Consumer apathy? Declining HD-DVD & BD Sales

Tejstar

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I came across an interesting article from DailyTech, which managed to get hold of a slide from a recent Sony presentation. I've attached the graph below and it seems to show that sales volumes for both BD and HD DVD are in decline, with BD especially showing a steep decline.

5901_large_bd.jpg


It seems to clearly show that people are bored of the format war...
 
or that people have purchased the back catalogue titles they were after and are being starved of new releases that they want?
 
or that people have purchased the back catalogue titles they were after and are being starved of new releases that they want?

I think your closer to the mark imo........ but i am struggling to see the dates for the large BD decline..... Paramount Maybe ??
 
or that people have purchased the back catalogue titles they were after and are being starved of new releases that they want?

I think that's it.

I haven't bought any new discs for ages simply cos there's nowt I want to buy.
 
I think someone on AVS pointed out that the graph only illustrates sales until the start of May!? The big peak about half way through was Casino Royale in March (i think).
 
I agree with the previous posts.

There just aren't many must have releases at the moment.
 
I think you may have a point there, however the recent release of Heroes will show a sharp increase again for HDDVD I would imagine. Blueray may well fall away with the recent news of distriburtors backing HDDVD only though.

As pointed out above, there hasn't been a great deal of big hitting releases recently, but hopefully that will change shortly.
 
If correct that the back catalogues have now been bought and we are just waiting on new releases... (which makes a lot of sense to me) then both sides may also pick up back catalogue sales towards the end of this year as dual format machines come more readily avaliable and previously single format owners can then stock up on the exclusive back catalogues.

As for customer apathy... more like the usual summer lull after what was the launch periods, too many people on the beach IMO, that's all?? :D
 
If this is recent (from CEDIA) then I wonder why they stopped at May?

Surely they must have numbers up to August. I would say my HD purchase

numbers have been fairly consistant over the months but as others have said

I'm now waiting for new releases, of which there are many in the run up to

Christmas. If they got more releases out day and date then I'm sure that

would help. A good example for me would be Battlestar Galactica Season 3, if

the HD version was available for me buy now then I would buy it, as it

stands I'm just going to pick up the DVD at some point as I don't really

want to wait.
 
When you buy a new player you look at what's available, and buy what you want - maybe spread out over a few months if there's too much to buy all at once.

Then you just buy stuff as it comes out.

So there's bound to be a lot of early heaby buying, followed by a levelling out.

I'm not apathetic - I'm just choosy. There are only 2 or 3 discs for the remainder of this month that I want: 'A Few Good Men' BD on the 18th and 'The Wild Bunch' HD DVD on the 25th (and maybe 'Black Book' BD on the same day).

Then of course we'll see dozens of titles I'd like all released at once, just before Christmas. :rolleyes:

Steve W
 
If this is recent (from CEDIA) then I wonder why they stopped at May?

Surely they must have numbers up to August.

I would imagine they have their reasons.

This was a graph shown at a presentation by one side of a format war, saying how well they thought they were doing in that war vs the other side.

BTW, no bias from me here. I'm sure the other side's graphs would be just as skewed.

Basically, I'd only trust info from an independent source, rather than Toshiba/Sony/Universal/Fox.

I'm not saying ignore these people - just take what they say with a pinch of salt.

Steve W
 
I think the graph has more to do with releases. December would have been high thanks to the sony giving discs away with the ps3 plus people buying disc's for their new toy.

As either format is far far away from mass market, a single release (i.e. 300) can make a huge difference to the sales. Just wait for the months that Die Hard 4.0, Transformers, Bourne, Harry Potter etc get released for another surge.
 
I think you may have a point there, however the recent release of Heroes will show a sharp increase again for HDDVD I would imagine. Blueray may well fall away with the recent news of distriburtors backing HDDVD only though.

As pointed out above, there hasn't been a great deal of big hitting releases recently, but hopefully that will change shortly.

The BD graph shows larger peaks and toughs because they sell significantly more titles when a big title hits the stores.

Looking at the coming months BD has a very healthy release slate and should increase their lead to 3-1.
 
If correct that the back catalogues have now been bought and we are just waiting on new releases... (which makes a lot of sense to me) then both sides may also pick up back catalogue sales towards the end of this year as dual format machines come more readily avaliable and previously single format owners can then stock up on the exclusive back catalogues.

As for customer apathy... more like the usual summer lull after what was the launch periods, too many people on the beach IMO, that's all?? :D

I wish i was :)
 
Looking at the reports from Cedia there seems to be a general apathy from all angles CE's and consumers alike.

I've found the coverage very disapointing if i'm honest. There's been very little firm information about either sides new players. No specs, no dates, just some time in october maybe. I'm not even sure i've seen anything showing any of these forthcoming players actually running, or even plugged in!

Surely with just over a month to street, they should be up and running, not just shiny boxes on a shelf?
 
Looking at the reports from Cedia there seems to be a general apathy from all angles CE's and consumers alike.

I've found the coverage very disapointing if i'm honest. There's been very little firm information about either sides new players. No specs, no dates, just some time in october maybe. I'm not even sure i've seen anything showing any of these forthcoming players actually running, or even plugged in!

Surely with just over a month to street, they should be up and running, not just shiny boxes on a shelf?

A locked Perspex box for half of them.... wonder if they have any guts in them.... litterely ??
 
I agree with other posters here regarding new releases. At one point I was buying 6-8 discs a week for both formats.

Now I have bought all of the back catalogue releases I want, I am strugggling to order 5 a month.

Really very disappointing release schedules from both formats. You'd think the studios would be ramping things up around now, but I don't see any sign of it.

I actually bought more bog standard DVDs in the past two weeks.
 
It's probably only repeating the incredibly obvious, but the launch of both HD formats has been very badly handled.

I pre-ordered my XE1 from Richer Sounds and bought my first HD DVD disc late last year - the player wasn't in stock until the end of April !

For the vast majority of people it really doesn't make a lot of sense spending 45 Euros on a HD disc in HMV when the same new release is 20 Euros on SD.

My first dvd player was a Pioneer 505, and when I bought it 9 years ago, even though the format was new I was able to bring it home, connect it to my TV and Amp and it worked straight away, not a technical hitch or firmware upgrade in sight.

The other thing was that you could order discs from the States, some of which weren't even out in the cinema here yet, never mind on video.

Because of these kinds of things you felt excited to be in at the start of something which seemed special. Nowadays all I feel is slightly cheesed off having to buy another DVD player because neither my XE1 or PS3 can play half of my DVD collection.

Ah, the joys of being an early adopter........
 
It's probably only repeating the incredibly obvious, but the launch of both HD formats has been very badly handled.

I doubt very much that you're going to provoke open warfare with that statement. :smashin:

Steve W
 
The BD graph shows larger peaks and toughs because they sell significantly more titles when a big title hits the stores.

Looking at the coming months BD has a very healthy release slate and should increase their lead to 3-1.

I can't see any chance of Blu-ray leading 3:1 over the next few months. The blu-ray release list is only bigger at the moment because Warner, Paramount and Universal havn't annouced most of their titles yet, there is at least another 75 unannouced.

Blu-ray do have a strong big 3, spiderman 3, Diehard 4 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Made 776,951,080 at the US cinemas) but HD-DVD's big 3 is at least equal with Transformers, Shrek 3 and Borne Ultimatium. (Made 791,889,277 at the US cinemas)
 
Guys let's not turn this into a format war thread:lease:

It is not the subject here.
 
I agree with other posters here regarding new releases. At one point I was buying 6-8 discs a week for both formats.

Now I have bought all of the back catalogue releases I want, I am strugggling to order 5 a month.

Really very disappointing release schedules from both formats. You'd think the studios would be ramping things up around now, but I don't see any sign of it.

I actually bought more bog standard DVDs in the past two weeks.

I've not brought many over the year either but I see that ending very quickly.

I'll be buying

Transformers
Top Gun
Oceans 11,12,13
Harry potter 1,2,3,4,5
Shrek 1?,2?,3
Bourne Ultimatium
Knocked Up
Battlestar Galactica
Pride & Prejudice (for my wife)

and that's before the majority of the Q4 HD-DVD releases have been announced.

If we manage to see a dual format player that meets profile 1.1+ then I'll have loads of Blu-ray to catch up on too, far more money than I can spend on disks over a quarter.
 

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