Blu-ray in retail stores - reports and anecdotes

[Petra_Kalbrain]

I wonder if the AVS forums have gotten wind of the statements being made in this thread yet. I bet they are just tearing this group a new one for talking like the war is over today. We had probably best be careful not to spurn on their spending habits. We need to keep them docile and unmotivated. The next 2 months are crucial and we need to worry about making our last stand count for WBs final tally of the market share come the New Year. So keep spending and quit harassing the frothy mouthed pitbull.

[Beta-guy]

Originally Posted by devonthedude

It will be like the virtual boy, it will go from $250 down to $25 clearance. It will become an electronic antique, only worth money since no one owned em' (they will be rare, especially the xbox 360 ones)

I think the reason VB died was it was just red dots, and the only game I recall playing on it was mario golf I think... I was amazed at the 3d functionality but they needed to add color. did it really drop to $25?

[Canada]

To bad HD DVD are not samurai warriors, they would have committed harry carry a long time ago. Because the shame of the slaughter there in the middle of.

[MOONPHASE]

Originally Posted by aristotles

Warner going Blu-ray exclusive would be hiroshima for HD DVD. The moment that happened, one of two things would happen:
1. Universal would go neutral and Paramount would give back the 50 million they took to go HD DVD exclusive but ultimately, HD DVD would be dead within 6 months.

2. Both Universal and Paramount would go Blu-ray exclusive and Toshiba would beg for membership in the BDA after the current CEO of Toshiba's CE division committed Subuku.

it was $150 million

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by MOONPHASE

it was $150 million

Wasn't it $50 million to Paramount & $100 million to Dreamworks? Or is it the other way around?

[devonthedude]

Originally Posted by Beta-guy

I think the reason VB died was it was just red dots, and the only game I recall playing on it was mario golf I think... I was amazed at the 3d functionality but they needed to add color. did it really drop to $25?

Yup it was dropped to $25 at Target back in the day, I own one with 4 games. It had good initial sales like hd-dvd but then lack of media and sales slump pulled it off the market. The lack of games was the major issue in its death, reminds me of the lack of content for hd-dvd

[davidPS3]

This would certainly spell the end of hd dvd. I agree with everyone who says that the other two studios on the red side would switch as soon as they could. I hope this happens sooner than later.

[powersfoss]

Originally Posted by devonthedude

Yup it was dropped to $25 at Target back in the day, I own one with 4 games. It had good initial sales like hd-dvd but then lack of media and sales slump pulled it off the market. The lack of games was the major issue in its death, reminds me of the lack of content for hd-dvd

Exactly. Scroll to about 2/3 of the way down this page http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/ to the top 20 discs for each format. Do a little side-by-side comparison. Which format looks "healthier" to you?

[BastiB]

If WB would go BLU exlusive...... Red Dud will be dead... It will be a slow dead, but ineviteable... Then the Nielsen Scan Numbers, every week would like 80 : 20..... Then Universal would go neutral (or prob. totally BLU...?)...

Dreaming is nice.....

[mystiksuicide]

What will happen if Warner drops HD DVD?

First of all we can party hardy! Seriously the following things will happen:

1) Every title will become available within 12-18 months.
2) The transition period from DVD to Blu-Ray should be complete within 5 years
3) The price of Blu-Rays would come down to what we pay for DVD's today
4) AVS forum would die from heart failure. lol

[devonthedude]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Wasn't it $50 million to Paramount & $100 million to Dreamworks? Or is it the other way around?

It was $50 million to paramount.

[devonthedude]

Originally Posted by mystiksuicide

3) The price of Blu-Rays would come down to what we pay for DVD's today

I bought Weeds season 2 (on BD) for $5 more than the DVD version. It's almost just as cheap

[kaliraver]

Well the HD-DVD avengelists are going crazy about this story calling it bias and that the VP of Warner didn't mention that his company was behind Blu. Instead the guys are saying that it was the person who wrote the story who said that, WOW! That is some hard core HD-DVD denial if I ever seen it.

[JohnGalt]

And now for something completely different:

* Paramount, and perhaps Universal, as the last HD DVD holdout(s) would crank up catalog title production to a furious pace in order to take advantage of their now near monopoly position(s) as HD DVD content providers.

* While Blu-ray would enjoy a broader (perhaps far broader) range of titles over the next 12-18 months HD DVD buyers would push sales figures for hot titles on their format to near those of the hottest selling Blu-rays as their expanding user base finds itself with less titles from which to choose. Overall BR sales would pull steadily away but the illusion of competitveness would persist at the top of the charts for some time.

* Toshiba and Microsoft would make pitches to major studios who don't own a share of the Blu-ray patent portfolio that will make Paramount's deal pale by comparison. Would a major switch sides for the right price? I'd say the odds are about as good as Liberace looking right at home at a gay pride parade.

With billions in patent royalties in play I doubt Toshiba is simply going to walk away from HD DVD any time soon. With many more billions potentially in play for Microsoft if they're able to kill HD optical formats while building out inferior online delivery of HD content they have a very strong motivation to support HD DVD for the forseeable future as well.

Don't kid yourselves folks: we'll have two formats until all of the major studios abandon one or the other but the catch-22 is that every time a studio moves into one camp the other will become more attractive to a fence-sitter.

[devonthedude]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

With billions in patent royalties in play I doubt Toshiba is simply going to walk away from HD DVD any time soon. With many more billions potentially in play for Microsoft if they're able to kill HD optical formats while building out inferior online delivery of HD content they have a very strong motivation to support HD DVD for the forseeable future as well.

Windows LIVE! and XBOX LIVE! one more step to world wide domination for Bill Gates. Do they seriously think they can control digital media, hell iTunes has more pull becoming number one digital content provider. Sony is prepping their digital media store for the PS3 also, its sooner or later when Microsoft completely has no say in the digital distribution service, hell Steam is way better than Windows Live. Yea it will be all digital when everyone has fiber-optic broadband connections of 100 mb/s, until then enjoy downloading digital versions with out any alternative audio options that clock in around 15+ GB in HD, thats a cool 2+ hours easily on broadband alone to download. No thanks MS

[DealsR4theDevil]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

Don't kid yourselves folks: we'll have two formats until all of the major studios abandon one or the other but the catch-22 is that every time a studio moves into one camp the other will become more attractive to a fence-sitter.

What? Why would the format that lost a studio be more appealing to consumers? or do you mean to studios? because the only "fence sitter" studios are Warner and New Line, and Warner almost owns New Line. If Warner chooses a side there will not be any fence sitters.

[Beta-guy]

HD Downloads willl not win, we need a storage medium, I want a storage medium, as far as the downloadable content for the HD movie I'm cautious about that concept here's why:

lets look at the first scenario, HD downloads a HD movie (just the main feature Video + Audio) is what 15 - 25 GB? that's too long to download, the bandwidth demand on the server(s) would create a DOS attack effect on those servers, and would cause the download to take even longer. if they lowered the bitrate of the movie, the file size would be smaller, but image quality would be effected, then if we ignore all of that you still miss out on deleted scenes, alternate ends and all of the other extras... HD downloads are destined to fail, and maybe it's just me but I like owning the media for the movie, knowing that whenever, where ever I can watch my movie.

as for the downloadable add-ons for the HD movies (HD-DVD and BD) let's say at the launch of the HD movie you have a downloadable feature you like, maybe it's a trailer, maybe, it's a game or something but later on in the movie's life cycle that trailer or game gets removed, now you've lost value on that HD movie you enjoyed, I perfer that IF we're going to have downloadable content for our movies, that they be fully savable preferable in an open format if possible (the game would probably not be open format as it'd be BD-Java or HDi but the trailer could be saved as AVS MPEG4)

[Grisle]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

Don't kid yourselves folks: we'll have two formats until all of the major studios abandon one or the other but the catch-22 is that every time a studio moves into one camp the other will become more attractive to a fence-sitter.

I would think Toshiba has already tried some type of payout and either Warner is thinking about it or they really want to see this Holiday seasons sales to decide.

[Aztec]

what if it happens the other way around? Just as so out of the blue Paramount jumped ship what would happen if Warner decided to go to HD DVD exclusive too? Blu ray would be in trouble? I dunno. Will the war would be longer than it already should? certainly...ugh.

[Beta-guy]

Originally Posted by Aztec

what if it happens the other way around? Just as so out of the blue Paramount jumped ship what would happen if Warner decided to go to HD DVD exclusive too? Blu ray would be in trouble? I dunno. Will the war would be longer than it already should? certainly...ugh.

IF warner went to HD-DVD that would give HD-DVD a CHANCE of winning but still not likely, BD people know the specs for the formats (most of them) with the PS3 selling so well, that means more BD players out there, thus more sales for BD, will warner leaving BD effect us, yeah in a similar way Paramount leaving us did, except I'd imagine the effect would be alot more powerful, ultimately though after the about 6 months we'd be back to our current levels I'm sure. and then the format war would likely continue until 2009 or longer.

but I don't see it happening, Transformers failed to beat BD last week, Warner a few weeks ago started promoting BD in France or something along with other companies, Warner appears to be more pro BD now. but only time will tell.