Blu-ray has 70% of 1st qtr sales?

[Random Digital]

http://www.tvpredictions.com/bluraysales042007.htm

Sales of Blu-ray HDTV DVDs once again trounced rival HD DVD in March and the Sony-backed format now has a 69-31 percent sales lead in the first three months of 2007.

I had no idea Blu-ray was this far ahead.

Personally I'm not going to upgrade until next year sometime, but if this continues there many only be one choice.

 

[Sxotty]

http://www.tvpredictions.com/bluraysales042007.htm



I had no idea Blu-ray was this far ahead.

Personally I'm not going to upgrade until next year sometime, but if this continues there many only be one choice.

Well Sony would always prefer there is only one choice. For memory sticks, for minidiscs, for whatever else they can dream up a way to make proprietary.

 

[archie4oz]

Well Sony would always prefer there is only one choice. For memory sticks, for minidiscs, for whatever else they can dream up a way to make proprietary.

As opposed to all those other proprietary pushing companies that would, could and do do the same thing...

 

[Random Digital]

As opposed to all those other proprietary pushing companies that would, could and do do the same thing...

Yeah, I guess technically HD-DVD is proprietary to Toshiba. That kind of stuff only bothers me when either the price is really high or they stop supporting it when you are still using it.

 

[Zaphod]

or they stop supporting it when you are still using it.

I'll say one thing for Sony: I bet that five years from now, win or loose, they will still be selling Blu-ray. Even if all the others have abandoned them. Not so sure I'd make a similar bet regarding Toshiba.

 

[SPM]

As I have said before total sales numbers are much more reliable than movie rankings, which depend on the popularity of individual titles and special 50% off offers, availability of copies in shops etc.

 

[SugarCoat]

i find these kinda news stories sorta stupid. The PS3 launched with that free movie deal and theres been some really aggressive decisions regarding movies and prices/deals so of course theres going to be large swings in leads within the HD sales when the userbase of such products is only in the hundreds of thousands.

If two candy companies sold gumballs purchased from the same manufacturer and one happened to have a weekend where they did a buy one get one free deal and then started bragging they "sold" twice as much as their rival, would that signify anything honestly news worthy? This is more of the propaganda war, thats it.

 

[patsu]

i find these kinda news stories sorta stupid. The PS3 launched with that free movie deal and theres been some really aggressive decisions regarding movies and prices/deals so of course theres going to be large swings in leads within the HD sales when the userbase of such products is only in the hundreds of thousands.

The free movies bundled with launch PS3s in US and Europe do not count as a sale. So I don't think they are included in the VideoScan calculation.

 

[SugarCoat]

The free movies bundled with launch PS3s in US and Europe do not count as a sale. So I don't think they are included in the VideoScan calculation.

i'd be surprised if they werent

 

[patsu]

The POS data is collected and reported by third parties (like AC Nielson). They are not detailed enough to include breakdown of what's in a particular PS3 box. e.g., only first 500,000 boxes contain the free Talledega Nights.

 

[SugarCoat]

The POS data is collected and reported by third parties (like AC Nielson). They are not detailed enough to include breakdown of what's in a particular PS3 box. e.g., only first 500,000 boxes contain the free Talledega Nights.

The UK PS3 came with a coupon voucher which was used to redeem the movie, these were, as far as i know and will continue to suspect unless shown otherwise, counted as disc sales. Im further inclined to believe im correct in that the article the OP cited specifically named Casino Royal (the UK PS3 voucher movie) as being the undisputed chart leader, and also as far as im aware sales of stand alone blu-ray players are pitiful at best so how i come to my conclusion is pretty obvious.

As i said im quite sure its propaganda at work, so again i really find these threads rather silly when people draw conclusions from them.

Regardless of if the units are counted as sales or not, it is infact still propaganda due to the incredibly small userbase of people who actually care about blu-ray movies. The HD numbers are so low it doesnt take much to influence basic sales figures.

In the end its Sony doing what Sony does best, fabricating a scenario and then coming across as cocky as they can.

“We think retailers will start to dedicate more space to Blu-ray, rather than split it half and half,” Sony worldwide president David Bishop told Video Business. “That will further send a signal to consumers that it is the dominant format.”

I honestly dont care who wins, i just dont like how the bullshit machine is in high gear and people actually believe it. I just wish there was a bit more humility like the GM of HD-DVD Toshiba had recently when he said; "neither format could claim victory when high def player sales accounted for less than 1% of regular DVD player sales - in the US at least."

At least that was honest.

 

[Titanio]

The UK PS3 came with a coupon voucher which was used to redeem the movie, these were, as far as i know and will continue to suspect unless shown otherwise, counted as disc sales.

There was no coupon, no voucher. Nothing like that could be counted with each PS3 sale at retail. You get your copy of Casino Royale by registering on the PSN network.

I would have two further questions:

1) Don't Videoscan only cover the NA market anyway?

2) If not, how many copies of CR did they count as sold anyway? If they were somehow including those copies sent to PSN registrees, I've a feeling the figures would be even more skewed in favour of BD than those numbers suggest, since they're literally giving away a few hundred thousand copies of that.

edit - there's a much more detailed report here, with actual figures, which would seem to indicate that they are looking at NA only and not counting PSN giveaway copies of CR in Europe.

http://www.playfuls.com/news_07086_Blu_Ray_Gains_Momentum_Thanks_to_the_PlayStation_3.html

an estimated 59,680 Casino Royale BR discs were sold in the first quarter of 2007

If they were counting the giveaway, that number would be much higher.

 

[patsu]

The UK PS3 came with a coupon voucher which was used to redeem the movie, these were, as far as i know and will continue to suspect unless shown otherwise, counted as disc sales. Im further inclined to believe im correct in that the article the OP cited specifically named Casino Royal (the UK PS3 voucher movie) as being the undisputed chart leader, and also as far as im aware sales of stand alone blu-ray players are pitiful at best so how i come to my conclusion is pretty obvious.

Casino Royale is the best selling Hi-def title (and only one that sold beyond 100,000 copies worldwide) to date. So naturally it is the chart leader. People should be happy SCEE gave it away as a freebie.

In-the-box freebies are not counted in POS sales reports for the reason I mentioned above. They also don't track PSN digital distribution where Casino Royale was given out to registered European PS3 owners. (Not to mention it is not technically correct to do so).

As you alluded to, PS3 is the most prevalent Blu-ray (or even Hi-def DVD) player. I don't see why we/they should consider standalone Blu-ray players only when computing Blu-ray title sales.

But yes, this is a propaganda article. However you are mistaken in saying that the numbers include free titles.

 

[Sxotty]

As opposed to all those other proprietary pushing companies that would, could and do do the same thing...

No they don't all do the same thing. Sony definitely takes the cake in making up new formats that are completely unnecessary to accomplish nothing beyond what already exists. Other companies would love to have the marketing dominance to try that as well, but since few have the consumer niche, and media company conglomerates they cannot force it down peoples throats as easily.

And Blu-Ray and HD-DVD neither fall into this category because they both are actually offering something useful and new. That does not mean I think it is a good idea. As I have said before I would much prefer they come up with an open standard and no licensing fees etc...

 

[archie4oz]

No they don't all do the same thing. Sony definitely takes the cake in making up new formats that are completely unnecessary to accomplish nothing beyond what already exists. Other companies would love to have the marketing dominance to try that as well, but since few have the consumer niche, and media company conglomerates they cannot force it down peoples throats as easily.

As far as CE companies go, yes they do. You just don't aparently follow them very closely. What Sony *does* manage to accomplish though is to take a format in development and bring it to full commercial status. If you want somebody who takes then cake, then you need to look at Microsoft.

And Blu-Ray and HD-DVD neither fall into this category because they both are actually offering something useful and new. That does not mean I think it is a good idea. As I have said before I would much prefer they come up with an open standard and no licensing fees etc...

Be realistic. Yeah anybody not generating revenue off of the royalties from the patents involved would probably feel the same way. But it's business not charity. I wouldn't expect various companies to pour millions of dollars into R&D if they couldn't recoup those investments...

 

[Npl]

No they don't all do the same thing. Sony definitely takes the cake in making up new formats that are completely unnecessary to accomplish nothing beyond what already exists. Other companies would love to have the marketing dominance to try that as well, but since few have the consumer niche, and media company conglomerates they cannot force it down peoples throats as easily.

So how about WMA, that fails to beat MP3 (LAME Encoder) in nearly all listening tests above 64kbps, let alone superior formats like Vorbis. Who needed that?
Who needs WMV?

I always hear stuff like UMD is a failure, Minidisc is failure, etc. Granted those formats wont get popular anytime soon and UMD failed as Movie-format, but thats not its only purpose, just imagine how PSP-Games would look if they had gone with Roms - or how much more expensive they would be to produce.
Back in time when Minidisc was introduced to replace Tapes and not pressed CDs, CD-Burners were sparse and MP3-Players nonexistant (and later you had 32MB ones - gotta suck playing the same 10 trakcs over and over till you got back to your Computer ) - and it was great at that. The competing "digital tapes" from Philips just plain sucked.

Sure with more open policies regarding theri formats they might had have more success, but the formats themselfes werent redundant or technically bad. But other Companies arent more open with their formats either.

 

[quest55720]

So how about WMA, that fails to beat MP3 (LAME Encoder) in nearly all listening tests above 64kbps, let alone superior formats like Vorbis. Who needed that?
Who needs WMV?

I always hear stuff like UMD is a failure, Minidisc is failure, etc. Granted those formats wont get popular anytime soon and UMD failed as Movie-format, but thats not its only purpose, just imagine how PSP-Games would look if they had gone with Roms - or how much more expensive they would be to produce.
Back in time when Minidisc was introduced to replace Tapes and not pressed CDs, CD-Burners were sparse and MP3-Players nonexistant (and later you had 32MB ones - gotta suck playing the same 10 trakcs over and over till you got back to your Computer ) - and it was great at that. The competing "digital tapes" from Philips just plain sucked.

Sure with more open policies regarding theri formats they might had have more success, but the formats themselfes werent redundant or technically bad. But other Companies arent more open with their formats either.

UMD for games was solid but movies failed because of greed IMO. I mean come on trying to charge almost the same price as a DVD was just stupid as hell and just asking for failure. If blu ray does fail it will be out of greed. Instead of sharing with the eastern manufactures to get prices down they kept if in their little circle to keep prices much higher than they should be. Sony pretty much figured once the PS3 launched they would demolish hd-dvd and the war would be over in short order. So they did not need to compete on price and could maximize margins on players. Instead the PS3 got off to a slower start than they figured and I think PS3 owners are buying less discs than sony figured.

It would be kind of funny and deserving if sony lost both the console and hd-movie format war.

 

[Npl]

UMD for games was solid but movies failed because of greed IMO. I mean come on trying to charge almost the same price as a DVD was just stupid as hell and just asking for failure.

Agreed, their politics = bad (for the popularity of the format atleast). If Minidisc wouldve been more open Im sure it would have replaced floppys way before USB-Sticks with large capacities did just that.

If blu ray does fail it will be out of greed. Instead of sharing with the eastern manufactures to get prices down they kept if in their little circle to keep prices much higher than they should be. <snip>

Sorry, but I dont know what you mean. Sony reserving most of the Blu-Ray diodes?
I thought the reason noone jumped to production early is rather because its risky and more expensive than waiting till issues are ironed out and components & technology are readily available. Let alone more possible buyers

 

[Sxotty]

So how about WMA, that fails to beat MP3 (LAME Encoder) in nearly all listening tests above 64kbps, let alone superior formats like Vorbis. Who needed that?
Who needs WMV?

Yes without a doubt Microsoft does similar shenanigans (heh there is a fun word). But once again you have to be in a special dominant position to have the clout to accomplish that. I think we need more competitors in these markets to encourage innovation, not fewer.

Be realistic. Yeah anybody not generating revenue off of the royalties from the patents involved would probably feel the same way. But it's business not charity. I wouldn't expect various companies to pour millions of dollars into R&D if they couldn't recoup those investments...

What about USB what are the royalties for that? Was it free to develop just snap the fingers and poof? They are not trying to recoup investment, they are both trying to make a huge profit by fighting an unnecessary format battle.

 

[Ruined]

I had no idea Blu-ray was this far ahead.

It's not. HD DVD had a weak release showing in Q1 likely due to the Dec06 AACS crack with only 28 releases in Q1 compared to BD's 70+. Now that HD DVD's releases are back on track, the sales will follow.