The current state of play.

[Anton]

Last week we saw HD-DVD sales surpass Blu-Ray's momentarily on Amazon's eProductWars, since this time many posts on Blu-Ray support sites such as this have emerged. The sales figures on eProductWars do not paint the full story though, it was by no means a true reflection of HD Disc sales throughout this period.

I live in Houston and purchase most of my Blu-Ray titles from stores such as Best Buy, Walmart and Target. In EVERY single one of those stores they dedicate twice as much shelf space to Blu-Ray (and in Targets case, the Blu-Ray discs spill into the HD-DVD side).

HD-DVD owners do not have the choice Blu-Ray owners do in regards to B&M purchases, so where do they turn to? The internet of course! Everyones obsession (myself included) with these format wars fascinates me, from straight out flame wars to insightful commentary as to why we are in this predicament. The sooner the 'war' ends the better it will be for both sides, but for now... I can't help watching and deriving some enjoyment out of the whole thing.

[nhaase]

Just remember that the only reason HD-DVD's numbers surpassed BD for that moment was due to the coordinated mass-buying by HD-DVD supporters to commemorate that format's one-year anniversary (of being released to the public). It was by no means the normal demand for that format. The normal demand for Blu-ray erased that within one week.

[LeoneFan]

Why would you celebrate the 1 year anniversary of a half baked format? It's like saying look at us we chose the inferior format and now we're going to dig ourselves deeper into the hole we jumped into.

[nhaase]

Originally Posted by LeoneFan

Why would you celebrate the 1 year anniversary of a half baked format? It's like saying look at us we chose the inferior format and now we're going to dig ourselves deeper into the hole we jumped into.

Because ignorance is bliss, that's why.

[Anton]

What astonishes me is the audacity that the HD-DVD camp has in regards to not including the PS3 when comparing sales figures. Not only did the PS3 give the industry the cheapest available Blu-Ray player, it is also one of the best.

Also why is 'Digital Video Essentials' always in the top ten for HD-DVD purchases. This isnt a typical title average joe would pick up, which goes to show that the appeal of HD-DVD is primarily the HD hungry early adopters, who purchased their players before Blu-Ray was available.

[jason_grumpy]

Actually I found it quite humorous that HD-DVD fanbois were celebrating a victory on Amazon for a day. An organized buy that only registered on one website, and actually decreased others (dvdempire). With all buyers holding out for the big buy day, they neglected other websites, not to mention B&M stores. All it did was focus the sales of a product on to one website for a day. It's not like new orders were generated from this organized buy. Besides, half of the orders were prolly pre-orders that will be cancelled prior to shipment.

The fun thing out of this will be to see how much they affected the neilson scan data of ACTUAL discs sold nationwide and not just by amazon. I don't think it will be much though, maybe a slight hiccup, as preliminary for the 15th still show the same thing.. HD-DVD on a slow downward slope with BR pulling away.

Coupled with the orgasms over cheap chinese players by Walmart, this week has been pretty amusing from the HD-DVD camp. I'm not sure about you guys, but if Walmart became the flagship for one format.. um.. wouldn't you be just a bit worried FOR that format? I'd love to the 'features' these players will have. I'm sure for $150 dollars you're going to get HDMI 1.3, full audio codec decoding, 7.1 analog out, and excellent firmware updates. Heck this things going to maybe even be built to last 6 months. For some reason these guys think it's going to be a Toshiba quality model. The final nail in the coffin for HD-DVD if they true and they come off shoddier than Toshiba's current players. I mean lets be honest here, do any of you own cheap chinese DVD players of ANY kind that lasted more than a year with minimal use?

But i'll go out on a limb here and make the statement. I think it has to do with drive chassis/diode manufacturing that benefits both HD-DVD and BR.

However, pictures speak a thousand words. Next time I stop at my various Hollywood Videos, Circuit City, and Best Buy's i'll take a few pictures of the Blu-Ray titles compaired to the HD-DVD ones and rain on a few fanbois parades. Surely all of those places can't be conspiring with each other to eliminate HD-DVD. Each one of these places have dedicated at least 50% more space to Blu-Ray, especially Hollywood Video which recently expanded their shelve space by two, with HD-DVD an after thought.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by jason_grumpy

Coupled with the orgasms over cheap chinese players by Walmart, this week has been pretty amusing from the HD-DVD camp.

Too funny!

Pictures would be great!

[The Don]

Originally Posted by jason_grumpy

Actually I found it quite humorous that HD-DVD fanbois were celebrating a victory on Amazon for a day. An organized buy that only registered on one website, and actually decreased others (dvdempire). With all buyers holding out for the big buy day, they neglected other websites, not to mention B&M stores. All it did was focus the sales of a product on to one website for a day. It's not like new orders were generated from this organized buy. Besides, half of the orders were prolly pre-orders that will be cancelled prior to shipment.

The fun thing out of this will be to see how much they affected the neilson scan data of ACTUAL discs sold nationwide and not just by amazon. I don't think it will be much though, maybe a slight hiccup, as preliminary for the 15th still show the same thing.. HD-DVD on a slow downward slope with BR pulling away.

Coupled with the orgasms over cheap chinese players by Walmart, this week has been pretty amusing from the HD-DVD camp. I'm not sure about you guys, but if Walmart became the flagship for one format.. um.. wouldn't you be just a bit worried FOR that format? I'd love to the 'features' these players will have. I'm sure for $150 dollars you're going to get HDMI 1.3, full audio codec decoding, 7.1 analog out, and excellent firmware updates. Heck this things going to maybe even be built to last 6 months. For some reason these guys think it's going to be a Toshiba quality model. The final nail in the coffin for HD-DVD if they true and they come off shoddier than Toshiba's current players. I mean lets be honest here, do any of you own cheap chinese DVD players of ANY kind that lasted more than a year with minimal use?

But i'll go out on a limb here and make the statement. I think it has to do with drive chassis/diode manufacturing that benefits both HD-DVD and BR.

However, pictures speak a thousand words. Next time I stop at my various Hollywood Videos, Circuit City, and Best Buy's i'll take a few pictures of the Blu-Ray titles compaired to the HD-DVD ones and rain on a few fanbois parades. Surely all of those places can't be conspiring with each other to eliminate HD-DVD. Each one of these places have dedicated at least 50% more space to Blu-Ray, especially Hollywood Video which recently expanded their shelve space by two, with HD-DVD an after thought.

they are silly for trying to charge so little for a player when their discs, on average cost more than BD's do...