300 BD outsells HD DVD 65/35 - USA TODAY

[powerSURG]

Originally Posted by darinp2

Why would you think that? VHS didn't require a higher percentage than CED to crush it (form what I've read it looks like CED had higher attach rates) and a big army doesn't have to have the same number of kills per soldier to win a battle of even a war.

The HD DVD camp took a strategy that would mean higher attach rates, but lower disc sales when Microsoft refused to put an HD drive inside XBOX360s and instead made the drive a seperate item that allowed them to only count people who were willing to spend a relatively large amount of money to get that feature specifically. Now even with all the feigned ignorance Toshiba does understand that the number of discs selling is 10x more important than the attach rate and has decided to start pushing their own devices that will lower attach rates, but help disc sales (laptops).

--Darin

Great post!

What makes it worse is that, M$ is shooting themselves in the foot with this. Perhaps if they had released a BD player for their 360 as well, i may have stuck with that system alone. (as the ps3 is somewhat lacking in games) They claim to give the consumer a choice, but I'm a consumer and I didn't have the choice to buy a blu ray player for my 360.

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by powerSURG

Exactly. This proves one thing to me. A lower attachment rate isn't necessarily bad.

A high attach rate can actually be a very bad thing if it is the result of something like not appealing to enough people beyond a core group of enthusiasts. This seems to be a problem CED had before RCA conceded to VHS and dropped CED. These companies are smart enough to pursue strategies that they know will lower attach rates (like having disc rentals available and trying to appeal to people who mostly rent, but will by a couple of discs a year), but it seems like this conversation on the internet is neverending. As I said on the AVSForum last night:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&page=14&pp=30

BTW: I'm picturing some sports team claiming that they don't sell many tickets to their games, but the average fan makes more noise than the average fan for some other team, even though overall the other team's crowds make significantly more noise. And this is supposed to be a bragging point for some reason.

Reginald Trent tries his feigned ignorance thing a lot on this subject. I think it is a bad sign when people have to stoop to that level to support their format. I've been over it before with him, so it isn't like he doesn't know that he is choosing to act like his brain doesn't work in order to make HD DVD look better.

--Darin

[High Def Fan]

Originally Posted by darinp2

Why would you think that? VHS didn't require a higher percentage than CED to crush it (form what I've read it looks like CED had higher attach rates) and a big army doesn't have to have the same number of kills per soldier to win a battle of even a war.

The HD DVD camp took a strategy that would mean higher attach rates, but lower disc sales when Microsoft refused to put an HD drive inside XBOX360s and instead made the drive a seperate item that allowed them to only count people who were willing to spend a relatively large amount of money to get that feature specifically. Now even with all the feigned ignorance Toshiba does understand that the number of discs selling is 10x more important than the attach rate and has decided to start pushing their own devices that will lower attach rates, but help disc sales (laptops).

--Darin

I agree - attach rate is not terribly important - its useful, but not a single factor that determines much.

What matters as I stated in my other reply is the growth in sales. If sales are growing, thats all that matters. As long as growth continues, both will do well. And both will be around long enough until combo players are the norm and then it won't matter.

I think many people are just simply afraid that either the format they chose will die off (which is ridiculous, because blu-ray isn't going anywhere) or they are afraid both will die off. Neither is going to happen so long as sales continue to grow.

Show me a single company that threw in the towel with increasing sales and I'll admit the format war is harmful. Until then, I think its good. Its not only helped force player sales down, but I think its pushed studios to release very good looking titles. Competition is a good thing.

[RichiPuppy]

As likely as Sony, that doesn't make sense, thats more like Toshiba making a blu ray player.

[Slapper]

This weeks numbers are not going to be that great of an indicator on overall sales for 300. 300 on HD-DVD is going to drop a long way down the charts come next week as most HD-DVD owners will have bought the title already.

We're going to see the legs on the BD version and they are going to be strong! The BD version will get the casual buyer who has a PS3. Even if the BD sold 2/1 over the HD-DVD 300 this still means there are a snotload of PS3 owners out there who have not yet bought the movie. This movie's target audience is THE PS3 GAMER type of consumer.

There's no such thing as a casual buyer for the HD-DVD format, IMHO.

Give it a month and the sales gap between 300 on HD-DVD and Blu-ray should be at least 6/1 or greater. If I'm wrong I'll eat my copy of 300!

[powerSURG]

Originally Posted by High Def Fan

The only numbers that really matter are growth. How has it done in comparison to other blu-ray titles?

If I remember correctly, Casion Royale was the first Hi Definition title to Sell 100,000k copies in it's opening week. Supposedly, 300 has sold 162,000+ on it's opening week.(BD) Again, simple maths proves attachment rates mean nothing, while disc sales = $$$.

[BaeDaTruth]

is spiderman going to be blu ray exclusive?

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by powerSURG

What makes it worse is that, M$ is shooting themselves in the foot with this.

I think they just don't have a big enough stake in HD DVD and probably made the right choice for them. The wrong choice for Toshiba and HD DVD, but the right choice for them. I think Microsoft wants HD DVD to win, but just not that badly. For one thing, they compete with Toshiba in this area. Microsoft was against region encoding for HD DVD when Disney asked for it, but yet provide something similar to Disney with their download service for the XBOX360. I wonder what Toshiba thinks about that.

--Darin

[Wondermaker]

Originally Posted by High Def Fan

And as far as Universal "waking up". I think Universal going neutral right now is about as likely as Sony going neutral. For some reason Universal seems to be heavily invested in HD DVD.

Because they're being leaned on and subsidized by Micro$oft?

Universal will not hold out much longer. They'll be crushed in the fourth quarter and announce neutrality at CES next January.

[powerSURG]

Originally Posted by Slapper

There's no such thing as a casual buyer for the HD-DVD format, IMHO.

I would have to agree.

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by High Def Fan

What matters as I stated in my other reply is the growth in sales. If sales are growing, thats all that matters. As long as growth continues, both will do well. And both will be around long enough until combo players are the norm and then it won't matter.

I disagree. Some big studio that is exclusive now is going to go neutral (I'm not counting the Weinsteins althought this should help Blu-ray) and that is going to change the landscape. At this point I think there is way more pressue on Universal to go neutral than Disney (especially when looking at the worldwide situation where HD DVD seems to be getting killed in Japan and losing in Europe too).

If sales keep growing and the ratio stays around 2:1 overall and say 1.6:1 for most common titles, while Japan is 4:1 or more for Blu-ray, do you think Universal will continue to not release on Blu-ray? If so, why do you believe that?

Okay, I saw your statement about Universal going neutral being about as likely as Sony. I think you are way, way off, but you can believe that if you want to. Not sure why you would think Universal has even close to the stake in this as Sony and would be willing to stick with a losing side as long as Sony, unless you are getting overly influenced by some rhetoric from some guy who's job is to try to make things like good when they are actually bad. Even if the ratio was 2:1 for HD DVD Sony wouldn't be as likely to go neutral as Universal is now from what I've seen, but at 2:1 for Blu-ray they aren't even in the same ballpark.

--Darin

[High Def Fan]

Originally Posted by powerSURG

If I remember correctly, Casion Royale was the first Hi Definition title to Sell 100,000k copies in it's opening week. Supposedly, 300 has sold 162,000+ on it's opening week.(BD) Again, simple maths proves attachment rates mean nothing, while disc sales = $$$.

But what if it was only 100,000 copies in its opening week? What would that have shown? No growth from previous titles. Assuming the numbers are correct, we're seeing a 62% growth rate in comparison between 300 and Casino Royale.

That's really what matters. No studio wants to keep selling 100,000 copies the first week of each release. They want to keep selling more and more. In my opinion, growth is all that matters.

So, instead of comparing 300 HD DVD vs 300 Blu-ray - Let's compare the groth of say 300 on both to the growth of a few previous dual format releases. If it shows a higher growth rate on blu-ray - THAT is the number that studios will care about much more than anything else.

[powerSURG]

Originally Posted by darinp2

I disagree. Some big studio that is exclusive now is going to go neutral (I'm not counting the Weinsteins althought this should help Blu-ray) and that is going to change the landscape.
--Darin

To quote Gary:

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

But, realistically, we have to expect Universal to go neutral first.

Going neutral Disney would get only 42% more sales, while Universal would get 233% more. There is almost 6x more financial gain for Universal to go neutral as Disney.

Gary

It doesn't get any easier than that.

[buckshot]

i'm sad that there isn't a comments area underneath the article. its always amusing to read the *****ing and moaning of the hd loyal

[High Def Fan]

Originally Posted by darinp2

If sales keep growing and the ratio stays around 2:1 overall and say 1.6:1 for most common titles, while Japan is 4:1 or more for Blu-ray, do you think Universal will continue to not release on Blu-ray? If so, why do you believe that?

--Darin

I really don't know. What reason did Universal have for going with HD DVD in the first place? Similiar to Sony, don't they get a cut from each HD DVD released? If thats the case, then they have as much interest in keeping HD DVD alive as Sony does keeping blu-ray alive.

[daman]

This is a good one from AVS

Originally Posted by dpags

Here are the HD-DVD PR guidelines:

Hardware sales: PS3 does not count

Software sales: PS3 counts

Use as applicable.

[High Def Fan]

Originally Posted by buckshot

i'm sad that there isn't a comments area underneath the article. its always amusing to read the *****ing and moaning of the hd loyal

amusing - its down right entertaining!

[Helicon]

In the next couple of weeks we will be able to see the real ratio. I think the gap will increase, wenn HD-DVD runs out of buyers.

[LynxFX]

I think this ratio is a direct result of how many BD's vs HD's that Warner put out for the first run. Check the numbers in about 2 months and you'll see that ratio move to 75:25 or higher.

[Glow007]

The bottem line on the attach rate is that any customer is only going to buy the movies they want. If HD-DVD customers eventually give in and buy BD players then they will still continue to buy the same number of disks. Maybe more because BD are generally cheaper that the dual format disks.

The point is just as stated above, with higher disk sales for Blu, all of the major and even smaller retailers are going to stock what is selling the best. It doesnt matter which format or what the attach rate.

Besides that the attach rate argument is bogus because if we have "less players" and double the disk sales....how is our attach rate so much lower??? You cant have it both ways HD camp...PS3 either counts or it doesnt. You cant just count it when it helps your argument.