Blu-ray tips scales, now ahead of HD DVD, permanently?

[zombieflanders]

If HD DVD is doing so well, why do their supporters feel compelled to lie about Blu-ray so much?

It reafirms my opinion that FOX and Sony were full of bull by jumping the gun and proclaiming a clear victory by March. Within the week, March will have arrived, and they will be proven wrong.

Nice try, but that's not what they said. Here's what Fox really said:

We are looking forward to this pivotal year and the ultimate establishment of Blu-ray as the high-definition packaged media standard. In fact, Blu-ray sales performance surpassed HD-DVD for the first time the week of December 24 and did so by an impressive 20 per cent. What's more, by the end of the first quarter* our research shows the sales gap widening to Blu-ray outselling HD DVD by a 3.5-to-1 ratio," noted Mike Dunn, President Worldwide, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Whoops! Looks like someone forgot the Smackdown rules that say "If you post something here that is not accurate, be prepared to get called on it," and "If you are posting statistics, please provide a link. We can all make up any data that we want, but with a link for supporting evidence, it’s hard to argue against."

Did you also know that Fox's sales chart (once they fixed the dates) stated a 2:1 weekly sales ratio for Blu-ray by February 5? Turns out they may have reached that milestone a month earlier, and certainly reached it as of the latest numbers, even including HD DVD combos.

* The end of the first quarter is March 31, not March 1.

[Philnerd]

No it wouldn't. Sales would be 2:1 and growing. Sony is predicting that they'll be to 3.5:1 by the end of March. Keep in mind that the number of players is going up each day, and the unit sales will follow.

So to make clear: we're talking about current discs selling ratios. Like "BD sold twice as many movies in Jan as HD DVD"?

If PS3 owners were buying movies at the same rate as standalone owners, then we could expect a 5:1 sales ratio by the end of the year...but not now.

Ok, so now are you talking total titles sold to date or are we still talking sales ratios for new sales as in the first part there?? Because if PS3 owners buy movies like stand alone owners, the sales ratio right now, at this very moment, would indeed be 5:1.

If you mean that BD will have outsold HD DVD by 5:1 in total volume at the end of the year with that statement, then are you implying that they've currently outsold HD DVD by 2:1 in shipped/sold discs and will have sold 3.5:1 as many discs total in march??

Sorry, I'm a bit confused by the dynamically changing definition of "sales ratio" in your post.

[Wotan]

A 1.29% lead doesn't sound like much of a blow out to me. If anything, this tells me that despite blu-ray's larger release schedule, the race is still very tight, and it's way too early to declare a winner. It reafirms my opinion that FOX and Sony were full of bull by jumping the gun and proclaiming a clear victory by March. Within the week, March will have arrived, and they will be proven wrong. They made false proclamations to try and convince people their compeditor was obsolete, FUD if ever their was any. They are still trying to spew it. While it has little effect on the educated consumer, it's getting annoying.

It's not only Sony and FOX, but also Buena Vista is very confident on BDs success. Vista Home Entertainment president Bob Chapek announced, “Game over.”

[Fozziwig]

Uh.. if BD were the uber dominating format that its backers claim, sales would already be 5:1 (or 100:20 if that's your preference).

That's what it should be by Christmas 07. For every 100 BD discs sold, HD DVD sell 20.

At the present rate of growth for Blu-ray this is no fantasy - no careless product of wild imagination. No, my friends. These figures I show you today are as sure as night follows day.

[dobyblue]

What is says to me is that from November onwards Blu-ray has rapidly reeled in HD DVD in disc sales and will now likely rapidly leave HD DVD behind in disc sales. There is nothing to suggest otherwise.

[Sarang]

Doby, doby, doby. All those BR movies you've announced, the older exclusive stuff? Well is it gonna run near $30 on Amazon because they can forget my $ then. Twenty regular is fine as long as the discs aren't halfassed.
This is a big reason WHY I prefer HD DVD.

[dobyblue]

Doby, doby, doby. All those BR movies you've announced, the older exclusive stuff? Well is it gonna run near $30 on Amazon because they can forget my $ then. Twenty regular is fine as long as the discs aren't halfassed.
This is a big reason WHY I prefer HD DVD.

I don't know about you, but I pre-ordered both Pirates double discs for $23.95 with free shipping.
I also ordered The Departed and The Prestige for $23.95 with free shipping.
Which movies that I've announced are we talking about?

[Sarang]

I don't know about you, but I pre-ordered both Pirates double discs for $23.95 with free shipping.
I also ordered The Departed and The Prestige for $23.95 with free shipping.
Which movies that I've announced are we talking about?

"Hoosiers" and "From Hell", perhaps "Finding Neverland" if it's over 3 years old.

[dobyblue]

"Hoosiers" and "From Hell", perhaps "Finding Neverland" if it's over 3 years old.

Finding Neverland - $19.95
From Hell - $27.95
Hoosiers - $27.95

All with free shipping. If they're too expensive for you, don't buy them I guess. There's plenty of older Blu-ray titles on Amazon for $20.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st/00...price&x=13&y=8

[AV_Integrated]

...the older exclusive stuff? Well is it gonna run near $30 on Amazon because they can forget my $ then. Twenty regular is fine as long as the discs aren't halfassed.
This is a big reason WHY I prefer HD DVD.

No offense, but old movies aren't going to win the format war. New movies are what will push a format forward and with 90% of the current releases coming from Blu-ray supporting studios, it leaves HD DVD out to dry.

You may care about older releases and replacing your existing DVD collection, but I don't intend to replace any of the DVDs I own. I will just be purchasing new movies on Blu-ray moving forward. Fortunately, due to the amount of studio support, it is very likely that the movies I want will be available for me.

[Ramenator]

Whoops! Looks like someone forgot the Smackdown rules that say "If you post something here that is not accurate, be prepared to get called on it," and "If you are posting statistics, please provide a link.

I agree with the Smackdown rules, so zombieflanders, prepared to get called on it. FOX declared victory by March. They made up a graph. While I didn't post statistics, I will provide a link, thanks to Wotan.

"By the end of the first quarter, the format war is over," he [Fox exec. Mike Dunn] said

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242599,00.html

Zombieflanders, at least you weren't ignorant enough to claim Sony didn't declare victory. As for FOX, they were part of that BDA display at CES which had it's share of FUD. Lionsgate... also FUD (remember when they falsely claimed they were the first to release PiP on either format? - I can find a link to that too I you want.)

It's not only Sony and FOX, but also Buena Vista is very confident on BDs success. Vista Home Entertainment president Bob Chapek announced, “Game over.”

Thanks again Wotan... Buena Vista has also claimed BDA victory already. More FUD???

Both sides have been trying to twist the truth. In my opinion, BDA has been for more aggressive in this regard. One thing we know for sure, the war is not over, and it won't be over within the next month. Anything to the contrary is FUD!

[mitchelljd]

well, I know that there are alot of HDDVD supporters here. and now a growing amount of BR supporters. (count me in BR camp)

The interesting thing here is to see this as a case study in competing technology rollout. BR had a rough start, but once more standalone players are being sold, and a large amount of PS3's, it's clear BR has caught up.

Lets Recap:
1- BR has now sold more movies than HDDVD overall.
2- BR is selling movie units at more than a 2 to 1 ratio over HDDVD

There are many more factors, but imagine if fox and a few other studios lowered their list price on discs to a max of $35, and older movies to $28. BR would be selling even more titles.

See the problem for BR there is a perceived lower attach rate for buying. Well, i think the problem there is a pricing problem. If older movies were priced lower, more discs would be welling. end of story. Universal understands that, and this is why they are moving a very nice amount of units.

Don't get me wrong, i still think BR will win the "HD Disc War," however i think if they were playing their cards better, the lead would be 3:1 or 4:1 instead of 2:1.

It's about the price, if the PS3 were $50-100 less, if some titles were $5-15 bucks cheaper, BR would have a knockout blow and we would be looking for less of a format war. ie, less dual format support and more customers for the market.

[mplsfalls]

It's bs spin. He's saying that every person who bought a PS3 should be buying BDs at the same rate as people who have bought standalones.

I am doing my part. It isn't that I dislike Hd-DVD, I just dislike the titles that are coming out. BTW, I bought the PS3 in part because I love the bluetooth remote. I can keep my equipment in a nice air conditioned rack without having to worry about line of sight for the remote to work.

Sony did something right this time which it did not with beta. It lined up the studio support before letting the proverbial cat out of the bag. Now that the cat is scratching and clawing the eyes out of HD-DVD with the aid of the PS3 HD-DVD owners are scrambling. In the end if you understand marketing to the slightest degree the studios don't really give a crap what the attach rate is. What matters is overall sales. Of course HD-DVD has a higher attach rate. It was the earlier adopters of the format who are home theater fanatics. But to assume that 200,000 people including the 360 add-on have more descretionary spending than 2 million people is something I would need to see proof of. There are very few people for either format that can continue to spend 200-300 dollars a month on video entertainment. So assuming 200,000 people purchase on average five HD-DVD's a month that would be 12,000,000 copies of software. Remember these numbers are entirely hypothetical. Now lets assume the average Blu-ray owner purchases 2 Blu-ray DVD's a month with 2,000,000 hardware units out there for a total of 48,000,000 software units. How this really gets interesting is take Universal out of the exclusive arena of HD-DVD and you are talking about an additional 8-9 million copies that conceivably would be sold in the Blu-ray format. For what would that be... an 80% year end margin without Universal studios, and with Universal studios it would be close to that 5:1.

[kalim1998]

A 1.29% lead doesn't sound like much of a blow out to me. If anything, this tells me that despite blu-ray's larger release schedule, the race is still very tight, and it's way too early to declare a winner.

All these sales numbers don't include pre-orders for all the new blockbuster releases from Blu-ray like Casino Royale, potC, etc, so this disparity between Blu-ray and Hd-dvd sales will only grow much larger as time passes.

[Ramenator]

If HD DVD is doing so well, why do their supporters feel compelled to lie about Blu-ray so much?

BTW - anyone else remember when Sony claimed victory in 2005? They used to say it would be over by Sept 2006.

September 13, 2005
Sony Predict Blu-Ray Victory
Sony is going around predicting victory for Blu-Ray over Toshiba's HD-DVD standard due to the Playstation 3 roll-out. Let's not get ahead of ourselves Mr. Beta vs. VHS.

a senior Sony Pictures executive to confidently predict that Sony's rival Blu-Ray standard will dominate the market within 12 months. Speaking to HomeMediaRetailing.com, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment president Benjamin Feingold fingered the PlayStation 3, which will sport a Blu-Ray drive, as a major factor that will drive the adoption of the standard. "I think in 12 months it's going to be clear," he predicted. "The combination of Blu-Ray and PlayStation 3 machines is going to overwhelm any HD-DVD presence and all studios will have to support Blu-Ray."

http://www.firstadopter.com/fa/archives/2005_09.html
(sorry I don't have a better link to such old references.)

In a few days it will be March 2007. The quarter will end in just over a month and according to the article this thread is based on, the difference in sales since both formats launched is just over 1%. A 1% difference does not mean game over. On the contrary, it means game on.

Oh, and I also thought Rupert Murdoch or some other high level exec at FOX made a similarly bold but inacurate statement about early victory but since I can't find a link, I can't reference it.

Enough with the false claims. I don't feel compelled to "lie about blu-ray," so don't accuse me of it without proof. I am tired of lies coming from both sides, especially from members of the BDA. Any reference to the war being over and a current victory by either side is FUD. It's getting annoying. Support your format, and lets see how things play out.