HD DVD only sold 420k units so far

[IvanDrago]

It's a minor miracle that the S300 even sold 100K considering the quality and multi-purpose nature of the PS3 at the same price point. I still don't get why people buy anything but the PS3 for BD playback.

[Iron Man]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

its not about hardware sales, its about software sales

you're right. It is going to be exciting to see how it goes in the next few month.


I addition to the 420,000 players sold it is important to remember, that Toshiba originaly expected to sell 1,2 million stand alone players before 2008.

[Uxi]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

its not about hardware sales, its about software sales. just because they flood the market with dirt cheap players, doesn't mean ppl are going to be buying expensive hd dvds. look at eproductwars.com hd dvd really hasn't done anything.

Right. The main thing to laugh at is that there are undoubtedly many HDDVD player purchasers, who have simply tried to escape the pitfalls of the last model.

The 1st gen A1 and XA1 were both huge and turd slow. The former was fixed with the 2nd gen and progress was made on the speed, but read the numerous reports of disc playback issues. And speed STILL isn't as quick as one might expect... The 3rd gens apparently haven't made any speed increases and disc issues still appear to linger, but the main point of the 3rd gens seemed to be to make them more affordable for Toshiba to produce - which is negated by the firesale pricing.

[Fozziwig]

We need a new stat:

Unique Player Owners

For example, 700,000 HD DVD players (including the add-on) may actually only be 500,000 unique owners. Consider the following as very likely:

Early A1 owners will almost all have upgraded to the A2 (especially now they are being given away!)

Many 360 add-on owners will have added a bargain standalone to their collection.

AND a significant number of HD DVD player owners will not be buying HD media because they are content with upscaled DVD. They bought a cheap player and they are going to buy cheap software - not too complicated to work out (unless you work for Toshiba).

Exactly how this changes the overall HD DVD buying pool is unknown, but anyone who thinks the 90,000 A2's sold recently equates to 90,000 new HD DVD movie buyers is completely out of their tree!

My best guess is that approx. 20,000 brand new customers will be now be buying HD DVD movies on a regular basis as a result of the $98 A2 sale. Respectable but insignificant to the outcome of the format war.

[spam.curitiba]

Yah we have nothing to worry about.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Iron Man

Not that I wan't to be a pessimist but I think they are doing quite good. In disc sales Blu-ray is only ahead of HD-DVD with 2:1 margin and HD-DVD only has 1 major hardware company backing them up.

Like it or not I think we are getting closer and closer to the point where HD-DVD is newer going to die.

Way too early to pronounce this (not to mention all formats die eventually - look at vinyl records ). LaserDisc and Betamax both had much larger market presence than HD DVD has today or will in the near future, and both formats sank into obscurity. If either format is still alive and kicking by the end of next year's holiday season, then we can talk about permanent market presence.

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Only at 330,000? I thought they were at 220,000 as of October 1st's HDTV conference in LA.

Exactly. 420k is higher than I would have figured even with 90k new ones. I believe there was a report just the other day that said 210k HD DVD add-ons had sold by the end of September, and I figured they were right in there with standalone sales on HD DVD at that point and maybe even a hair higher. I think the last statistics from Toshiba (by way of NPD) were YTD of 53:44:3 for HD DVD, Blu-ray, and then combo players. And last year sounds like it was much closer than many thought, or Toshiba would be giving us Since Inception numbers. If HD DVD was at 300k when it was 53:44:3 and SI was at least that good for Blu-ray, that would mean Blu-ray was at around 250k or better. That does depend on those numbers being US or North America though.

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

total 850k.

blu-ray will have 7 million ps3s on the market right there. just doing the typical 20% gives you a number well into the millions, while standalones should bump the sales up near the 2 million range. and these are tru blu players, not players that some people use just to upconvert.

One thing to keep in mind is that it may be way lower than 20% outside the US. And these may be US numbers for Toshiba and if not, they are probably dominated by US. In the US and Canada the PS3 will probably be at 3.5 million or less by the end of the year (where it is around 2.2 million now). That is 700k. And software sales have been closer to 1.5:1 in the US recently, plus sales for common titles are very important and I won't be surprised if that gets closer here given these deals. If either side understands about how a lower attach rate device can sell more discs by having more of them out there it should be the Blu-ray side and these 90k players will sell some discs, even if they have lower average attach rates than the more expensive players.

I also think you are underestimating the number of XBOX360 add-ons and standalones the HD DVD side can sell between now and the end of the year. I'm still hoping the Blu-ray side takes some strong action to sell more standalones.

--Darin

[w_tanoto]

Originally Posted by Chris Beveridge

Nothing wrong with multiple players. I've owned five so far and currently have three hooked up to the three HDTV's in my six person household. Sold off my fourth player and gave my fifth one to one of my reviewers so he could tackle some BD material for me.

I owned 3 BD players. 2 PS3 (region A and B), and one computer drive (customisable, currently set to B)

[Trebar]

These numbers should show how bad the attach rates of the PS3 is overall. With that many units sold if it was anywhere near the standalone rates, you would be seeing 700k numbers for top titles (Well, since they only released 400k Spiderman then it would have gone on backorder.

Still, this is good news and if trend continues we could be in for some surprises 1st quarter '08.

[w_tanoto]

how many BD players sold? excluding ps3?

PS3 buyer will have Spiderman 3 BD, but HD DVD buyer won't have any (except mail rebate) - some of them don't realise that they have HD DVD player. They might thought that it's just upconverting player. Some of them said they won't even buy HD DVD. They will continue to buy DVD and upconvert it.

[SNAP]

Laserdisc in no way had a larger market than HD. In the 20 years there were around only 1 million players were sold in the US. The big difference is there was no studio squabbles. Any studio was on laser. Between standalones and XBOX I'm sure there's just as many HD players out there as there were laserdisc players. The studio situation will kill HD...Laser was killed because only videophiles bought into it.

Originally Posted by Icemage

Way too early to pronounce this (not to mention all formats die eventually - look at vinyl records ). LaserDisc and Betamax both had much larger market presence than HD DVD has today or will in the near future, and both formats sank into obscurity. If either format is still alive and kicking by the end of next year's holiday season, then we can talk about permanent market presence.

[DrinkMore]

Originally Posted by SNAP

Laserdisc in no way had a larger market than HD. In the 20 years there were around only 1 million players were sold in the US. The big difference is there was no studio squabbles. Any studio was on laser. Between standalones and XBOX I'm sure there's just as many HD players out there as there were laserdisc players. The studio situation will kill HD...Laser was killed because only videophiles bought into it.

I believe all that and saw just how well LD did not do. However, the one thing I have noticed is the MASSIVE amount of movies LD had available. I am talking titles that were released not too long ago too.

It just amazes me that for a format that pretty much bombed, it had A LOT of movies you could buy for it. Why did they release so many if it was not so widely adopted?

[joeorc]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Only at 330,000? I thought they were at 220,000 as of October 1st's HDTV conference in LA.

notice this little sweep under the rug...

Industry sources say that in the three days after Wal-Mart lowered the price of the second-generation HD-A2 player to less than $100, the big discount chain sold 60,000 units. Other chains that matched the price, both in stores and online, brought the total sold to nearly 100,000 units. Add that to the estimated 320,000 dedicated HD DVD players already in homes, and total household penetration is at about 420,000 units — a number format backers expect will exceed 500,000 units by the end of this month.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/new...ticle_ID=11509

the key word is "ESTIMATED"....

[SNAP]

The studios were thinking that because it was such a better format that was available that it would really take off.....But people didnt like the size of the discs, the fact that early players didnt play both sides of a disc and that they didnt record like VHS. And you're right there were plenty of discs. And not just movies. They had concerts, TV show, documentaries, training discs(I had one on dog training), sports, classical music concertos....everything. It just didnt work. There's a place near me in NJ called Princeton record Exchange where I still buy LDs for $2.99.much cheaper than ebay.

The last disc done was Sleepy Hollow in 2000 in Dolby Digital. The format seems desirable now because it's no longer available, but if you go on ebay there's tons of discs and the players that were real good back then still sell at a very high price.
I'm selling a Marantz LV520 for $150..........it's a Dolby Digital player. If anyone's interested.

Originally Posted by DrinkMore

I believe all that and saw just how well LD did not do. However, the one thing I have noticed is the MASSIVE amount of movies LD had available. I am talking titles that were released not too long ago too.

It just amazes me that for a format that pretty much bombed, it had A LOT of movies you could buy for it. Why did they release so many if it was not so widely adopted?

[tqlla]

Laserdisc and Beta both suffered from their storage capacity problems.

Beta initially only had enough room for one hour per tape. That was a big pitfall. Laserdisc also had to be flipped over to watch an entire movie

Another big problem with Laser disc was the clumsyness of the discs.

BD doesnt suffer from these problems... in fact, HD DVD is the one with capacity issues. However, HDDVD's capacity issues are not as bad as beta or Laserdisc.

[SNAP]

Good point about storage..........Laser was 1 hr/side in CLV and only 30min/side in CAV(good for freeze frame and other special effects) so even if you had a player that played both sides, any movie that was more than 2 hrs came w/2 discs so you had to get up and change discs regardless. And the were very clumsy. I know I still have over 500 of them.

Originally Posted by tqlla

Laserdisc and Beta both suffered from their storage capacity problems.

Beta initially only had enough room for one hour per tape. That was a big pitfall. Laserdisc also had to be flipped over to watch an entire movie

Another big problem with Laser disc was the clumsyness of the discs.

BD doesnt suffer from these problems... in fact, HD DVD is the one with capacity issues. However, HDDVD's capacity issues are not as bad as beta or Laserdisc.

[SNAP]

Believe it or not Ice, vinyl is making a comeback but now these records are selling for over $30.00 if you read some of these high end audio magazines.

Originally Posted by Icemage

Way too early to pronounce this (not to mention all formats die eventually - look at vinyl records ). LaserDisc and Betamax both had much larger market presence than HD DVD has today or will in the near future, and both formats sank into obscurity. If either format is still alive and kicking by the end of next year's holiday season, then we can talk about permanent market presence.

[Sling]

Originally Posted by SNAP

Believe it or not Ice, vinyl is making a comeback but now these records are selling for over $30.00 if you read some of these high end audio magazines.

hmm I have " Saturday Night Fever " on vinyl un-opened .I wounder how much that's worth now..Maybe some $$$$$$ there.

[Iron Man]

http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/cyberpers...tm?id=63001157

[DrinkMore]

Just bought 2 LD's.

1 - Big Trouble In Little China - Sealed
2 - National Lampoons Christmas Vacation - Gently Used

Mostly for nostalgia reasons. I will probably never play them. My main thing for the Christmas Vacation one is I plan on making a shadow box showing all the formats..

LD, DVD 1, DVD 2, Blu-Ray - VHS is not included because it just won't hold up over time.