Amazon sales tracking "Blu-ray vs. Standard DVD Wars" (www.eproductwars.com/dvd)

[Kosty]

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/

For the old format war junkies who remember dvdwars.com and eproductwars.com/dvd Amazon.com sales tracking.....

for the first time ever Blu-ray has caught up in some indicators with DVD (they now track Blu-ray versus DVD instead of HD DVD versus Blu-ray)

Obviously Blu-ray sales have increased at Amazon recently


Not to take a huge stock in the amazon tracking of this site, but Blu-ray sales being autotracked there from Amazon just went thru the roof and just caught up with DVD for the first time in history on several indicators they track.

Salesrank of top 10 products: Blu-ray vs DVD almost even

Salesrank of top 25 products: Blu-ray vs DVD almost even

Salesrank of top 100 products: Blu-ray vs DVD sharp Blu-ray spike up

look at all the time frame buttons to see the changes including "show all" and "30 days" to see the trends clearly

[Kosty]

Originally Posted by Winn (from the AVS Forum)

Yeah, but there also seems to be a problem with the tracking program. It is counting the top releases twice. This the average for the top 10 is really the average for the top 5. The top 25 is the average of the top ~13. Etc.

I just saw that too. Damn false alarm. Still good for Blu-ray. Just sent an email to the site to point out the error.

[bomba]

I'm not sure if you (or the HDD community in general) realises that there is a massive upto 50% off sale on BDs going on at Amazon right now (since today). Averaging $20. Thanks to the pathetic USD right now ( $1 AUD = $.96 USD ) I ordered a couple.Its obviously the cause.

[Kosty]

its enough to cause the site auto tracking to go a bit whacko too.

[bomba]

Yep. Sale btw; http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...cId=1000233361

Still if you chuck the eproduct graph into '30 days' or 'show all' you can see BD was slowly stabilising (less dramatic shifts) and also slowly edging towards DVD.

Edit; hmm, I never noticed HDD auto-changed Amazon links to include their a referral to them before now.

Second edit; haven't been there since January, but its hilarious the same shills are keeping on keeping on at the eproductwars forum... truly a cesspit. This forum is intellectualism defined in comparison.

[Fettastic]

Originally Posted by Kosty

I just saw that too. Damn false alarm. Still good for Blu-ray. Just sent an email to the site to point out the error.

Blu-ray has consistently sold in the top 10 DVDs. Despite this error, 4 of the top 10 selling DVDs are BDs. That's goddamn impressive!

[Grubert]

We spent most of 2007 trying to find a correlation between amazon ranking and actual sales. Largely unsuccessfully, I might add.

So I'm not sure I want to go there now.

[Fettastic]

Originally Posted by Grubert

We spent most of 2007 trying to find a correlation between amazon ranking and actual sales. Largely unsuccessfully, I might add.

So I'm not sure I want to go there now.

Well we know that it correctly showed BD spanking the shit out of HD DVD, and studio reps backed that up every time they made a press release or granted an interview.

I acknowledge the tracker is a bit glitchy at times, but the overall trends are clear.

[Philnerd]

Originally Posted by Fettastic

Well we know that it correctly showed BD spanking the shit out of HD DVD, and studio reps backed that up every time they made a press release or granted an interview.

I acknowledge the tracker is a bit glitchy at times, but the overall trends are clear.

Well, HD DVD vs Blu-Ray was a clear apples to apples comparison which made it very interesting despite being only one retailer. Blu-Ray vs DVD is a bit... not so interesting.

Amazon's purchaser demographics for both Blu-Ray and DVD appear to be so different from the vast majority of people buying movies... I just don't know how plausible any comparisons are going to be. Is "The Firm Total Body TransFIRMation System" DVD/exercise kit really outselling National Treasure 2 Blu-Ray at Best Buy?

Is "The Fifth Element" Blu-Ray really outselling "Indiana Jones - The Adventure Collection" DVD set at Wal-Mart?

Heck, even DVD vs DVD seems a bit odd. Is Target moving more copies of Juno DVD than National Treasure 2 DVD?


I think its probably best for us to stick with the NPD numbers at this point.

[Kosty]

I think its probably best for us to stick with the Nielsen/Videoscan numbers at this point.

NPD is for hardware.

No harm done here in looking at the apples to apples figures here for Blu-ray versus DVD at Amazon as we are (edit) NOT concerned about re fighting the format war again.

Then there were legitimate concern of how representative Amazon was, just as their are concerns that Nielsen/Videoscan first alert dos not include Wal-Mart etc.

But this is different as we know that its not for bragging rights.

Its a consistent apples to apples comparison at Amazon where we can see Blu-ray sales compared to the DVD benchmark.

If nothing else, if shows a positive trend for Blu-ray.

[kowhite]

Originally Posted by Philnerd

I think its probably best for us to stick with the NPD numbers at this point.

I think much like HD DVD vs Blu-ray, that this is an interesting comparison point that requires some consideration, but is certainly nothing we need to ignore.

HD DVD vs Blu-ray was no different...it often times, more than not, didn't directly correspond to NPD either. But, unless you're one of those people that can't weigh these things against the big picture...I see no reason this isn't worth looking at. I know some people around here can't think beyond black and white...but if you can, it's an interesting piece of the puzzle.

[Philnerd]

I guess I'll have to disagree with some of you on this one. Blu-Ray and HD DVD sales have always been incredibly skewed to hi def media to the point of not really being useful at all for comparison's sake. We've actually already seen Blu versions outselling their DVD counterparts on Amazon (I seem to recall...). But in the land of B&Ms where like 99% of sales actually come from the Blu-Ray makes a blip.

I think Blu-Ray is doing fairly well and will continue to grow, but I can't seriously look at Amazon BD vs DVD charts to make myself feel better about hidef optical

[Kosty]

Its a clue. We know the average Amazon buyer is more likely to be a first adopter or tech savvy kinda guy, so it will be higher for Blu-ray here than at B&M locations.

But Amazon sells a hell of a lot of DVDs and DVD players and sold a lot of high def format hardware and software last year. So its worth noting any positive trends here for Blu-ray.

Its the trends and growth thats important.

Obviously the "Amazon rankings" do not 1:1 translate to units sold, especially when you are looking a large range, but they are going to be a lot more accurate now that Blu-ray is breaking into the top 5,10, 20 and 100 titles instead of having rankings in the low 100s or below.

(That is when the data is not corrupted)

Lot less variation in the top 20 list in volume than when rankings get to be 100 or less when the volumes moved can be tiny.

[Kosty]

That does not sound good. On vacation?

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by highfiberdigest

Only trend I see is that Blu-ray sales in May are up from the disastrous sales of Blu-ray in April.

What were Blu-ray sales in April?