Yikes! 300 sells 250K copies since 7/31

[darinp2]

Given the even better reviews from critics and that I think they will make in about the same ballpark at the US box office, it would be interesting to compare 300's first week on high definition disc to The Bourne Ultimatum's first week on high definition disc, if Universal is still exclusive to HD DVD. The latter one has the advantage that there should be more players by then. I think many Blu-ray owners don't buy DVDs anymore and so Universal isn't going to get money from the group of exclusive Blu-ray owners who also don't buy DVDs. The same applies to exclusive studios on the Blu-ray side, but not to the same degree in general with the higher sales there and of course these studios need to look at what they are trying to gain in the long run (not selling out the short run and losing in the long run). But 100k lost sales at $10 marginal profit average would be another million in the coffers.

I think Sony is shooting themselves in the foot somewhat with their pricing on SM3 and I wonder if that combined with some lost sales from being on just Blu-ray (even though the dominant format), and coming out later, will mean that 300 will outsell it on next gen disc this year.

And the first week for Transformers should be huge with even more players out there by then.

I bet there are some people within side Warner who would love to stop releasing on Blu-ray, but if the ratio is big toward Blu-ray that pretty much puts the kibosh on that. And from one thing I read it sounds like they were trying to favor the HD DVD in their advertising.

--Darin

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by darinp2

I think Sony is shooting themselves in the foot somewhat with their pricing on SM3 and I wonder if that combined with some lost sales from being on just Blu-ray (even though the dominant format), and coming out later, will mean that 300 will outsell it on next gen disc this year.

Well, what we don't know is how much it costs Warner to release on two formats. The extra format cost could eat away all the profits of the extra sales.

Gary

[dialog_gvf]

Let's assume Warner is right.

Who is being more stupid:

(1) Fox, MGM, Disney, Lionsgate and Sony for missing out on 30/70 (42%) more sales.

(2) Universal for missing out on 70/30 (133%) more sales?

It's funny how the HD DVD camp all agree Warner is right, but would never agree that Universal should make the first move because they have the most to gain.

Sacrifice the 133% gain and push the others to go neutral. That's the way of maximizing their profits.

Gary

[gand41f]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

It's funny how the HD DVD camp all agree Warner is right, but would never agree that Universal should make the first move because they have the most to gain.

Ironically, Bourne Ultimatum may have just destroyed plazman's argument that Disney gains more by going neutral that Universal. Darin, do you want to bring that up with him again?

enjoy
gandalf

[scott1256ca]

darinp2 wrote

Basically, if there are 400k unique HD DVD owners worldwide and 20% of them bought this disc

If there are 400k HD DVD owners out there, would you expect roughly 200k of them to be xbox add on owners? Wouldn't that be the same demographic that 300 is aimed at? Would it be unreasonable to expect close to, say 40% of them bought this movie? These are the correct demographic, and they made a conscious choice to buy it for HD movies. That is 80k right there. Balance that against 4m ps3 owners where we know a high percentage have not been buying disks (20% or so?). In total ps3 owners are also the correct demographic, but we don't know what the demographic is of that specific 20%. For instance, I own a ps3, am not in that demographic, and really have little interest in 300. So high sales may mean the HD DVD will sell better than the 2:1 ratio. If the ratio for HD DVD is good (i.e. 40% or better) with the Nielson numbers on Friday, I'll be avoiding AVS because the HD DVD guys will be insufferable. Here's to hoping you are right and the ratio is better than 2:1 for BD.

[Rob Zuber]

In lieu of scientific numbers, we can take a look at stock levels at Amazon (For entertainment purposes only. Please, no wagering ).

They currently have 2494 BDs and 1573 HD-DVDs of the movie.

BD
http://www.eproductwars.com/products...5391161035.cfm

HD-DVD
http://www.eproductwars.com/products...5391137641.cfm

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Rob Zuber

They currently have 2494 BDs and 1573 HD-DVDs of the movie.

Shows 2997 BDs now and 1629 HD DVDs.

Did people cancel orders? Did Amazon get new stock? Or does Amazon poison the data to insure nobody can really track their sales properly?

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by scott1256ca

If there are 400k HD DVD owners out there, would you expect roughly 200k of them to be xbox add on owners? Wouldn't that be the same demographic that 300 is aimed at? Would it be unreasonable to expect close to, say 40% of them bought this movie? These are the correct demographic, and they made a conscious choice to buy it for HD movies. That is 80k right there.

My gut would agree with you if I hadn't been following the sales figures. After seeing how Batman Begins has sold even with earlier adopters and at $19.99 lots of places, I think there are a lot more renters out there than many realized. Or we have been missing lots of sales figures. But, Warner saying that The Departed got to 100k would seem to indicate that we haven't been missing a lot of the sales.

Before Tuesday I don't think any HD DVD had sold even 80k since inception.

Also, there are the dual format owners and many of them may have bought the Blu-ray version even if they have an XBOX360 add-on.

--Darin

[Rheologuy]

Originally Posted by darinp2

...After seeing how Batman Begins has sold even with earlier adopters and at $19.99 lots of places, I think there are a lot more renters out there than many realized... --Darin

That's an interesting point that I don't recall if anyone else has mentioned-- the impact on BD sales of what is probably a large rental market. Certainly a big motivation for renting (which I very rarely did with DVD's) is the high cost of BD's. Add to that the much bigger title selection at Netflix than any local sales outlet. I joined Netflix in March and have rented 20 titles since then, some of which I subsequently bought. I own 16 titles, but expect to add to that significantly in late summer and fall, with some long-awaited titles starting to come out. If there were more of the classics coming out, I'd own a lot more BD's.

Wonder if the studios realize the aformentioned factors affecting their sales?

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by gand41f

Ironically, Bourne Ultimatum may have just destroyed plazman's argument that Disney gains more by going neutral that Universal. Darin, do you want to bring that up with him again?

Not sure. As you probably know, I already tried to lead him to that in a rational discussion and instead he decided to hide and act like he wasn't saying that the more successful a studio's titles are, the more likely they are to go neutral. Then he waited until we weren't in that discussion and turned around and tried pushing that agenda he had pretty much disavowed again. There's probably something about betrayal in there somewhere.

Maybe Blu-ray fans should be happy that The Bourne Ultimatum is doing so well with critics and at the box office (at least in the US).

--Darin

[jorg]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Let's assume Warner is right.

Who is being more stupid:

(1) Fox, MGM, Disney, Lionsgate and Sony for missing out on 30/70 (42%) more sales.

(2) Universal for missing out on 70/30 (133%) more sales?

It's funny how the HD DVD camp all agree Warner is right, but would never agree that Universal should make the first move because they have the most to gain.

Sacrifice the 133% gain and push the others to go neutral. That's the way of maximizing their profits.

Gary

know those are numbers i like to see n disputiable i think i will use next time some one says every one go format netrual lmao

[Disturbed350z]

Well I can't vouch for other best buys cause I didn't check their numbers
but the one that I worked in got about 20-30 more in blu-ray than hd-dvd in the initial shipment...those sold by the end of its release day while we still had plenty of hd-dvd....we got another shipment of about 70 blu-ray with only 5 on order for hd-dvd....by this past saturday we finally sold out of hd-dvd with only about 5 left on blu-ray.
This title was huge....I admit I bought it on blu-ray aswell....but I don't think I saw a person in there that didn't have it in there hand in atleast dvd form....my department (Media) hit near 300% of its budget due soley to the movie....this I thought was kind of ironic...lol

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Let's assume Warner is right.

Who is being more stupid:

(1) Fox, MGM, Disney, Lionsgate and Sony for missing out on 30/70 (42%) more sales.

(2) Universal for missing out on 70/30 (133%) more sales?

It's funny how the HD DVD camp all agree Warner is right, but would never agree that Universal should make the first move because they have the most to gain.

Sacrifice the 133% gain and push the others to go neutral. That's the way of maximizing their profits.

Gary

While 30 is indeed only approximately 42% of 70, 70 is actually 233% of 30. Thus if Universal were to go neutral then they could pick up that 70 and increase sales by 233% over their current 30.

(Even in a 60/40 world the increase is 150%.)

Certainly there is additional cost in going dual format, but it must be more than offset by the increase in revenue and profits.

What logical reason (other than someone paying them not to) can Universal have for not going neutral?

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Shadowself

While 30 is indeed only approximately 42% of 70, 70 is actually 233% of 30. Thus if Universal were to go neutral then they could pick up that 70 and increase sales by 233% over their current 30.

Ah, percentage fun. Especially when mixed with English:

70 is 233% of 30, but is 133% more than 30.

So, you could say "Universal could have 233% of current sales" or "Universal could see an increase of 133% in sales" and mean the exact same thing.

Gary

[gand41f]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

70 is 233% of 30, but is 133% more than 30.

So, you could say "Universal could have 233% of current sales" or "Universal could see an increase of 133% in sales" and mean the exact same thing.

No, if they go neutral they will go from 30 to 100, so they would see a 233% increase in sales, or you can say they would have 333% of current sales.

Now, if you are discussing Universal switching exclusively to Blu, the numbers would be correct. Isn't it ironic, that Universal will actually gain more by switching to Blu than Disney would by going neutral!

enjoy
gandalf

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by gand41f

No, if they go neutral they will go from 30 to 100, so they would see a 233% increase in sales, or you can say they would have 333% of current sales.

See, even I screw up.

Yeah, you have it right. Universal is refusing to grab >3x their current sales. While all the BD exclusive's could gain is another 42%.

Considering Universal grabbing for the ring would eliminate the need for any of the BD studios to go neutral, I'm sure they all see than now as an actual RISK, even if they were interested. All those costs of adapting a neutral stance would be wasted by one move from Universal that is clearly in their financial best interest.

Apparently Universal doesn't want any of the HD disc market in Japan, and only 1/3 the market (or less) elsewhere.

Maybe they can figure how to get out of the movie business too (assuming their efforts the last few years aren't actually deliberate. )

Gary

[atomik kinder]

As we all know, Amazon has no bearing on the real world of Blu-ray and HD DVD sales, but, the Blu-ray is still holding strong at the number 3 position and HD DVD is at....Oh, I was going to say 10 but I wanted to be accurate and checked again, now it is 11. Could be interesting to see what come up for the following week too since the releases this week don't seem to be as strong as 300. It wouldn't surprise me if the BD was number one again. (Of course we don't know that the BD will be number one this week )

[gand41f]

Originally Posted by darinp2

I think many Blu-ray owners don't buy DVDs anymore and so Universal isn't going to get money from the group of exclusive Blu-ray owners who also don't buy DVDs. The same applies to exclusive studios on the Blu-ray side

You are wrong on the second point. HD DVD owners still buy DVDs, remember how many of them are saying that they will be happy with Sony/Fox/Disney movies on DVD because XA2 upscales so well....

enjoy
gandalf