Thread: Blockbuster to support Blu-ray

Originally Posted by Socrates

Format wars aside, that is a strange decision. I mean I could saying that if a movie is available in both formats you will pick the bluray, but if a movie only comes in HDDVD why wouldn't you carry it?

Retailers I think are realizing the value that a format war is hurting their business. They don't have the desire to dedicate double the floor space to two formats where it's pretty clear that, in the end, if this generation of media is going to succeed, it's going to do it on the back of one or the other.

Of course, Blockbuster did leave the door open by leaving HD-DVD in the original 250 test stores, and they did say that if there was the demand, they would add HD-DVD to other stores, too. I just think they believe that by making this move, they can help accelerate a war that is keeping too many consumers on the sideline - keeping it as a niche format at this point.

Blockbuster is a dieing company. Their peak was in the mid 90s.

If Sony, Fox, Panasonic, Disney, can't kill off HD-DVD why do you think Blockbuster can?

Originally Posted by go

Blockbuster is a dieing company. Their peak was in the mid 90s.

If Sony, Fox, Panasonic, Disney, can't kill off HD-DVD why do you think Blockbuster can?

As long as Microsoft has an investment in it it's not going anywhere. That said, do people really use Blockbuster still?

Originally Posted by DotUKings

As long as Microsoft has an investment in it it's not going anywhere. That said, do people really use Blockbuster still?

Microsoft doesn't fully believe in HD DVD either. The only reason they made an add-on for the 360 is because they knew Sony had a huge advantage with the PS3 having a built-in Blu-ray machine. What Microsoft really wants is for both formats to fail and hope downloading movies becomes more popular, which I don't think will happen in the near future for reasons already listed in another thread. They didn't even put a built-in HD DVD player in the newest version of the 360.

And Go, those companies WERE killing off HD DVD. This will just speed things up. Look at the sales figures since the PS3 was released. Blu-ray has been outselling them by quite a bit.

Originally Posted by NastiMarvasti

And Go, those companies WERE killing off HD DVD. This will just speed things up. Look at the sales figures since the PS3 was released. Blu-ray has been outselling them by quite a bit.

As of today...PS has sold 3.3306m units.
xbox360 has sold 11.1126m units
Wii has sold 7.7432m units.

I don't have the number of toshiba hd units, but its a fair assuption that the ps3 is not driving blu-ray like it was expected.

Originally Posted by dabeechman

As of today...PS has sold 3.3306m units.
xbox360 has sold 11.1126m units
Wii has sold 7.7432m units.

I don't have the number of toshiba hd units, but its a fair assuption that the ps3 is not driving blu-ray like it was expected.

You're looking at it from a gamer's POV. You can't. But if you want to, you need to keep it between the only two that have ANY involvement in the HD format wars: the 360 and the PS3. So...

Here you go, Slick. Take a gander at that link and you'll find the numbers that matter.

http://www.tvpredictions.com/bluray062007.htm

Originally Posted by Video Business Via tvpredictions.com

The research firm Digital Entertainment Group says the 1.5 million Blu-ray homes include about 100,000 standalone Blu-ray players with the rest PlayStation 3 game consoles...

Originally Posted by Video Business Via tvpredictions.com

The research firm says there 300,000 HD DVD homes in the United States -- evenly split between standalone players and HD DVD XBox 360 attachment drives.

1.4 million PS3s. Even if you cut the number of folks that bought a PS3 for Blu-ray down to 20% of that 1.4m, 280K units is nearly as much as HD DVD's TOTAL sales between standalone AND 360 add-ons.

Based on movie sales alone, and that IS what matters here, that fictional 20% is tremendously low considering Blu-ray movies are outselling HD DVDs 2:1 since the new year started, and 1.5:1 since their release last year. I have a hard time believing that 100K standalone Blu-ray players are beating the crap out of HD DVDs 300,000 total units in software sales.

Well, of course, they're not. The PS3 is the Trojan horse that Sony bet the farm on and, at this time, seems to have been the right bet. (If they simply wanted to beat out the other format.)

Now, the rest of the world just needs to see those sub-$300 Blu-ray players, by the Fall, and we're on the same timetable the consumers were 10 years ago with DVD...

Warner Bros. Senior Vice President Steve Nickerson
Between April and mid-December, it was a warm-up, and since Christmas, it has been a very sustained level of business. Really, this year is preparing for further consumer uptake of high-def. It will mirror the year 1999 or 2000 for DVD.

Originally Posted by dabeechman

As of today...PS has sold 3.3306m units.
xbox360 has sold 11.1126m units
Wii has sold 7.7432m units.

I don't have the number of toshiba hd units, but its a fair assuption that the ps3 is not driving blu-ray like it was expected.

Pretty much what Unfiltered said. Also, of the 11 million 360's sold, how many of those people also bought the add-on? Not many when compared to the number of people who bought a Blu-ray ready PS3.

Sony is really fighting 2 wars here. The gaming war and the format war. Now although they are currently behind the other two in sales gaming wise, the format war is the bigger picture I believe.

Another article of interest:

http://www.psu.com/node/11746

And another:

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/1383.html

I don't know if any of you guys are familiar with Harry Knowles from aintitcool.com but he has recently picked hd-dvd over blu-ray. He explains his decision in this article: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/32838

In this article http://www.aintitcool.com/node/32999 (about halfway down) he again talks about his decision to go with hd-dvd over blu-ray.