HD DVD v Blu-ray — someone is winning. Nobody has the faintest idea who
By Gareth Powell
Not for me to start a row with Google. They are bigger than me and have more money. But the heading Hardware Blu-ray Sales Surpass HD DVD Nearly Threefold is, to say the least, somewhat misleading. Or, if you prefer, a load of bollocks.
Luckily, the computer — Google swears there is no human intervention but it may be telling little porkies — later changed it to Fight for DVD Supremacy Heats Up which is much more accurate.
Again, strangely — the computer made me do it officer, honest — most of the sources listed internationally were Australian and, no, I am not in Australia nor using the Australian news site.
So Google News needs to lift its game.
What we have are figures released by Nielsen VideoScan to Home Media Magazine that Blu-ray movies are quickly gaining ground on HD DVD.
Let us stop there and consider the sentence. If they are quickly gaining ground then they are behind. Then comes the next sentence: the sales numbers show that Blu-ray Discs have been outselling HD DVDs by a strong margin thus far in 2007.
Which is followed by marketing analysis gobbledy-gook. Try following the logic, please.
During the first week of 2007, sales of Blu-ray more than doubled that of HD DVDs, with the latter making up only 46.14 percent of sales compared to the former.
Hold hard, my good fellow, simple maths tells us if you sell 46.24 percent and Blu-Ray doubled it then Blu-Ray sold 92.58 percent which means that altogether the sales were about 150 percent which is not totally logical. In fact, quite daft.
So let us look at some possible reasons. Obviously, the launch of the PlayStation 3, which has a Blu-ray Disc drive would have pushed sales. Because separate HD DVD players sold a lot less than the PlayStation 3. Say 175,000 HD DVD players.
But the PlayStation is for playing games. Of course, there are bugger-all games available as yet, so you need something to stick in this expensive machine and a movie will do.
Mark you, HD DVD has very little unless you could accept Batman Begins — top selling title with a picture used to illustrate this article — as intelligent viewing which I am not willing so to do.
The report allows HD DVD still holds the majority of total HD movies sold with Blu-ray is galloping up on the inside but still has not quite made it. Which makes a total nonsense of the original headline. It is pure iambic nonsense.
A saner moment, away from figures which make no sense at all, comes from the Global Optical Storage Industry Report, published December 2006. It says that HD DVD will still be the mainstream in the market during 2007 to 2009. After that it gives the edge to Blu-ray.
The problem is there is very little dependable Blu-Ray manufacturing and testing equipment around. Think of HD DVD as being a logical extension of what had gone before. Blu-Ray as a leap into technological advancement. Is it the bridge too far? I dunno. But some of the daft reports based on very iffy sales figures do not help to come up with an informed view. Google News should be ashamed of itself. The computer than runs it should be made to stand in corner until lunch break.
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Stumble It!
February 6th, 2007
You need to slow down, read carefully and think before posting. Here’s the quote:
During the first week of 2007, sales of Blu-ray more than doubled that of HD DVDs, with the latter making up only 46.14 percent of sales compared to the former.
Here’s the meaning:
HD-DVD had 46.14 percent of the sales of Blu-Ray.
Here’s what you assumed:
HD-DVD had 46.14 percent of the total high definition sales.
February 6th, 2007
Where did you learn to read my good fellow? Did you see the comma? Read the first response and you’ll see its not some iambic nonsense. Nice use of large words but that doesn’t prove wit my friend. BD surpassed sales of HDDVD whether or not you like it. Maybe you should consider selling your HDDVD player.
February 7th, 2007
Over devoted fanboys are a pain in the backside. Logic dictates that the PS3 will have established Blu-Ray in a very short space of time. Even the disk sales for January alone will be giving the backers of HD DVD a lot of worries. Sony says they will sell 6 million PS3s by end of 2007. Even if they fall well short (say 4 million) it will be all over for HD DVD shortly as the studios will increasingly back the source of greater sales/rentals.
February 7th, 2007
Even PSP’s UMD video outsell both high def formats.
None of the numbers are big enough to mean anything, not even close.
Until the Chinese bring their cheap HD-DVD players to market nobody is going anywhere.
Once they do Blu-ray becomes yet another very dead end (and very expensive) Sony proprietary format on the (stalled) PS3.
February 7th, 2007
It’s officially official. Blu-Ray has passed HD-DVD is not looking back.
“In response to an inquiry from Next-Gen, SCEA states that cumulative Blu-ray movie unit sales stand at just over 439,000 units in the US, while total HD-DVD sales are just under 438,000 units. Blu-ray currently stands as the number one new DVD format in unit and dollar sales in the US, according to research firm NPD Group.”
Furthermore, not only is Blu-Ray #1 in unit and dollar value, but it is currently outselling HD-DVD nearly 3:1. Looks like that meager 1000 unit lead will continue to grow quite quickly. One more little bit of info, from what I can gather, PS3 alone has already sold right around 2 million units compared to total HD-DVD players in the market (XBOX360 Add-on’s included) of around 175,000.