HD DVD Promo Group says HD DVD players "thrashing" Blu-ray in the US

[JTK]

Originally Posted by haiku_aubade

i stopped reading after i saw this was from the HD DVD Promotional Group.
figured everything stated would be biased.

With the new release of the $499 Blu-ray player from Sony, i'm sure other manufacturers will follow suit and this will turn the tide in standalone BD players

I just think it's incredible that they continue to conveniently ignore PS3 hardware sales in this whole discussion. You can't do that. It's disingenuous at best. You confront them on it and you get the usual "attach rate" nonsense and the rest of the smokscreen that makes me immediately tune that person out, add them to my ignore list, and move on.

[Chris Beveridge]

Indeed. Considering that I have two PS3 players that are now primary decks in my two media rooms...

[McBain]

Here's the original press release:

Consumers Drive Record Sales of HD DVD Players to Capture 60% of HD Set-Top Market

HD DVD Achieves Highest Attach Rate of Any Next-Gen Format

LOS ANGELES, June 11 -- Three weeks into its aggressive spring retail and marketing campaigns, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group today announced HD DVD is significantly ahead in the dedicated consumer electronics player market with 60% of all high definition set-top players sold. At the same time, high definition movie sales for HD DVD reached an all time high for the month of May, exceeding 75,000 movies the last week of May alone.

Overall high definition sales hit a record last week as well, hitting $5.2 million in actual consumer spending, which was 31% higher than the previous record for the two formats. This highlights the growing consumer appetite for HD content across the board.

Sales of dedicated consumer electronics players are a critical indicator in the adoption of the high definition formats, given the high attach rates to these players. With the successive price drops by Toshiba, weekly player sales doubled in April when the price dropped from $499 to $399, doubled again during the first week of the latest promotion in late May, and increased again last week.

"Toshiba's latest promotional efforts are clearly resonating with consumers and showing that price is king when it comes to hardware," said Craig Kornblau, chairman of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group. "Behind the increase in sales for hardware and movies, you're seeing fundamentally lower manufacturing costs and ease of authoring for HD DVD. That's the type of model that can scale."

Consumers have purchased 150,000 dedicated HD DVD consumer electronics players which are holding a 4 to 1 movie attach rate over competing formats. The Toshiba HD-A2 model has also reached the top-seller mark among all DVD players on Amazon.com, and is officially the best-selling next-gen DVD player model to date.

About HD DVD

HD DVD is the next generation, post-DVD standard for high capacity, high definition optical discs, approved by the DVD Forum, which develops and defines DVD formats. Its more than 220 strong membership brings together leaders in movies and entertainment, computing, consumer electronics and software. HD DVD is fast becoming the primary visual medium for the age of high-definition TV. The North American HD DVD Promotional Group, Inc. is an organization established to promote the HD DVD format and educate consumers in North America. For more information and a complete listing of HD DVD launch titles please visit http://www.TheLookAndSoundOfPerfect.com.

[haiku_aubade]

Originally Posted by JTK

I just think it's incredible that they continue to conveniently ignore PS3 hardware sales in this whole discussion. You can't do that. It's disingenuous at best. You confront them on it and you get the usual "attach rate" nonsense and the rest of the smokscreen that makes me immediately tune that person out, add them to my ignore list, and move on.

I agree, how can they ignore the fact that the PS3 is playing a vital role in the success of Blu. Are they that ignorant? I'm sure at least 80% of PS3 owners have or will buy a Blu-ray movie and more and more will follow suit as time progresses. Not taking the PS3 into account is foolish.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by haiku_aubade

I agree, how can they ignore the fact that the PS3 is playing a vital role in the success of Blu. Are they that ignorant? I'm sure at least 80% of PS3 owners have or will buy a Blu-ray movie and more and more will follow suit as time progresses. Not taking the PS3 into account is foolish.

No, they know it to be true. It's called deliberate omission of fact. (re: lying.)

[Spatula City]

According to them, all my blu-rays don't count because all I have is a ps3.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Spatula City

According to them, all my blu-rays don't count because all I have is a ps3.

Exactly.

[Helicon]

They can say what ever they wan't, the PS3 was a great move by SONY. 150.000 HD-DVD set-top players with a 60 % ratio that means 100.000 Blu-ray players + maybe 4 million PS3's

And by the way content is still King we have Disney, Fox, Lionsgate and of course SONY-MGM.

Eventually some fathers are going to be very unpopular with their children, when they discover, that there new HD-DVD player can't play Disney movies. Then they will go Blu

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by Spatula City

According to them, all my blu-rays don't count because all I have is a ps3.

No, your blu-rays count and in the attach rate argument so does your PS3. It helps them to show a lower attach rate for blu-ray when they have a larger denominator. But if you want to talk about hardware, by gosh you have to exclude those PS3 numbers.

By their argument, more HD-DVD players are out there and they are selling far more movies per player than blu-ray.

Braindead obvious question from the rest of humanity... "then why are your unit sales getting crushed into a fine paste?"... no response.

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by JTK

I just think it's incredible that they continue to conveniently ignore PS3 hardware sales in this whole discussion. You can't do that. It's disingenuous at best. You confront them on it and you get the usual "attach rate" nonsense and the rest of the smokscreen that makes me immediately tune that person out, add them to my ignore list, and move on.

Funny that they calculate the hardware advantage excluding PS3 but they calc the attach rate w/ PS3. Can't have it both ways can you? If you calc the attch rate on blu-rays far higher sales yet lower hardware totals then blu-rays attach rate is far, far higher.

The telltale sign of bad statistics or intentional distortion is having everchanging definitions.

[MatrixS2000]

Originally Posted by Blu-Ray Buckeye

Funny that they calculate the hardware advantage excluding PS3 but they calc the attach rate w/ PS3. Can't have it both ways can you? If you calc the attch rate on blu-rays far higher sales yet lower hardware totals then blu-rays attach rate is far, far higher.

The telltale sign of bad statistics or intentional distortion is having everchanging definitions.

This needed to be stated again....

[SeanMF]

So I read the article on Engadget.com and then read the comments. The comments were the most ridiculous things I have ever read. You want a good laugh..go read them (or want to be seriously annoyed with the stupidity). PS3 should be counted as a blu-ray player in any comparision. The sales advantage of discs sold, support, etc....you can't rule out. It is like only giving 5% of the total information. The average idiodic consumer will buy into it to some extent. Sony and the Blu-ray group do need to kick things in gear more so...because hddvd seems to be gaining some. They shouldn't be gaining period (even though the ridiculous price cuts and losses Toshiba has....it shouldn't matter). Just seems like some lost opportunities lately for Blu-ray and some desperate moves by HDDVD.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by JTK

I just think it's incredible that they continue to conveniently ignore PS3 hardware sales in this whole discussion. You can't do that. It's disingenuous at best. You confront them on it and you get the usual "attach rate" nonsense and the rest of the smokscreen that makes me immediately tune that person out, add them to my ignore list, and move on.

They ignore and don't ignore where it is convenient.


Ignore 100% of PS/3:

Three weeks into its aggressive spring retail and marketing campaigns, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group today announced HD DVD is significantly ahead in the dedicated consumer electronics player market with 60% of all high definition set-top players sold.

Include 100% of PS/3:

Consumers have purchased 150,000 dedicated HD DVD consumer electronics players which are holding a 4 to 1 movie attach rate over competing formats.

[thunderhawk]

*yawn*

Ah whatever. I hope the BDA releases some figures as well.

[ClaytonMG]

I don't understand something that tons of HD-DVD people say... "The only reason that Blu-Ray is selling so good is because of the PS3." ..... I don't understand where they're going with that. First off, I have a BDP-S1, not a PS3, but I do realize that the PS3 has tons to do with sales. But the thing to remember is that Blu-Ray sales are still up. It doesn't matter if people use their PS3's or not, that's not even an argument. So I don't get why they point out people using their PS3's. What do they plan on accomplishing by that? That is an honest question that is seriously bugging the crap out of me.

[Chad Varnadore]

It's hard to trust anything that comes from the HD DVD promotion group. They've been desperate for positive sales press all year and have turned twisting the truth into an artform of misinformation and skewed facts.

When the HD DVD promotion group was claiming that HD DVD standalones were outselling BD by 4:1, that was proven false early this year by actual sales data showing only a very small increase in HD DVD player sales over stand alone BD sales. But, when the PS3 is being used as the primary BD transport even by many "professional" reviewers, it's obvious that those sales can't be dismissed.

The whole attach rate nonsense is utterly laughable. Lets ignore the fact that most people don't buy movies as much as some of us more dedicated early adopters. So, attach rates are always going to decrease as market penetration increases. HD DVD advertising higher attach rates with lower player sales, is a promotion for BD, not the other way around. But the way the HD DVD promotion group wants to conveniently ignore PS3 sales, except when they talk about attach rates... come on. They can't have it both ways. Either the PS3 is a viable player in which case BD has a dramatic lead in player sales; or it's not, in which case (assuming HD DVDs standalone figures are correct this time) BD has a far higher attach rate.

[aaronwt]

Originally Posted by Chad Varnadore

It's hard to trust anything that comes from the HD DVD promotion group. They've been desperate for positive sales press all year and have turned twisting the truth into an artform of misinformation and skewed facts.

When the HD DVD promotion group was claiming that HD DVD standalones were outselling BD by 4:1, that was proven false early this year by actual sales data showing only a very small increase in HD DVD player sales over stand alone BD sales. But, when the PS3 is being used as the primary BD transport even by many "professional" reviewers, it's obvious that those sales can't be dismissed.

The whole attach rate nonsense is utterly laughable. Lets ignore the fact that most people don't buy movies as much as some of us more dedicated early adopters. So, attach rates are always going to decrease as market penetration increases. HD DVD advertising higher attach rates with lower player sales, is a promotion for BD, not the other way around. But the way the HD DVD promotion group wants to conveniently ignore PS3 sales, except when they talk about attach rates... come on. They can't have it both ways. Either the PS3 is a viable player in which case BD has a dramatic lead in player sales; or it's not, in which case (assuming HD DVDs standalone figures are correct this time) BD has a far higher attach rate.

Becasue there is no way to separate those out and get attach rates for only stand alone players. That data doesn't exist. They only have total title sales and the number of PS3/HD DVD add ons and the stand alones. They have no idea if the titles were purchased by a person with a stand alone player or a PS3/HD DVD addon.

[TauRus]

Originally Posted by aaronwt

Becasue there is no way to separate those out and get attach rates for only stand alone players. That data doesn't exist. They only have total title sales and the number of PS3/HD DVD add ons and the stand alones. They have no idea if the titles were purchased by a person with a stand alone player or a PS3/HD DVD addon.

That is ok. The only problem with their statistics is, that when counting hardware asles, they all of a sudden forget to include PS3s, obviously to make their numbers look ok.

[aaronwt]

Originally Posted by TauRus

That is ok. The only problem with their statistics is, that when counting hardware asles, they all of a sudden forget to include PS3s, obviously to make their numbers look ok.

At least they don't count the 360 add on either. if they did then that would really be wrong.
But it makes sence that if you don't count the PS3 you can't count the 360 add on.

[kroorda]

HD DVD is winning like Bush is winning in Irak.