Potential Bad News?

[J_UNTITLED]

From IMDb.com

"Thanks largely to Wal-Mart's Black Friday sale of HD DVD players for $99, there are now more than 750,000 of the high-definition DVD players in U.S. households, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group announced Tuesday. The total number includes add-ons to Microsoft's Xbox 360 game players. In a statement, Ken Graffeo, head of strategic market for Universal Studios Home Entertainment and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group, said, "With more than four weeks left for holiday shopping, HD DVD is turning out to be the perfect consumer electronics gift."

[Toony]

Nah.

[BStecke]

Sony increased PS3 sales by 300% over the weekend, and outsold HD DVD software approximately 73:27. Nothing to worry about.

[quetzalcoatl]

The only potential bad news here is for HD DVD too little too late. But I think we are seeing what the spin will be for this weeks numbers. All the players bought were for gifts. So we will not see a sales increase until after Christmas.

And who here believes this?

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Sony increased PS3 sales by 300% over the weekend, and outsold HD DVD software approximately 73:27.

I have a question for Ken Graffeo. If gamers don't buy movies, how did you lose the all important Black Friday week by such a large ratio? Especially after Toshiba gave away so many free movies with HD DVD players in a way that would get them to count in the Nielsen numbers.

--Darin

[Rob71]

If you read closely HD DVD saw they were getting nowhere near their goal for standalone players so came up with a new title that now includes the add-on. Of course that looks equally bad if "dedicated" players don't sell enough to equal "standalone" player projections. If, and thats a big if, Warner is leaning towards HD DVD they have to be shaking their heads right now. With another week at +2:1, so much for Star Trek and the BOGO, Warner has to be taking notice of this.

[buckshot]

I guess they think if they say it enough someone will believe them.

but then again hd dvd is the perfect holiday gift. lumps of coal are pretty pricey now.

[sj001]

They will SAY anything to get attention, and twist facts.
Bunch of tools.

[bhampton]

That is really bad news.

I just think of all the pollution that will be caused when those junky players are recycled. It's not like they could be transformed into Blu Ray players. Why can't people do a little research before buying stuff?

-Brian

[jw]

Originally Posted by J_UNTITLED

From IMDb.com

If Wal-Mart sold a Minimum of 2 PS3's per store on the Saturday sale, at app 4000 stores, thats 8,000 new PS3 customers at a minimum with over 80,000 new blu titles sold(or given away) on Saturday alone. Just think if these numbers counted on the Nielson, HD fanboys would sh$% biscuits with a 90-10 blu week.

Think positive

[w_tanoto]

why should we worry??? some of the person who bought it maybe bought it for christmas present. Other as DVD upconverter.

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by Rob71

If you read closely HD DVD saw they were getting nowhere near their goal for standalone players so came up with a new title that now includes the add-on.

You noticed that too!!!

They were said to be nearing 500,000 standalones a few weeks ago. They issued a PR. Now they come out with another statement that "HD DVD players" are nearing 750,000. LOL, yeah, if you add the ALREADY SOLD 200,000+ of Xbox add-ons at the time of the original statement, add on recent sales...you probably do get somewhere near 750,000.

All Toshiba and the HD DVD PRO ORG have proven to us is that they can add and issue statements that compare apples and oranges in an attempt to mis-lead.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. HD DVD has obviously been put on notice that they have to make inroads in terms of an installed base that could eventually close the gap in software sales. Otherwise, they wouldn't be firesaling players and issuing a "spinned" player sales statement every few weeks about how great players are selling. What we don't know is whether it's been studios (WB & Universal) or retailers that have been applying the pressure. I suspect it's WB though.