A short interview at Best Buy

[yspkrk]

Today I went to Best Buy with my family. At the counter, I asked the casher a couple of questions about BD vs. HDD. Here's the short conversation between us:

Me: Which format has been popular these days, I mean during Thankgiving holidays?
BB: I would say Blu-ray. People pick up BD better. They know BD is winning format and HD-DVD will be gone away.
Me: But a huge sale has been going on with HD-DVD players.
BB: Yes. That's because they know they will fail.
Me: Do you have a Blu-ray player?
BB. Not yet. Personally I prefer X-box to PS3 but I like Blu-ray. So... I don't know.

It was short conversation but long enough to know how well the world is getting blu.

[blitz6speed]

During black friday at frys, i was talking to one of the TV Department guys, and he said blu-ray stand alones are doing very well there, they pair them up with the hdtvs and sell a lot of them. He mentioned that he sees the same people looking at the HD DVD displays all the time, and that they're already hd dvd owners looking at the display hoping to get others to look also.

I went back to frys today and there was 5+ people checking through the BDs and 0 on the HD DVDs. A large crowd also gathered around the Time Crisis 4 for PS3 display also.

[mystiksuicide]

I went to drop of some dinner today at work for my b/f and whats the first thing I see when I get out of the car? The guy parked next to me was putting a Samsung blu player in the backseat. As I strolled around the store there wasn't anyone looking at hd dvd yet a see a guy in his 40 with his wife and kids holding a stack of blu movies id say between 6-8.

I must admit I am a bit puzzled, I hardly see anyone buying hd dvd's movies or players so how in the hell can the lead only be 2:1?

[oscar_in_fw]

Originally Posted by mystiksuicide

I went to drop of some dinner today at work for my b/f and whats the first thing I see when I get out of the car? The guy parked next to me was putting a Samsung blu player in the backseat. As I strolled around the store there wasn't anyone looking at hd dvd yet a see a guy in his 40 with his wife and kids holding a stack of blu movies id say between 6-8.

I must admit I am a bit puzzled, I hardly see anyone buying hd dvd's movies or players so how in the hell can the lead only be 2:1?

Because you'll hear just as many stories about other "anecdotal" tales of BB salesmen saying HD DVD players are flying off the shelf while the Blu-ray players are gathering cobwebs and HD DVD software sales have gone through the roof since the Toshiba A2s were dumped at $99. The $199 Toshiba A3s are still half the price of the cheapest Blu-ray standalones which is unfortunately a big differentiator for a lot of people.

[Corrupteddragon]

ASking a BB cashier is the same as driving to your nearest McDonalds and asking the drive up guy " whats winning HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?" I should know, I used to work at Best Buy and pretty much the people they make cashiers are the people who have no intelligence.

[mystiksuicide]

Originally Posted by oscar_in_fw

Because you'll hear just as many stories about other "anecdotal" tales of BB salesmen saying HD DVD players are flying off the shelf while the Blu-ray players are gathering cobwebs and HD DVD software sales have gone through the roof since the Toshiba A2s were dumped at $99. The $199 Toshiba A3s are still half the price of the cheapest Blu-ray standalones which is unfortunately a big differentiator for a lot of people.

I think you missed the part where I said I went to drop off diner to my b/f at work. He is a Magnolia Pro and he does have an insight to what he and his friends sell at the store. It's not a cashiers point of view it's what is actually going out the door.

I wish I had more accurate figures but since this weekend has been hectic the best he can do is guess but he estimates that out of every 10 next generation format player sold at the store 8 where blu. Of course that store is very biased to blu since every employee there either owns a PS3 or a stand alone.

Two are neutral who where actually red at first and are now leaning towards the blu side.

[Mericalis]

Originally Posted by Corrupteddragon

ASking a BB cashier is the same as driving to your nearest McDonalds and asking the drive up guy " whats winning HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?" I should know, I used to work at Best Buy and pretty much the people they make cashiers are the people who have no intelligence.

Hmm, the person must have some intelligence as they said they like Blu-ray.

[Phane]

Originally Posted by mystiksuicide

I must admit I am a bit puzzled, I hardly see anyone buying hd dvd's movies or players so how in the hell can the lead only be 2:1?

I figure it's probably more like 3:1, but when you factor in people from other countries buying their region free HD-DVD's for cheaper off US online retailers (thanks to the declining value of the US $) and exporting them, it brings it back down to 2:1. I wish we could see a statistic for how many HD-DVD's are actually being exported, though.

[Mericalis]

Originally Posted by yspkrk

Today I went to Best Buy with my family. At the counter, I asked the casher a couple of questions about BD vs. HDD. Here's the short conversation between us:

Me: Which format has been popular these days, I mean during Thankgiving holidays?
BB: I would say Blu-ray. People pick up BD better. They know BD is winning format and HD-DVD will be gone away.
Me: But a huge sale has been going on with HD-DVD players.
BB: Yes. That's because they know they will fail.
Me: Do you have a Blu-ray player?
BB. Not yet. Personally I prefer X-box to PS3 but I like Blu-ray. So... I don't know.

It was short conversation but long enough to know how well the world is getting blu.

I do have a question about your statment here, did you have any BDs that you were buying at the time or anything else dealing with Blu?

[xtop]

Originally Posted by yspkrk

BB. Not yet. Personally I prefer X-box to PS3 but I like Blu-ray. So... I don't know.

its strange to hear something like that. usually fanboys are one way for everything

[Corrupteddragon]

Originally Posted by Mericalis

Hmm, the person must have some intelligence as they said they like Blu-ray.

ok thats true. But then again, even a monkey can figure out shapes sometimes. The problem with cashiers is they are pretty much trained to be positive about whatever you are buying. So if you had a stack of HD-DVDs in your hand, the cashier would tell you that HD-DVD is doing great. Hell, if you had a stack of BetaMax tapes i bet the cashier would " after asking what is that?" say oh yeah, they are selling awesome!

[Mericalis]

Originally Posted by Corrupteddragon

ok thats true. But then again, even a monkey can figure out shapes sometimes.

Again...SOME INTELLIGENCE.

[95pgtproject]

Originally Posted by yspkrk

It was short conversation but long enough to know how well the world is getting blu.

Same here. My dad went to BB to pick up one of the plasma tvs they had for sale and I have been tring to get him into BD so he asked the sales man same question and got the same answer. Blu is the way to go Now I gotta convince him to get a ps3 Im very very close LOL

[kaliraver]

At my BBY that I work at we only sold 1, count that 1 $199 HD-DVD player from the big bulk stack we had of them. On the other hand we must've sold 20-25 Sony S300's. So it looks like the world is certainly turning bluer. As a matter of fact our whole Magnolia room has nothing but Blu-Ray in it playing The Haunted Mansion on all of the TV's. We have a huge Pioneer Elite in the front playing Ratatouille on Blu-Ray and everybody always likes to see it and take a seat watching it on the leather chairs we have there.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by oscar_in_fw

The $199 Toshiba A3s are still half the price of the cheapest Blu-ray standalones

Not quite - Sammy BD-P1400 with dts-HD MA bitstream is only $339 on Amazon.

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by kaliraver69

At my BBY that I work at we only sold 1, count that 1 $199 HD-DVD player from the big bulk stack we had of them. On the other hand we must've sold 20-25 Sony S300's.

Did you advertise that they were $399 and then the $100 gift card and SM:3? I was in 2 Best Buy stores where the ad at the front said $499 with the extras (no correction on the ad) and the stack of BDP-S300s just said $399. I doubt that many would have figured out on their own that it was actually $399 and then the $100 gift card and SM:3. I mentioned to one of the salespeople that they should have put on sign on the players that said what the deal actually was and he said he agreed. I said that they would probably sell better that way and he said that they were selling well anyway. He said they had 8 stacks of them earlier (they were down to 2) and when I asked which was selling better, he said the Blu-ray players. But, he may have been telling me what he figured I wanted to hear.

At the Best Buy in Bellevue, WA they had 99 of the HD-A3s out on Wednesday, then 55 on Friday and 43 yesterday. The BDP-S300s went from 36 to 29. I figure that store might be HD DVD biased and not telling people about the gift card that brought it down to close to the same as $299. Maybe they had more of the Sony's in the back earlier, but I think it is too bad they had this great deal and then didn't even have it shown correctly in the stores, which probably cost them some sales from people thinking the Toshiba was $199 vs $399 for the Sony (since that is what the signs said).

--Darin

[yspkrk]

Originally Posted by Mericalis

I do have a question about your statment here, did you have any BDs that you were buying at the time or anything else dealing with Blu?

I didn't buy anything there. (I was broke after buying a lot of BDs from Amazon.) My nephew just bought a pair of speakers for his computer.

[cleric]

Originally Posted by Mericalis

Hmm, the person must have some intelligence as they said they like Blu-ray.

Or they are spitting out the Best Buy corporate spew they are suppose to. Wait no your probably right the kid at the register knows what hes talking about.

[CptGreedle]

I did see a guy roaming around BBy holding a BD player in his arm, looking at the BD section of discs, he wandered into the HD-DVD section but seemed to quickly realize he was in the wrong place.
So good to see more people getting BD. In fact, this guy was the only guy I saw the entire time looking at HD-DVD at all.
A number of people were more interested in the BD section (which is bigger too).
Also, there were 2 display demoing BD stuff, and one HD-DVD display that was busted... the player would not play apparently. HAHAHA

[thegland]

Originally Posted by mystiksuicide

I must admit I am a bit puzzled, I hardly see anyone buying hd dvd's movies or players so how in the hell can the lead only be 2:1?

exactly.this war has a long way to go,and with the great prices we are seeing I say great.