Recently we've all been hearing about Sony's resolution to ship more Blu-ray players in the US, and Blockbuster's decision to give it their full support, but we haven’t really seen the consequences of these actions...until now. According to the research firm Digital Entertainment Group, HD-DVD is unable to keep up with the Blu-ray sales figures, which currently hold a five to one lead.
Warner Bros. senior vice president Steve Nickerson stated that this year "will mirror the year 1999 or 2000 for DVD", believing that consumers are only just scratching the surface of the new high-def DVD category that is becoming more and more readily available.
While it is, as Nickerson suggests, too early to predict outcome of the competition between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, Blu-ray is certainly enjoying a massive head start that may very well be infallible. The report from DEG shows that 300,000 HD-DVD players have been sold through both stand alone drivers and Xbox 360 attachment drives, a figure which pales in comparison to the circulation of an astounding 1.5 million Blu-rays. Out of 55 million US dollars consumers spent on high-def DVD titles this year, 35 million were on Blu-ray titles, a success which appears to be primarily due to the PS3, as only 100,000 standalone Blu-ray players have been sold.
In light of this aggressive competition and regardless of its outcome, the home video industry is sure to do very well and hopes for growth in sales: "It's in the very, very early days of our forecasts, but we believe that High-Definition discs will help return consumer video spending to growth" said Helen Davis Jayalath from Screen Digest
Comments