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In Reply to: James Bond rules, Blue ray is no 13 in UK posted by Ole Lund Christensen on March 18, 2007 at 01:46:40:
a disc media that can't be played on any current machines. a media that cost more than the current dvd. a media, who's avatar player isn't launched in europe yet. in a market that's not prone to giving in to hype. a movie that did ok, but not sensationally great unlike the ring or star wars trilogy. yet a disc that sell as many as this report is trying to suggest?
Follow Ups:
Apart from the highly significant factual error ("a disc media that can't be played on any current machine"—if true, that would have given some bite to your comments), your claims range from questionable to irrelevant in terms of impact on disc sales in any given market:"a media that cost more than the current dvd."—I think all new media cost more than the existing standard, the price hike seems almost obligatory. That has affected sales adversely in some cases and apparently not in others. SACD costs more than CD and hasn't done too well. I seem to remember CDs costing more than LPs and CDs quite effectively supplanted the LP. A higher cost for the new media may slow its uptake but even when that occurs, there will always be some releases that simply take off regardless. It looks like Casino Royale is one of them.
" a media, who's avatar player isn't launched in europe yet."—maybe gaming isn't as big in Europe as it is in the US, or in Singapore where you are or the group that are interested in movies may not strongly overlap the group interested in gaming, so the fact that the PS3 hasn't been released may not be critical. In any event, there are obviously enough players available in the UK to support these kind of disc sales when the film is locally popular.
" in a market that's not prone to giving in to hype."—not certain how this affects the argument but it obviously isn't affecting sales." a movie that did ok, but not sensationally great unlike the ring or star wars trilogy. yet a disc that sell as many as this report is trying to suggest"—well, let's list the relevant factors starting with the fact that it's a film which has a very strong local market, possibly a stronger UK market than the Star Wars trilogy but maybe not as strong as LOTR. Neither the Star Wars or LOTR movies are available in high def format but Casino Royale is, and it obviously is something that appeals to the majority of UK customers who have BD players. And, as with all early adopters of new media, they're all looking for discs to show off their new hardware. That's what probably explains the rush on Casino Royale, simply the right disc at the right time in that particular market.
I don't know what the state of BD releases is in the UK but here in Australia there definitely aren't as many discs available as in the US and a lot of the discs that would interest me if I had a BD player haven't yet been released in Australia. There may be a similar situation in the UK, so the release of Casino Royale on BD there may also be regarded as a bigger thing than it would if a wider range of films were available on BD there. If the film choice is artificially restricted as it is here in Australia where a lot of films available overseas are not locally available, then the release of a film with strong local appeal is probably going to generate stronger sales than one would otherwise expect because there isn't a strong range of competing films with local appeal to provide competition and soak up some of the consumer's dollars. If the situation in the UK is similar to here with regard to releases, the distributors of Casino Royale definitely struck lucky on this point also.
I get the feeling that you're a fence sitter with respect to the new HD disc formats and have strong reservations about both HD-DVD and BD. That's fine but don't make the mistake of thinking that the majority of people agree with you. In this case the majority still haven't moved to one of the new formats, only part of the early adopter minority. That minority, however, definitely don't think like you do about the new formats and it's obvious that the UK contingent of that minority don't have the same taste in movies as you do.
PS— I don't have a high def disc player but if I were to buy one, I'd opt for BD at this stage. The reasons I haven't are the cost of the first generation machines, the fact that no BD machine available at this stage seems to handle the new lossless soundtrack formats so they don't deliver the best audio available from some films, and the lack of software that appeals to me. If the software availability picks up and prices come down enough with the second generation machines, I might be tempted later this year depending on the state of my wallet. In the meantime I'm glad to see either format do well on disc sales because if neither does, then player prices won't come down and movie availability won't keep improving. I'd like to see high def be successful, and I'd also like to see an end to the format war. Obviously my views give me a different outlook on the Casino Royale sales figures to the one you have.
David Aiken
< < I get the feeling that you're a fence sitter with respect to the new HD disc formats and have strong reservations about both HD-DVD and BD. That's fine but don't make the mistake of thinking that the majority of people agree with you. > >for your info, i already owned a PS3 and a couple of stand-alone players, going into a receiver fully capable of extracting the uncompressed LPCM audio. i have on hand 8 BD titles. check the archives here before falling into the wrong conclusions, will ya?
the UK public aren't the ones buying up this CR BD title. It's one of the manufacturer who is stocking up the title for their impending format avatar player/gamer launch. instead of getting the stock directly from their sister studio company, they are opting to get it from a high profile online retailer at virtually the same industry accomodation cost (prior negotiation), then posting the qty they acquired as a "retail triumph". it's disgusting, but it is not the first time something like this have happened for this company. remember the fake expert movie review fiasco 3 years ago? still, it is a marketing masterstroke, and i wish i have thought of it 3 years ago. i myself have bought and sold more than 45 thousand copies of sacd sampler for similar bundling / product intro purposes.here's some figures: we used 45 thousand copies of sacd in asia alone. japan, us and europe have bigger sales qty, so let's conservatively say they all used double the qty of sacd samplers we used. that's 45k + (90k x 3), totalling close to 300k copies. maybe 2 or more other companies had similar sales promotion. and don't forget that rolling stones magazines gave away a sacd sampler for one of their issue back in 2005. so, maybe, ultra-conservatively, 900K copies of sacd sold were samplers for sales bundling purposes. did you know how many sacds were sold up to this very date? optimistically, just under 2 million copies? that means close to half of those were purchased for sales promotion and weren't purchased voluntarily by sacd luvers. Obviously my experiences give me a different outlook on the Casino Royale sales figures to the one you have.
looks like we are witnessing the same cycle all over again....
Well, it's a bit much to expect everyone to check the archives every time before writing a reply. Usually we all, probably including you, simply respond to posts on the basis of what's contained in them and how we read them. That's what I did here and I got something wrong.I'm sorry about the mistake but I can't be bothered querying the archives every time before I make a post. If I did I wouldn't make any posts whatsoever nor would most other people. We really don't have the time to read the current posts, then search the archives for everything a poster may have posted recently that is relevant. An inmate search indicates that you have made 1135 posts so how long would it take me to check them. An inmate search for me indicates 3058 posts but I've been posting here since just after the Asylum started up and I'd be prepared to bet that I've made more posts than that. How long did you spend searching the archives for stuff I've previously said that may be relevant to your response before you replied to me.
You've made a number of claims here and in your earlier post, and you haven't cited any evidence for them. Why should Sony buy a quantity of discs from Amazon to bundle with the PS3, especially when it happens to be a Sony disc? How plausible is that?
Conspiracy theories are all well and fine, but they really do have to be plausible. A lot of what you're saying here isn't plausible. That doesn't mean it can't be true but it does mean that your statements do require some back up evidence if you want people to take them seriously rather than simply regard them as mistaken.
David Aiken
Do you have evidence of this? I don't think Amazon is involved--certainly no signs of that from here.In the states, thousands of the initial PS3 at launch were bundled with Talledega Nights but we didn't see sales of that break the top 10 in Amazon.
Remember, Casino Royale BD hit #7 in the US, not in Europe, so I don't see how you can attribute the sales in the US to any deal in the UK. I think you need to look at the very real possibility that this is a blockbuster title on a superior format that caters to an audience making purchases online at a time when BD players are gaining increasing market penetration.
Not everyone buys their movies on Amazon. And it only makes sense that most BD adopters will buy titles online because unlike DVDs, very limited shelf space is set aside for BDs at the brick-and-mortars.
Several factors are surely at play, but without real evidence, I don't see how you can chalk up the success of CR BD to monkey business.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
> > > remember the fake expert movie review fiasco 3 years ago? < < <
I do. They got alot of flack for that.
Jack
I think blu-ray machines have been shipping in UK for months, and the PS3 is poised for release (the first 500,000 units will be bundled with Casino Royal BD). Also, this was a blockbuster title, one of the biggest theater draws in the past year. No big surprise that it is burning up the sales charts, both in blu-ray and standar DVD, upon its release. There is no conspiracy here.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
< < the PS3 is poised for release (the first 500,000 units will be bundled with Casino Royal BD). > >the copies being stock-up for bundling are counted as online sales. what a masterstroke!
I would think Sony Pictures sold the BDs to Sony Electronics at a greatly reduced price for bundling with the PS3. This has nothing to do with Amazon.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
previously with sacd, one can chalk up hybrid discs, even if one doesn't own a sacd player yet and listen to the dsd'd cd layer on (almost) any cd players. with bd you can't. strictly to work with bd players only, and the current market sentiment with regards to stand alone players is to "..wait and see, who will win this format..." only a very select few like you and me are shelving out hard-earned cash for BD movie discs. with the ps3, they are not even launched yet. the gamers whom the product is targeted towards are not the types likely to order the bd movie disc before getting their hands on the console. most likely culplit that is buying up this movie bd disc is the company that owns the film.
Let's see buy a HD-DVD/DVD combo for $30.00 or buy the standalone DVD for half the price for playback on my DVD player ? And if I had a HD-DVD player, I wouldn't give two hoots about the DVD layer.
What if you have both types of players? What if you want to play it on an HD DVD player in your main viewing room, but also on the DVD player in your bedroom? or in the DVD player in your SUV, for the kids in the back? $30 (usually much cheaper at Amazon)is cheaper than the DVD + a normal HD DVD.
Personally, I agree, and don't care for them, but there are people who really do like them for the reasons mentioned above.
Jack
like Pursuit of Happyness and Rocky Balboa. Granted, those weren't nearly as popular as Casino Royale, but we'll see a similar ratio of BD:DVD sales during the opening week. Obviously there is a growing installed base of BD players and HDTVs. Maybe you're right--that probably can't account for all the sales we are seeing. Maybe collectors don't want to keep adding DVDs to their library because they may think BD has rendered standard DVDs obsolete. To go back to the SACD comparison, I know some people including yours truly who bought a couple single-layer SACDs before buying an SACD player, just to show interest in and support for the format.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
In UK a James Bond release is a major high society event. He is British you know :-)Are you suggesting, that the public did not buy these disc?
Anyway Blu ray players came to the UK market in October 2006.
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