Video Asylum

Posted by Audiophilander (A) on December 10, 2007 at 21:38:27

In Reply to: RE: The bottom line for the studios are comparisons of software sales. posted by oscar on December 10, 2007 at 05:44:26

>>> "OTOH, it's hard to exclude the "PS3 effect". If you exclude the PS3, the attach rate for Blu-ray is far higher than for HD DVD. A partially valid reason why is that someone willing to put up $400 for a player is FAR more likely to then spend $30/movie than someone who bought $98 Toshibas. A more reasonable conclusion is the PS3 actually has a pretty decent attach rate." <<<

I think the argument about buying $400 players as opposed to $98 players could be turned completely around and assessed from the target demographic standpoint. It's far more likely that Joe Public, who both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD coalitions would dearly like to lure in & hook with their products, is not going to purchase $400 video players in any appreciable quantity regardless of the bells and whistles. That's still firmly ensconced in niche market and early adopter territory.

The free disc offers, which are still going on as I understand it, are certainly an enticement for purchasing players in both formats, but since the 5 free disc offers were the same for the $98 players on Black Friday as they are for the $400 players it doesn't take a math professor to see which deal is the most attractive!

It's also logical that most PS3 game consoles that also play Blu-ray discs will be used primarily as designed, for games, while Blu-ray and HD-DVD players specifically designed for that purpose will be more reflective of the actual market incursion for both formats.

Logic dictates that BR & HD disc sales will fluctuate dependent upon the popularity of the titles available. The only real indicators of market share worth comparing would logically be titles released on the same day on both formats at the same price point.

And Oscar, when you say "$30/movie" (I'll try to do this with just the right Soprano-style 'New Joyzie' accent) "If yer talkin' uhbout doze bozos whoze payin' da whole MSRP tribute, fuhgetaboutit. Dey wize'dup!" :o)

Seriously, movie collectors who buy HD or Blu-ray DVDs would have to be a few gigabytes shy of a full standard definition signal to ignore all of the loss-leader promotional sales offers and internet discounts. Heck, during the recent semi-annual Deep Discount extra 20% off SALE one could purchase a $30 HD-DVD and Blu-ray title (that's MSRP) for significantly less, usually well under $20 each with free shipping; in some cases, under $15! That's in the same ball-park as standard DVD prices just a couple of years ago.

And while I have no way of verifying the actual HD disc sales numbers, I'm confident that folks were buying large quantities of HD-DVD titles (and I assume Blu-ray as well) from Deep Discount on-line several weeks ago because the in stock HD-DVD titles that I purchased went to back-order very quickly while standard NTSC 480P DVDs remained in stock much longer (note: I'm still waiting on 2001 in HD, but all the rest arrived within a couple of weeks). I presume that these sales figures will show up in earnings reports for the next quarter.

>>> "Hard to judge since most PS3s are actually used to play games." <<<

This would be my assessment as well.

Cheers,
AuPh

Edits: 12/10/07   12/10/07   12/10/07