Toshiba Responds to Sony Stand-Alone Player Claims

[Sparrow]

Ok seriously its getign really old hearing from HD-DVD fanboys that they are not being totally thrashed so therefore Blu-Ray is not really winning?

[KoenigMKII]

Does anyone think the NPD % market share figures are, basically, wrong??

Basically they turn all the economics I know upside down.

So, playing Devil's advocate here, suppose I am a crazed executive from company "ZZcrazy88Co" and decide to spike the NPD numbers with false sales.

How would I do it?

Don your foil hats

1/Send undercover employees to buy players then feed the nearly new players back into the supply chain at a higher level? Expensive and labor intensive, even if you know which retail outlets are wired by POS terminals to NPD. Also it has to be cash, credit cards would set a pattern.

2/Hack NPD's computers? - difficult and liable to be detected.

3/Bribe a retailer to fake POS transactions [wharehouse the "sold" units somewhere]? Liable to leak out.

4/Bribe NPD? Difficult and dangerous.

Only the first trick seems to be even close to possible. So a team of 10 guys and a Van with bags of cash tours a town or city "buying" players.... Anyone seen any suspicious characters

[goody1701d]

So let me get this straight.

Sony gives information stating they have been leading sales for 12 weeks.

Toshiba counters with the equivalent of "well the sky is blue"

and that makes sony more of a Liar?

Toshiba never denied anything Sony said, they just said something different. if they had even a shred of proof that sony was lying i think they would have sued it. cause ummmm I am pretty sure Toshiba has access to everything sony done.

So what is the moral of this story?

Even with massively cheaper units they are barely holding on to their lead in players in the HD-DVD camp. They havent held held the elad in software since February 11th and we are all supposed to believe that BD is spinning and things are going the way of HD-DVD?

Sorry but i dont need any Mongolian ocean front property.

You might note that the month in question is the same month that Sony/Blu ray went and copied an HD DVD Player promotion, to the letter, just to try to up sales, of course sales will go up that month, the promotion had worn out it's usefulness to HD DVD by that time, even though it's still going on and probably will continue until another come along.

[MNTWISTER]

I love this "Transformers will save the day." I am format neutral, and keep seeing this message from strong hd-dvd'ers. Transformers will not save the day, this war is going to take some time people. That's all there is too it. Anyone thinking that a single movie will decide such a format, well, I am glad they are not running or planning my business ventures lol.

[Sparrow]

You might note that the month in question is the same month that Sony/Blu ray went and copied an HD DVD Player promotion, to the letter, just to try to up sales, of course sales will go up that month, the promotion had worn out it's usefulness to HD DVD by that time, even though it's still going on and probably will continue until another come along.

Your right.... BUT does it matter? BDA was not even one upping Toshiba, they were just matching some free movies, not even ,matching prices, and their sales went higher, and they are gaining marketshare. infact they are getting close to a 50/50 split now.

Still though bottom line is Sony made a statement, backed it up with a chart and a source, Toshiba inadvertently backed up what sony said as well.

Why is there argument?

At this point the burden of proof would be on HD-DVD supporters to prove toshiba and Sony wrong it would seem.

[Net]

In their "Press release statements", yes.



But in their presentation, they presented this chart -



Which implies BD players overtook the sales lead in June, and has a lead of 55 to 43% YTD.

Toshiba says through July - the last month with official NDP data - they had a lead of 55 to 42%. Some one is misrepresenting the data, and I know who has an established pattern of doing so. And where is Sony getting those August numbers - for which NDP has not compiled or released them.

***Edit:Nevermind I was thinking about disc sales for some reason. Still thought it was funny. I'll leave my post up anyway.

Anyone notice that when BD goes down , HD DVD goes up and vice versa?

This tells me that it's dual supporters that are dragging the war on. We are all buying both (or it averages it out to that) so when we have money one week for HD DVD we don't have it for Blu ray. Or Vice-versa. HAHALOLOLOL

This is never going to end. It's too evenly divided. Unless Toshiba gets a slam dunk this Christmas then we have our selves a stalemate. Wich is what Microsoft wanted to get at Sony. This is sad. And you guys wonder why I haven't bought into both full force. At this point it's a joke and we might just end up with 2 obselete formats in favor of some other crappy DL content formula.

Wich I have to say: Boo overpriced Downloadable HD content! Hooray Beer!

[Sparrow]

ANyone notice that when BD goes down , HD DVD goes up and vice versa?

This tells me that it's dual supporters that are dragging the war on. We are all buying both (or it averages it out to that) so when we have money one week for HD DVD we don't have it for Blu ray. Or Vice-versa. HAHALOLOLOL

Ummm not to be rude, but its basic math, you take all sales of HD players (standalones only in this case) and a certain percentage of them will be HD-DVD, and a certain percentage will be Blu-Ray. the sum of those percentages will always be 100% (the combo players are a fairly negligible 1-3%, though consistent)

So logically it stands to reason that if one goes up the other has to go down.

As the chart is dealing in percentages and not numbers the sum has to always be 100%

[corduroygt]

Actually they will have 3-4 companies building HD-DVD players,
Onkyo (2 models)
Toshiba (3 models)
Venturer (1 model)
RCA (If they ever can get their act together)

RCA Currently has 1 model, which is no longer available in the US Market, at least new.

Then you have the Combo players (way to costly though, cheaper just to buy the Low End BD and Mid Range HDD)
LG
Samsung

Also, HDDVD has more studio supporters than Blu ray discs, if you call 2 much of a difference.

RCA and Onkyo are rebadged toshibas...

[Net]

Sorry. I didn't understand the chart. Thanks for clearing it up.

[HD dahl]

Nobody is. It is the fact that there has to be a limit to the BULL Sony spreads. Very good for toshiba to put them sony in its place.

Is that "putting somebody in their place"?
Pretty weak comeback if you ask me.

[AltonDarwin]

Actually they will have 3-4 companies building HD-DVD players,
Onkyo (2 models)
Toshiba (3 models)
Venturer (1 model)
RCA (If they ever can get their act together)

RCA Currently has 1 model, which is no longer available in the US Market, at least new.

Then you have the Combo players (way to costly though, cheaper just to buy the Low End BD and Mid Range HDD)
LG
Samsung

Also, HDDVD has more studio supporters than Blu ray discs, if you call 2 much of a difference.

HDDVD - 30
Blu Ray - 28

MAJOR Studio count please...

[Perssian]

Would somebody mind answering a question for me? Why are PS3's not included in Blu-Ray sales data? Isn't it the best Blu-Ray player out there? With an internet connection, HDD, and constant firmware updates wouldn't that make it the most future proof Blu-Ray player out there? Lots of HD-DVD supporters claim it's a video game system and not a Blu-Ray player, but again, it plays Blu-Rays, according to Cnet its the best high def player (HD-DVD or Blu-Ray), it stores all of your photos, videos and music, can stream content from your computer, and next year will be a DVR. All this for less than a Blu-Ray ONLY player at a much higher price. Why would you buy any other Blu-Ray player. The only things that the PS3 doesn't have are an ir port (which I'm sure will eventually come via usb dongle) and HD audio decoding (which will probably come via a firmware update).

I think sales of Blu-Ray & HD-DVD players should include both the PS3 and the HD-DVD drive add on for the 360. Balls to the walls! Put it all on the line! Both of you.

Sorry, I veered off course, but again, why is it that they aren't the PS3 and HD-DVD add-on for 360 included in the sales info?

[imdaly]

I'm just saying that the only reason the numbers show what the poster wanted them to show is because he used only 4 months. He could not have continued his example any further because for his figures to trend as they would in the real world it would show product X taking the monthly numbers.

It goes to show the manipulation of the data to prove a point. Hence my comment on maths can show anything. Just pointing out the manipulation in that example.

I stopped at 4 months because 4 months went far enough to prove my point. The numbers I chose for each month were completely random and my only criteria for choosing the numbers I did was to have Brand Y outsell Brand X each month. That's it.

If I were to continue along with more months, with each month having Brand Y outsell Brand X, Brand X would never catch up.

You talk about my numbers, saying that if you use my example you can see that Brand X is increasing faster than Brand Y is. Problem is...look at how much Brand Y outsold Brand X each month.

Month 1: 40k
Month 2: 40k
Month 3: 50k
Month 4: 20k

There's no pattern there, nor was there meant to be. My numbers were completely random.



Here's the thing:

All the Blu-ray supporters here are saying "wow. I thought HD DVD standalones were so-and-so ahead of Blu-ray standalones, but it looks like we're now only 55% compared to 43%."

But understand that a few months ago, 66% compared to 33% may have only been, say, 50k sales difference. But with each month passing, and each month selling more and more players on both sides, the value of each 1% is increasing. So therefore 55%-to-43% is actually a larger unit difference than 66%-to-33% was a few months ago.

Let me use, again, hypothetical numbers in order to show what I mean.

Say a few months ago, Brand X had sold 3,300 units YTD and Brand Y had sold 6,600 units YTD. That's 33% for Brand X and 66% for Brand Y, with Brand Y leading by 3,300 units.

Now a few months has passed and the market has grown as a whole, and now Brand X has sold 43,000 units YTD and Brand Y has sold 55,000 YTD, with Brand XY selling 2,000 units YTD. That's 43% for Brand X, 55% for Brand Y, and 2% for Brand XY, with Brand Y increasing its lead over Brand X to 12,000 units.

The percentages are getting closer, so without taking into consideration how many units are sold by each format each month, you can't tell whether the sales between the two are getting closer or actually continuing to spread apart. Without knowing the actual sales amount, the percentages tell you nothing other than which format has outsold the other so far.

[imdaly]

Sorry, I veered off course, but again, why is it that they aren't the PS3 and HD-DVD add-on for 360 included in the sales info?

Because 100% of HD DVD players sold are sold with the sole intention of buying and watching HD DVDs.

The same cannot be said about the PS3. Sony knew very well what they were doing when they put the drive in their player: confuse the numbers and make it extremely difficult to see how Blu-ray is doing vs. HD DVD. Both sides can and have very easily used this situation to veer numbers their way by counting the players differently situation to situation, and nobody is really right or wrong about it either way:

HD DVD fans can say "you can't say every PS3 sold is someone interested in Blu-ray because many of them just want to play games" so they refuse to count each PS3 as a Blu-ray when considering how many Blu-ray players have been sold compared to HD DVD players.

But by counting every PS3 player as a sold Blu-ray player the HD DVD fans can say "look at how many Blu-ray players have sold, yet nobody seems to be buying discs for them, each HD DVD supporter is holding their weight much better than each Blu-ray supporter is".

Same goes for Blu-ray supporters:

Blu-ray fans can say "you can't say that each Blu-ray supporter is supporting BD less because not everyone who has a PS3 is a Blu-ray supporter" simply by not counting each PS3 as a Blu-ray player.

But then by counting every PS3 as a Blu-ray player they can wave around their units sold numbers to show off how many people are supporting Blu-ray compared to HD DVD.


Sony knew what they were doing by doing this: adding an EXTREMELY large gray area to the whole format war by throwing a high-selling game system into the loop where nobody from either side can ever say how many people are wanting Blu-ray and how many people just wanted a game system.

[Perssian]

I agree with you that there is a big gray area here, but isn't the goal to see what the potential is for each format? The numbers should all be out there. If PS3 is selling several million units, vs HD-DVD players, well, that's the reality.

On the other hand, if there is a much higher attach rate among HD-DVD owners, well, that's the reality too.

This makes it tough for everyone to gauge the status of the "high-def war" but it puts everything on the line. No hiding numbers and adding numbers to get things rolling your way.