Nielsen/Videoscan US sales data for Blu-ray, HD-DVD

[Titanio]

No more do we have to rely solely on Amazon sales rankings to try and get an idea of the relative performance of Blu-ray and HD-DVD - http://www.homemediamagazine.com/ has published figures from Nielsen/Videoscan. Nielsen/Videoscan comprehensively covers the US home video market.

Anyway, without further ado, for the week ended January 7th 2007:



YTD is year to date - up to the 7th, BD sold 100 titles for every 47.14 HD-DVD titles sold. The figure on the left shows relative lifetime sales to date.

Up to the week ended January 14th 2007:


Now, year to date, 100 BD titles have been sold for every 38.36 HD-DVD titles sold i.e. Blu-ray is outselling HD-DVD in those first two weeks of the year by 2.6:1. Notice also how much the lifetime gap closed in just one week (by over seven percentage points).

If anything Fox may have been conservative in their sales projections for BD vs HD-DVD. There's a very marked swing in sales momentum in BD's favour now. You can, if you wish, see that reflected in the likes of Amazon sales also, but these figures give a more concrete indication of what's going on overall.

 

[Geo]

Titanio--

We appreciate the tip, but looking at that site it looked to me like they snagged those images without premission from a print magazine. So I've edited them out of your post. You may of course summarize the information they contained.

And, yep, it looks like "the PS3 effect" was alive and well in early January. Tho we'd also be talking about what? 10% or so of PS3 owners at that point?

Edit: Actually, I may be confused. . . but I can't check now. Did those links link directly to homemediamazine.com? If so, go ahead and put them back. I ran into this elsewhere, and they were using their images from what they said was the magazine. . .

 

[Rangers]

Yeah people act like they're shocked Blu-Ray got a bump from 600,000 PS3's sold.

I'd like to see the numbers from the previous 52 weeks were HDDVD outsold Blu-Ray every one, but we really didn't hear about it. Now Blu-Ray pulls ahead and suddenly we've got sales figures out the wazoo.

 

[Bobbler]

Looks more and more like BR is the one that will take the market. For a time, I wasn't actually sure -- after the pretty awesome start HD DVD had and the slow start BR had, it seemed like it could be either way, but after CES 07 and PS3 effect really hit (december/jan), I don't think HD DVD has much of a chance of winning... they can do things to prolong the war, but BR's victory seems inevitable, at this point.

I think the next 2-3 months look like they'll be just continuing this trend (based on title announcements and continued PS3 sales and lack of much HD DVD stuff) and after april or so there are a few big titles hitting, so even if Universal brought out Jaws and Jurassic Park, they'd be running up against POTC/Cars and Spidermans -- at the rate it's going, it may end up turning into a rather significant lead that HD DVD can't really do much to undo (since it doesn't really have any ace card like PS3). If BR has solidified, in the consumer's eye, that they have the content, then I don't think cheap chinese players are going to help much, assuming they even make it in '07 (by '08, it'd be a bit too late, IMO). Japan has already decided BR is the winner, seemingly, even without PS3 it is still rather skewed to BR side, from the few sales figures I've seen. EU is sort of up in the air, but I'm feeling it might end up the same way as NA has once PS3 is released.

It seems once Warner gets the BR release list up to par, I think it'll help BR a decent amount too -- some of the best selling HD DVD titles are those titles (Batman, notably).

We'll see though!

 

[Bobbler]

Yeah people act like they're shocked Blu-Ray got a bump from 600,000 PS3's sold.

I'd like to see the numbers from the previous 52 weeks were HDDVD outsold Blu-Ray every one, but we really didn't hear about it. Now Blu-Ray pulls ahead and suddenly we've got sales figures out the wazoo.

That's hardly true. Look at this subforum, there is a topic of how the Top 8 HD DVDs were all above BR's number 1 -- go to AVS forum and read the past 6 months, there's a ton about how much it's outselling BR and all that. No need to play victim.

Also, I don't really see how Videoscan sales information being released is "sales figures out the wazoo."

 

[Titanio]

Titanio--

We appreciate the tip, but looking at that site it looked to me like they snagged those images without premission from a print magazine. So I've edited them out of your post. You may of course summarize the information they contained.

And, yep, it looks like "the PS3 effect" was alive and well in early January. Tho we'd also be talking about what? 10% or so of PS3 owners at that point?

Edit: Actually, I may be confused. . . but I can't check now. Did those links link directly to homemediamazine.com? If so, go ahead and put them back. I ran into this elsewhere, and they were using their images from what they said was the magazine. . .

I'm kind of confused too, I thought and assumed they came from a PDF version of the issue linked on their site, but I didn't check - when I get a chance I'll see if they're in there, and update accordingly. Apologies if they're not!

 

[Asher]

In the first two weeks of January there were no new HD DVD releases ,and there were Bluray releases. I'm not sure how much those specific sales mean.

 

[pcchen]

Actually such early numbers are quite meaningless. The market is still too small, so (for example) a big decision from a major studio can still change the scene significantly.

 

[Arty]

Xbit attributes the spike to free BDs from Sony:

Sales of movies on Blu-ray discs have surpassed sales of motion pictures on HD DVDs in the USA, a market study by a market tracking agency claims. But that is not a surprise: Sony has bundled some PlayStation 3 game machines with a BD movie and included a voucher for another Blu-ray disc, essentially shipping several hundreds of thousands Blu-ray movies for free.

 

[crazygambit]

Xbit attributes the spike to free BDs from Sony:

I was under the impression that only sales were counted therefore that shouldn't be an issue. IMO the fact that BD managed to close the gap by 7% in a week is much more significant than the 3:1 ratio for that week. It says that all the early lead HD DVD had has been negated, but it also says that the overall total disk sales are quite small. Even though BDs momentum seems very strong at the moment, we can't call the war over with such little total sales IMO.

 

[London Geezer]

I was under the impression that only sales were counted therefore that shouldn't be an issue. IMO the fact that BD managed to close the gap by 7% in a week is much more significant than the 3:1 ratio for that week. It says that all the early lead HD DVD had has been negated, but it also says that the overall total disk sales are quite small. Even though BDs momentum seems very strong at the moment, we can't call the war over with such little total sales IMO.

That's an interesting question: do "sales" figures include movies that are given for free? If so, one could extrapolate from those figures the number of Blurry movies which were actually sold, if we know the number of free movies given away. Then again that still would tell much about the real demand for Blurry movies.

 

[avaya]

That's an interesting question: do "sales" figures include movies that are given for free? If so, one could extrapolate from those figures the number of Blurry movies which were actually sold, if we know the number of free movies given away. Then again that still would tell much about the real demand for Blurry movies.

Nielsen counts at the POS, no freebies included. If they were Blu-Ray would have been substantially ahead already.

Xbitlabs shocking journalism.

 

[Mintmaster]

Nielsen counts at the POS, no freebies included. If they were Blu-Ray would have been substantially ahead already.

Xbitlabs shocking journalism.

I can see how a physical BD included with the PS3 wouldn't be counted, but aren't vouchers usually redeemed at retail stores?

That's an interesting question: do "sales" figures include movies that are given for free? If so, one could extrapolate from those figures the number of Blurry movies which were actually sold, if we know the number of free movies given away. Then again that still would tell much about the real demand for Blurry movies.

Is that a freudian slip?

(j/k - I know the quality issues are mostly gone now.)

 

[avaya]

I can see how a physical BD included with the PS3 wouldn't be counted, but aren't vouchers usually redeemed at retail stores?

Anyhthing purchased with some form of exchange is counted. So bouchers would be, are the voucher's for free movies or just discounts?

I have heard that NA PS3's have vouchers with them.