Blu-Ray wins on Black Friday week.

[TheMoose]

Originally Posted by Lotus

Remember that capable players BD outnumbers HD DVD 7 to 1. The 2 to 1 software edge is not all that important when you realize that.

The software edge does matter to the studios.

Originally Posted by tigeraudio2007

And I maintain that the players are the important part of this war. If one side or the other can prove they have more than a million stand-alone players sold in the market, the studios cann't ignore that.

The studios can & will ignore that as long as Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD 2-1!
The studios don't make a cent off of hardware, they want to sell software & if the people that bought all of those $99 HD-DVD players won't spend $30 for a HD-DVD movie & are instead using it as an upconverting DVD player the studios could care less how many of those are sold as long as more people are buying Blu-Ray movies.

[faberryman]

How are the BD player numbers affected if PS3 units are not counted, just stand-alone BD players vs. stand-alone HD-DVD players?

[DaViD Boulet]

HD DVD did well too according to numbers. The real big numbers were the hardware numbers where HD DVD was in the 70% range compared to BD. Sooner or later the growing lead in stand alone player sales will be noticed despite PS3 sales. Stand Alones have a higher attachment rate and the growing number of stand alones is significant over BD.

On *average*, stand-alones have higher attach rates with disc sales compared to the huge number of PS3s in homes. However, if one could track sales to those with PS3 who are collecting/buying HD discs, it's probably about the same... just like folks with the 360 add-on are buying movies at the same rate as those with stand-alone HD DVD hardware.

The catch with the PS3 is that you can't know for sure how many PS3s are being used for significant movie playback because all PS3s play BDs. whereas only 360's with the "add on" play HD DVDs (and you can track the add-on sales to know that number).

And I maintain that the players are the important part of this war. If one side or the other can prove they have more than a million stand-alone players sold in the market, the studios cann't ignore that.

The bottom line for a studio is how much software they are selling. Whether that's one person buying a million discs or a million people buying 1 disc makes no difference.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by TheMoose

The software edge does matter to the studios.

The studios can & will ignore that as long as Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD 2-1!
The studios don't make a cent off of hardware, they want to sell software & if the people that bought all of those $99 HD-DVD players won't spend $30 for a HD-DVD movie & are instead using it as an upconverting DVD player the studios could care less how many of those are sold as long as more people are buying Blu-Ray movies.

Actually right now the numbers **** off the studios on both sides. They're horrible numbers and about 1/10th of what Sony said they'd have sold by this time. On the HD DVD side they're about 2/5ths of what Toshiba was predicting.

Numbers are no where near where a Studio cares. Twice as much nothing is still nothing. That seems to be the thing that most BD backers seem to not get.

The Studios care about hardware sales because their Research Groups have found that if one gets to Point A, then sales of an X Quantity are possible. Right now neither side is anywhere near Point A. The one closest to it is the one that looks prettier to them.

Sony made them believe that PS3 sales were going to flood the market with BD software buyers, but the numbers have been no where near what Sony thought they'd sell in PS3 hardware or in attachment rates.

DVD software sales are down. Studios badly want a new DVD craze.

Sales right now are a drop in the bucket. The one with the 1M sized bucket will win. You can claim Studios don't care all you want but if you hunt through statements from the likes of Bob Iger you will see them state that if HD DVD reaches 1M players first they'd be foolish to not invest in both.

I personally think Paramount and Dreamworks are idiots. By being neutral they were dipping in both buckets. However MS paid them money so they'd get their cake and eat it too.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

On *average*, stand-alones have higher attach rates with disc sales compared to the huge number of PS3s in homes. However, if one could track sales to those with PS3 who are collecting/buying HD discs, it's probably about the same... just like folks with the 360 add-on are buying movies at the same rate as those with stand-alone HD DVD hardware.

The catch with the PS3 is that you can't know for sure how many PS3s are being used for significant movie playback because all PS3s play BDs. whereas only 360's with the "add on" play HD DVDs (and you can track the add-on sales to know that number).

The bottom line for a studio is how much software they are selling. Whether that's one person buying a million discs or a million people buying 1 disc makes no difference.

First I believe it's been shown that people with Addons do not buy at the same rate as a stand alone player, just as those who use the PS3 as such still mostly use it for games.

Second you're crazy if you think a Studio even considers 1 person buying 1M units. Studios care about reality. They spend millions on research groups to go out and find them realistic numbers. Studios have a number of units they want to sell of every title. They have a promised land they want to reach. The research they get shows them how they can reach that point.

They know they are more likely to reach that point with 1M players vs 1. It's common sense. They care greatly right now about players. Because currently software sales are nothing.

Before you think I'm over dramatizing the sales numbers:

Title A sells $1M in DVD sales for week 1.
Title A sells $33k in BD sales for week 1.
Title A sells $19k in HD DVD sales for week 1.

That is how it would look right now. Even Transformers in a week did something like $166M in DVD sales and $3.4M in HD DVD. So the best titles have noticable figures but they still pale in comparison to DVD.

That is why from a stock perspective lots of Disney stock holders keep bringing up "why aren't we neutral?" in every yearly meeting. WB is brilliant imho because they double dip. Sure it's still pennies to the Studios, but what they're doing promotes growth in both formats and again double dips. 300 has sold amazingly well on both formats.

So sales numbers are so low right now all Studios care about is making that number bigger and who can get them there. They know that realistically the one with more stand alone players will do so.

If there had been no PS3 this war would have ended last January and Studios would have been jumping off the BD ship before it sank.

I loved Sony. Consider this:

Sony used to sell more TVs than all the competition combined.
Sony was number 1 in the Console Wars.

Forget Beta, MD, SACD, etc. Sony was the king. They were TV gods. The word "Trinitron," used to be a household name.

They are no longer the TV gods they once were. Vizio of all people has taken over the LCD flat panel market, Samsung has taken a giant chunk out of the TV picture. Sony is no longer Sony. In the Console market, they are 3rd. They're happy about brisk holiday sales, but those numbers are still third best.

The market has changed since Sony was a CE God. "Cheap," but well built controls the market place. Vizio makes an alright TV, and a great one for the price.

Downloadable music has taken over and it too is cheap.

Those cheap HD DVD players mean that the market is quickly going to start buying them up and there isn't much the enthusiasts can do about it.

On paper I'm a firm believer in BD, but in practice HD DVD isn't that bad at all. I'm hoping the new 34GB and 51GB discs work swell, because all that would hold it back is bandwidth and with compression getting better... if I have to settle, HD DVD isn't that bad.

[DaViD Boulet]

On paper I'm a firm believer in BD, but in practice HD DVD isn't that bad at all. I'm hoping the new 34GB and 51GB discs work swell, because all that would hold it back is bandwidth and with compression getting better... if I have to settle, HD DVD isn't that bad.

is this a joke? You support HD DVD with a passionate vengence, leaving no room in any of your posts for any BD sympathies. Have you been reading your own posts?