies compared to the amount of players? Selling 100,000 movies for HD-DVD is much more impressive then selling 250,000 movies for Blu-Ray.
The fact the numbers are usually so close, in terms of movie sales, tells me HD-DVD is outperforming Blu-Ray as they have a smaller installed base. Of course, non of that matters if studios aren't releasing in that format.

Only a HD DUD fanboy could spin a loss on every level as a win. Its hilarious, and I predicted it exactly. With them up is down, black is white, day is night.

picard.jpeg

[Shin-Ra]

Where's the Worf one?

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

Where's the Worf one?

Is this the one your thinking of?

whipped1.JPG

[AaronSCH]

Give them a break. It just doesn't matter anymore. Once May 2008 rolls past, denial will turn to acceptance.

[glenn-bob]

Originally Posted by inaz4sun

Only a HD DUD fanboy could spin a loss on every level as a win. Its hilarious, and I predicted it exactly. With them up is down, black is white, day is night.

...and now HD is BLU!!!!

[SavagePotato]

Originally Posted by AaronSCH

Give them a break. It just doesn't matter anymore. Once May 2008 rolls past, denial will turn to acceptance.

Nah, chances are denial will turn to rabid insanity and mental colapse. There will be hordes of dud supporters wandering through malls biting people and frothing at the mouth while muttering about attach rates.

[justaguy93]

Originally Posted by SavagePotato

Nah, chances are denial will turn to rabid insanity and mental colapse. There will be hordes of dud supporters wandering through malls biting people and frothing at the mouth while muttering about attach rates.

If you get bitten you understand I have like 20-30 seconds to kill you before you become one of them right?

Just so we're clear.

[gearyt]

what happened to attach rates ??

[The Don]

Originally Posted by inaz4sun

Look at the response when I posted this on dbstalk.com:

Originally Posted by phat78boy View Post
With millions of PS3 Blu-Ray players, is this really so surprising? My question would be what is the percentage of movies compared to the amount of players? Selling 100,000 movies for HD-DVD is much more impressive then selling 250,000 movies for Blu-Ray.
The fact the numbers are usually so close, in terms of movie sales, tells me HD-DVD is outperforming Blu-Ray as they have a smaller installed base. Of course, non of that matters if studios aren't releasing in that format.

Only a HD DUD fanboy could spin a loss on every level as a win. Its hilarious, and I predicted it exactly. With them up is down, black is white, day is night.

I've got to hand it to them....the glass is always half full with them..

but with us...it's always half empty...

I guess we were always paranoid about the uninformed customer buying a cheap player thinking they were getting a deal...

but in the long run...these people aren't avid movie buyers...

Blu-ray has always been superior and the numbers prove it...period..

there's no way to spin that as a positive for them...

it's a wrap..

[The Don]

Originally Posted by gearyt

what happened to attach rates ??

another bullshit statistic....

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by gearyt

what happened to attach rates ??

Some people making decisions actually have enough business sense to know how they are relevant and how they are not relevant. It has been really sad to see so much false information about what matters get spread on forums the last year or so (HD DVD fans didn't start the attach rate stuff until Microsoft had decided not put put an HD DVD drive in the XBOX360 and then well after the PS3 shipped, even though anybody who understands this stuff much knew that multipurpose devices like the PS3s should have lower attach rates).

I never did get a good response from any HD DVD fans pushing attach rates as the most important thing about how SED lost to VHS then. Or whether they would claim that the VMD format was beating HD DVD if VMD sold 1% of the number of players as HD DVD, but 2% of the number of discs (for twice the attach rate). Selling so few players that even with a higher attach rate you sell less discs is not a badge of honor, like some think it is. Toshiba would have gladly sold twice as many players even if it only meant 50% more discs sold, but the fact is that even at their low prices the Toshiba players didn't sell better than they did, and not even close to what they had been claiming they would sell. The PS3 didn't sell close to what had been claimed for a while either, but enough to beat Toshiba.

I wonder if any of those people pushing attach rates as the most important thing will figure out how dense they have been about business matters, or whether they'll just go on thinking they understood this stuff. One nice thing about college was that those who were clueless and didn't know it got some pretty good hints when they got their test scores back and saw how poorly they did.

--Darin