Just a few days before CES 2008, early in January, Warner Brothers announced they would start supporting Blu-ray exclusively starting in May this year.
As we all know, software sales have been more favourable towards Blu-ray ever since early 2007. However, hardware sales for standalone Blu-ray players have also received a significant boost following Time Warner’s recent announcement, after previously facing significant competition from standalone HD DVD machines.
The NPD group recently released the hardware sales for December last year, in addition to the first two weeks of January. You can check out the hardware sales below:
(Note: The hardware sales for North America do not include PlayStation 3s or 360 HD-DVD add-ons)
The month December compared to the first weeks in January:
As you can see, Blu-ray players outsold the HD-DVD players roughly by a 60 to 40 margin.
Lastly, the week before the WB announcement, and the week afterwards:
There is a substantial difference between the sales before and after Warner Brothers exclusivity announcement.
Although these sales clearly show that Blu-ray is taking an even bigger lead over HD-DVD, Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios confirmed to have no plans to change their strategy at this time. Of course, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures also offered similar comments before switching to Sony’s high definition medium.
Stay tuned for more Blu-ray news as we get it.
Thanks to Digital Bits for the images.