HD-DVD group claims success against Blu-ray in Q2

[Chevron]

Las Vegas (CA) ? HD DVD is outpacing Blu-ray in hardware sales growth, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group said today.

Referring to sales estimates from NPD and Nielsen Netratings, the HDVD group said that overall HD DVD hardware sales were up 37% from Q1 to Q2 2007, while software sales experienced a 20% increase in growth. During the same time-frame, overall Blu-ray hardware sales saw a 27% decline from Q1 to Q2, and Blu-ray software sales were down 5%.

According to a spokesperson, these numbers include both HD DVD players sold for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 game consoles; The HD DVD group declined to comment on absolute Q2 sales results, but given the exposure of the Playstation 3, Blu-ray is generally estimated to outpace HD DVD hardware sales in absolute numbers.

NPD did not return our calls in time for the publication of this article, but we will provide an update as soon as we receive detailed sales estimates for HD DVD and Blu-ray from the market research firm.

The HD DVD group?s success claims especially refer to the CE player segment. The recently announced price drop from $499 to $299 for the entry-level player segment has resulted in a sequential sales growth of 183% from Q1 to Q2, the organization said. The HD DVD group said that more than 180,000 CE players have been sold so far.

It appears to be price that will become more and more the focus of HD DVD promoters to push the format: ?With the total number of titles available for each format differing by only 20-30 titles at this time, the real-world gap in content between the two formats is in actuality not as large as many would perceive," said Paul Erickson, market analyst with IMS Research in the HD DVD press release. ?Consumers in the US and Europe continue to show the greatest sensitivity to price, rather than content or branding, in their purchase decision for standalone high-definition players."

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32939/118/

[Zen]

Right well that means HD-DVD has won a battle but its still to early to tell who has won the war

[Chevron]

I just really don't know why anyone would go blu ray. I hate that dvds are region coded. Have my dvds are region 1, so if I try to play them with power dvd I get that message about region codes. Obviously I can use another player, which is what I do, it's just damn irritating.

HD-DVD doesn't have region coding.

[Zen]

Nor does Blu-ray, the thing is why people go for Blu-ray is the PS3, if you buy a PS3 you get a Blu-ray player, a gaming and entertainment system all in one. If you look at the Xbox 360, it comes with a standard DVD player, whilst you have to buy the HD DVD addon which costs around R2000.

[Toi]

Nor does Blu-ray, the thing is why people go for Blu-ray is the PS3, if you buy a PS3 you get a Blu-ray player, a gaming and entertainment system all in one. If you look at the Xbox 360, it comes with a standard DVD player, whilst you have to buy the HD DVD addon which costs around R2000.

True but then again, how many people do you know of who are willing to fork out above R5000 for a "movie player"? (I'm not revering to the PS3 here but the blu-ray players). Just like the PS3, blu-ray and its players had terrible timing. There's nothing in particular wrong with it, it's a great format it's just the price. People (and I'm guessing South Africans in particular, were not the richest people on earth you know) don't want to fork out R350 for a movie, no matter how good it looks. We won?t even talk about the price of the players or the disk drives. It's ludicrous, a movie is only so good and you can watch it only so many times. The price doesn't justify the means, it doesn't even come close.

If it wasn't for the PS3, only the "Elite" would back it up and I wouldn't be surprised if the sales were less than a quarter of what they are.

[Zen]

Well with the cost reduction of the blue diode, which contrary to popular belief, is for both HD-DVD and Blu-ray, therefore the costs of the players should drop, bringing them down to the level when DVD first entered the market.

As for people buying movies, its a no-no, not at that price anyway, but the thing is ever heard of DVD rentals? Well Blockbusters (one of the biggest video rental chains in the world) is only going to rent out Blu-ray discs, which could prove to be HD DVD's downfall, in terms of software and hardware sales.

Now on the other side of the spectrum, Toshiba has reported that as of Q2 2008, they shall be shipping there laptops with HD-DVD players. Sure you think now that its nothing, but hey Toshiba for the past 3 years straight has shipped 10 million + laptops a year, therefore if Microsoft wants a war, well with the help of Toshiba, they are certainly going to get one!

PS Why do I sound like a PS3 fanboy at first then a Xbox 360 fanboy? *shrugs*

[Toi]

Ok, I didn't know about the Blockbusters thing. That can definitely be a very big problem because as you say, more people rent than bye.

BTW, if we are going to see price drops in general for these players, HD players are still going to be a lot cheaper than Blu-ray players.

If Microsoft wanted to be real arses, don't you think that they can rule out Blu-ray by making them incompatible with Windows? It's irrelevent and pointless I know, I was just curious.

[Zen]

Not many people know about the blockbusters thing, it was in an article I read, and I just cant remember where I saw it. If I could find it I would give you the link.

You must remember Microsoft creates the OS, not the drives that read Blu-ray, therefore if a person wants to have a BR-ROM (Dunno what its real name is) they simply need drivers to translate it to something the OS can understand, thereby undermining the OS.

[BLACKWOLF]

The PS3 has for the first time outsold the the Xbox 360 in a week so there is more blu-ray players out again, which means more people who will buy blu-ray. I doubt HD-DVD will win.

[echo]

Question: I don't want to hijack this thread, but what are do you guys think about the whole HD thing? For instance do you buy a dvd now, or rather wait till it comes out on an HD format(BR or HD DVD)?

[Chevron]

Have you ever thought, while watching a dvd "The resolution is so crappy. When is something better coming out?".

Stick with dvd for time being.

[BLACKWOLF]

If you have a HD TV and a surround sound system you might want to get a HD system. I would say get blu-ray if you do because they currently lead the HD war with most HD disc sold and most companies backing them. The best way to get a blu-ray player is to buy the PS3 which is one of the best blu-ray players on the market as well as one of the cheapest.

[Zen]

Um but HD DVD is cheaper, same if not better quality at a better price, who cares if Blu-ray has 10GB extra, HD DVD still has 3 times the amount of data than an ordinary DVD.

Then you say Blu-ray is going to win, did you even bother to read my post about Toshiba? I take it you didn't. Its 10 million HD-DVD capable laptops at around the same price going out per year, and the PS3 will is only standing at 1,2 million, that means it will take HD-DVD 1 year if not less to out sell Blu-ray.

[ShadowMaster]

Blu Ray is better in terms of capacity and when backing up 10gigs are really appreciated, I personally hope Blu Ray wins because of that.(Also the theoretical maximum of Blu Ray is WAY higher than HD DVD, although the latter is cheaper)

Anyway, the way the Xbox 360 handles HD disks is better than the PS3's approach, because if blu-ray wins MS can just release a Blu ray player, where the PS3 would have to be completely reworked to play HD-DVDs

[Chevron]

where the PS3 would have to be completely reworked to play HD-DVDs

Now that's wht I hope HD-DVD wins. It's time for sony to pay for their mistakes.

[ShadowMaster]

I hate the ps3. The only reason people buy it is because of the PS2.

The motion sensors of the PS3 is one of it's inovative features(Didn't the wii have that first?)
The things also like to over heat.
My brother was playing with one in a store and it just died on us. Frozen completely not even the "inivative" PS3 button on the controller worked.

These are just some of the reasons I hate it.

[Zen]

Alas time to be a Sony fanboy again.

You can't just hate a console because it froze on you once. Consoles only freeze due to the code of the game being of substandard quality or a overload in memory or in the CPU's capacity.

My 360 freezes on me, so like the PS3, its not perfect. Human imperfection causes this, because we are imperfect we create things that are imperfect.

The motion sensing of the PS3 and the Wii are not innovative, motion sensors have been used for ages. They just copied the idea and stuck it into a control.

[Miktar]

That's not being a fanboy, those are just solid arguments against some asinine comments.

[ShadowMaster]

Yes I relise now after much though and introspection, my opinion on the PS3 is based primarily on prejudice.

I should also probally think my posts through better so I don't sound like a troll. ;)

[Zen]

Well you weren't sounding like a troll, a troll is someone that annoys the hell out of people. You didn't annoy there, you just like didn't put, like you said, enough thought into your post.