Blu-Ray Beating HD-DVD 9:2

[Swifty]

Thanks to a new research report from Sony, industry watchers are getting their best look yet at hard high-def disc sales numbers from Nielsen VideoScan, including per-title sales figures for high-def discs released on both next-gen formats.

Focusing on sales data for the week ending March 18 (the same week that Sony's 'Casino Royale' smashed high-def records by shipping 100,000 units to retail), it should come as no surprise that the VideoScan numbers released by Sony are favorable to the studio, with five of its releases ranking among the top-selling next-gen discs that week.

The numbers that week were equally as impressive for Blu-ray, which outsold HD DVD by a ratio of 9:2, and dominated the list of top-selling next-gen discs -- the HD DVD edition of 'The Departed' was the only HD DVD disc to appear among the top ten best selling high-def discs.

But while abstract ratios and percentages like these have been bandied about for several months now, the Sony report goes one step further, providing the first public release of hard sales figures for HD DVD and Blu-ray discs from Nielsen VideoScan, the home entertainment industry's leading source for competitive sales data.

Among the numbers revealed: as of March 18, VideoScan put the cumulative number of Blu-ray titles sold since the format's inception at 844,000 units, versus HD DVD at 708,600.

But perhaps most interesting are the per-title sales numbers for the top ten selling discs across both formats, which are provided both in the form of a weekly tally (again for the week ending March 18), and as year-to-date totals.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/images/post/2/2256/original.gif

While these charts confirm the previously reported strong showings for such A-list titles as 'The Departed' 'Batman Begins' and 'Superman Returns' (with each clocking per-format sales totals since-inception of at least 28,000 units sold), they also demonstrate a very steep drop-off for titles outside of that top rung, with even discs among the top-ten best sellers that week moving fewer than 1000 units apiece:


While we should note that the VideoScan numbers are not all-inclusive (for example, they don't include discs sold at Wal-Mart or some online merchants), the lower sales numbers at the bottom end of weekly list and on display elsewhere in the report (where some titles are listed as selling fewer than 200 units since inception) are certainly still a sobering reminder that both formats still have a long way to go in their shared quest to supplant standard-def DVD.

Mainly down to Casino Royale, but even so thats a pretty big boost in sales !!!

[Blaze Lord]

So, Blu-Ray had such a solid victory for one week when no new HD-DVDs came out? ...Okay.

[JoshD182]

Casino Royale is the only Bluray movie i have at the moment, so its good to see them doing well after all the ---- about which will win the so-called 'format war'.

but a point to notice is the fact that so far blu-ray has the better choice of movies, so things MAY change in the near future.

another point, this market report has been done by sony, so may they have fiddled things to make them look better, like they have done before.

[Swifty]

yup :p

well overall the Blu-Ray has just taken the lead...

Blu-Ray: 844,000
HD-DVD: 708,600.

[Tobes]

Is that including the free Blu Ray movie vouchers they gave away with the PS3 and the free DVD bundled with the PS3 and HD DVD drive?

[Swifty]

Is that including the free Blu Ray movie vouchers they gave away with the PS3 and the free DVD bundled with the PS3 and HD DVD drive?

no as they didn't count as sales, promotional copies!

[Blaze Lord]

Well, if this list doesn't include Wal-Mart, um.. It doesn't seem that accurate. But 850,000 compared to 700,000 isn't much. Maybe you should rename this thread to "Blu-Ray Beating HD-DVD 12:10"

[Swifty]

orrrr I could leave it at 9:2 because the original post is in regards to the sales in the quote :brow:

[Blaze Lord]

Well.. So's mine. Or maybe throw "..for one week.. a month ago." in? :)

[JoshD182]

you two are at it again!!!!! and i thort i liked arguing

[Blaze Lord]

Oh no! *gasp* People are posting differing views and opinions! Heaven forbid!!1!

[JoshD182]

Oh no! *gasp* People are posting differing views and opinions! Heaven forbid!!1!

dont get the handbags out please, i wasnt been serious.

[damien©]

Moved to Entertainment Chat as it has more Relevance there!

It does seem thought that Blu-Ray have got more support in the Movie Motion Picture Market.

[Kail]

And the report is by Sony........... hmmmm ok

Then taking a quote from next-gen.biz

Despite trailing Blu-ray sales in Northern America, a Financial Times report claims that HD-DVD appears to be winning the next generation format war in Europe, where 35 films from independent studios such as Studio Canal, Pathe and Filmax have been released on HD-DVD, opposed to just 10 released on Blu-ray.

[Swifty]

And the report is by Sony........... hmmmm ok

Then taking a quote from next-gen.biz

wait only 10 ?

how come Amazon.co.uk has around 22/23 all available ready to dispatch :brow:

[Outlaw]

Vamp........ guessing he's one of these 'Fanboys' I think there called

[Kail]

Fanboy :) nope def not one of those, i just take reports issued like the Sony one with a huge pinch of salt, same as i would take one issued by MS that said that HD was outselling BR by x amount. Independent reports i would be more inclined to believe.

[Kail]

lol yeah more likely :)

[Tobes]

Lee watch it

[mjmaskrey]

Best Staff response ever!

Staff > members

:)

[Blaze Lord]

wait only 10 ?

how come Amazon.co.uk has around 22/23 all available ready to dispatch :brow:

You including only the indie studios in that?

[Swifty]

aww great and would you look at that I had my post deleted

I mean c'mon it's not like I ever swore at the bloke and how come his post wasn't deleted

its a conspiracy I tells ya, Im sure Big D is secretly planning some kinda world domination from his evil lair in Iceland and hes starting by deleting my kind worded messages aimed at Outlaw

for shame Big D, for shame...

[damien©]

It's actually in Greenland but I'll get over it...

Kail does raise an issue though, could it turn out that no 1 Format Wins, that they could actually Win Continents Instead...Eg. HD DVD Wins Europe, Blu-Ray Take Asia.

[Blaze Lord]

You mean the thing Kail already quoted for us? Way to read, chief.

[bingo83]

Neither of the formats will win. TV On Demand and Internet Downloads like the MS Marketplace in the USA will win.

[damien©]

You mean the thing Kail already quoted for us? Way to read, chief.

Yea just spotted that, it was early. Anyway you could of looked passed that and concentrated on the point I was trying to make, was that there is no reason why one format couldn't do well in one zone/region/continenet while the opposite does well elsewhere.

[Blaze Lord]

Sure there is. The industry doesn't want there to be competing formats.

[damien©]

Sure there is. The industry doesn't want there to be competing formats.

Well they might not want it but they have exactly that, at the moment anyway.

I agree with Bingo to a degree but the problem with Buying Content like that is people want to know be able to move content between numerous devices without buying it again. So I personally think Piracy will take a bigger rise until they find a solution to that.

[Blaze Lord]

Well, yeah, they have that now. But that isn't an at-rest, equilibrium kind of state. It'll resolve itself towards one format or the other, because of a number of pressures, including the industry itself.

[damien©]

As you can see though, you have huge battling interests between the industry, to me it looks split and with European Producers using HD DVD plus the ---- Industry and a few Hollywood Film Studios.

Studio's might be forced into a Position where basically one format succeeds in one part of the world, where another fails.

[Blaze Lord]

It's split now, but it's a little naive to think that the small trends established so early in the game are going to continue on their heading. What you're saying might happen, but I think it's pretty unlikely.

More likely.. Eventually, somebody's going to think "X has failed, might as well start printing everything on Y discs." Then somebody else says "Studio Z just gave up on X, we might as well too," and it snowballs into a victory.

[damien©]

Yea but that's assuming a trend is global, the point I'm making is with very diverse regions you could have a situation where by say HD DVD wins Europe and BluRay wins North America for instant.

I don't think that's far fetched to be honest and with different interests you would easily see that develop in my view.

[Blaze Lord]

Global companies with global customers follow global trends- they want to make things easier on themselves. And what different interests are you talking about?

[damien©]

Global companies with global customers follow global trends- they want to make things easier on themselves. And what different interests are you talking about?

Purely Money Interests. Yea but Global Companies can only go so far before these trends they try to set have an impact on the Consumer. Take Japan for instance, if BluRay was to succeed there then your saying Studios would not just produce Films in that format just because the Yanks chose HD DVD instead?

At the end of the day they will switch to whatever format's winning whether that's on a national or international level, they aren't going to lose out on there cut.

[Blaze Lord]

You're restricting 'succeed' and 'winning' too much. It's just as easy to say that at the end of the day, consumers will switch to (or choose in the first place) whatever format has the most studio support, they aren't going to lose out on their end.

[bingo83]

In a recent discussion, a friend wondered why Microsoft had opted not to include an HD-DVD drive in the recent update to the XBOX 360 console (the XBOX 360 Elite). The logic would seem obvious. In the US, 94% of Blu-Ray players sold are included as part of the PS3 game console. This has led to a situation where more Blu-Ray players are sold each month than HD-DVD players. By including an HD-DVD player in the XBOX 360, wouldn't that help to provide the same push behind the HD-DVD format that Blu-Ray is currently experiencing from PS3 sales?

Perhaps, but I can see a number of reasons for Microsoft to hold off on such a move. There is a lot of risk in Microsoft hitching its game console horse inextricably to one of the HD disc formats. Though Microsoft has made clear what disc format they would prefer, that's different than taking economic risks to ensure it happens.

A failure of the Blu-Ray format would negatively affect PS3 sales (though I would argue that the PS3's failure as a game console is more dangerous, explained later). Why would Microsoft want to put itself in the same "all-or-nothing" bind by hitching itself to HD-DVD? Better to keep HD disc support an external add-on, providing Microsoft the opportunity to offer a Blu-Ray drive should the need arise.

Inclusion would add considerably to the cost of an XBOX. Currently, the XBOX 360 has a cost advantage over the PS3, largely due to its lack of reliance on the HD disc playback technology. This is important given that large percentages of game console owners have yet to purchase an HD TV set, but is particularly important in a market that has proven extremely cost sensitive. Though the Nintendo controller is clearly innovative, it doesn't hurt that a Wii is a relative bargain at $250.00. PS2 sales continue to be strong, driven in no small part by the fact that it costs only $129.00.

Avoiding a final decision on HD disc format makes all the more sense when you consider Microsoft has no horse in the HD disc format race. Granted, Microsoft was involved in the creation of iHD, the XML format used to create the interactive content on HD-DVD discs, but that hardly constitutes a reason to risk the XBOX franchise on an HD disc format. Sony owns the Blu-Ray format, and though I question a decision to put so many eggs into the PS3 basket, their complete devotion to one format in the battle makes sense given the direct financial benefits they would derive from Blu-Ray success. That doesn't apply so much to Microsoft.

Last, Microsoft would vastly prefer a downloadable media model to one oriented around physical discs. I love XBOX Live's movie download service, and though I find it maddeningly short on selection (130 movie titles at last count), the concept is spectacular. Microsoft would prefer that people buy their movies as downloadable content, and later, even their games. That makes the marginal gain from helping HD-DVD win the battle even less important, given that their real goals lie elsewhere.

Things might have been different if it was clear that one format had decisively won the battle. Though PS3 has driven a surge in the Blu-Ray format, the success of the trojan horse gambit is far from assured, given that it is entirely dependent on sales of the PS3. Again, 94% of Blu-Ray players sold recently are included as part of the PS3.

It's highly unlikely that most people are buying PS3's to play their Blu-Ray movies. That means the success of the PS3 depends on its strengths as a game console, and in that arena, it has not been faring as well. PS3's ability to continue shipping Blu-Ray players in those numbers is dependent on the PS3's ability to continue to attract consumers as a game console.

Likewise, around half of HD-DVD players were purchased as standalone players. Granted, the other half was entirely the HD-DVD add-on offered for the XBOX 360, but those buyers can be expected to be buying the player because they want to watch HD-DVD movies, as it adds nothing to game play.

Last, the production cost advantages of HD-DVD still seems to be running strong, and appears to have played some role in HD-DVDs success in Europe (though the PS3 was only recently released in that market, so it remains to be seen whether HD-DVDs lead is sustainable):

Production costs are also of importance to smaller studios which may not be willing to purchase entirely new equipment in order to press Blu-ray discs, or incur substantially higher costs to produce them. French replication company Qol CEO Laurent Villaume told FT that the risk involved in producing Blu-ray disks isn't comparable to that of HD DVD: "An HD DVD replication line costs about €800,000 and you can make 40,000 discs a day on it. A Blu-Ray replication line costs €1.7m or €1.8m and you can make 10,000 to 15,000 discs a day."

There also seems to be some interest in that mandatory ethernet port on HD-DVD players (something which is optional on Blu-Ray players):

The HD DVD standard requires players to have an Ethernet jack and European studios feel that they could take advantage of this to offer extra content to HD DVD players over the Internet rather than on the discs themselves.

The European launch of the PS3 might change things on the continent, but as things stand, three times the number of European films are released on HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray.

The PS3 has put new wind to the Blu-Ray formats sails, but it hardly seems to have blown away the advantages of the HD-DVD format.


Looks like a different scenario when you see numbers like that.

Standalone BluRay players account for only 6% of the market.
Standalone HD DVD players are selling approx 50/50 with the 360 add on.

I also highlighted the point about Downloadable content, as that where the mass market surely lies.