HD-DVD vs BlueRay Format War and Merry Christmas 2007?

Question

Why does Sony and Disney have to ruin this Holiday season with their MONOPOLY? I have loved Sony's quality but now am regretting a recent Sony HDTV purchase (and contributionbefore I realized there was an HD format war-stupid me). All of the major movie producers are willing to use a standardized format for HD but Sony wants to corner the HD market now by owning MGM, 20th Century and getting in bed with Disney. This is more dangerous in my mind than when MicroSoft took over the PC market because MS was still producing all content for even Apple computers! If you want to pay inflated prices for HD the rest of your life just go with Blu Ray!!! Disney and Sony can KMA! I'll buy whatever is on HD-DVD and UPCONVERT the rest of my standard DVDs. Don't even answer with COMPARISONS - I already know specs. With multilayering capacity is irrelevant and HD-DVD minimum performance requirements are HIGHER.
This season I'll be watching Transformers in HD, not Pirates of the C. !!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

The reality is that even though Blu-ray players are in more than 5 times as many households as HD-DVD players (when you count the PS3...and the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive for that matter), Blu-ray discs are only outselling HD-DVDs 2 to 1. It should be much wider; if it was, more studios would be backing only Blu-ray by now. Although Blu-ray is probably the superior technology and has the edge the PS3 has given them, HD-DVD players are coming down in price faster, and that could make a very big difference now that HDTV penetration has really taken off based on coming down in price themselves.

EDIT: The PS3 is now around 2 million units in the U.S. I am basing this on NPD sales data...do a google search, you should be able to piece together those numbers based on cumulative sales by a certain month and adding on single month sales reported since then.

All else I know is that
- Standalone HD-DVD players crossed the 100K sales mark before standalone Blu-ray players (happened in March or so I think)
- The Xbox 360 external HD-DVD drive sold 42K its first month on the market (November 2006). I thought I read elsewhere that the December sales brough the cumulative to nearly 100K.

I am guessing standalone Blu-ray players have now sold probably 125K or so. Standalone HD-DVD players have probably sold closer to 200K, and the Xbox 360 drive another 250K I would imagine.

Answer 2

Boss, you are correct on that sales information, it's roughly two (maybe even 3 or slightly more) to one, but, as for the next answer, I'm not sure that Blue Ray even has a two to one sales ratio in films (by the way, I have never heard 5 to 1 Blue Ray, I could be wrong, I just read something and I don't recall that number, I recall Blue Ray having more units, but that is including PS3s in that figure). That number, as was stated, includes PS3. The problem with that is not everyone purchased a PS3 for the Blue Ray, nor do they take advantage of it. When people own an HD DVD player, whether it's the 360 add on or a stand alone player, they obviously buy it to watch HD DVDs, as other uses are obviously limited.

If I recall, in the same article stating sales of HD players, if not in another recent article, it was noted that attachment rates were much better for HD DVD players, and largely due to the fact that when people buy HD DVD players, they are doing so exclusively to watch the movies, many Blue Ray owners own the player because it is part of the PS3 that they wanted to own for the games, maybe even HD gaming, but not necessarily for HD movies.

I am curious to see what happens from here. I know Dreamworks and one of the other bigger studios just signed with HD DVD, which makes me wonder why if Blue Ray was really looking to be the winner here. I would love to know how many dedicated Blue Ray players have been sold, as that would potentially be a more accurate number to compare to all HD DVD players, as they are all dedicated. Or even the median number of dedicated Blue Ray and then all Blue Ray players (as in dedicated and PS3), that would be a more accurate number to look at in my opinion.

As for upconverting, it is a beautiful thing. I just use my Xbox 360 ( I have no HD player and I'm waiting to see where this format war goes). The difference really is impressive, I didn't really appreciate it until I went back and watched a movie on a regular DVD player.

Answer 3

When you ask these kind of questions you get a bunch of sony fanboys answering. They are the kind of person that would buy sony anything now matter how crapy it is. I own Both Hd-dvd and Blu Ray and the FACT is that HD-DVD is the better product. I hope they win out because HD-DVD is less costly, Has less glitches, More user friendly.

Answer 4

Long live the HD-DVD! There is no contest between either Transformers and Bourne Ultimatum in HD vs Pirates of the Carribean 3(Keira Knightly killed that movie) in Blu ray. Besides i dont wana support sony anymore or anything japanese, except for the HD-DVD players. FOR ALL YOU PRO HD-DVD PEOPLE CHECK THIS OUT.
http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/blu-rays-dirty-little-secret

Answer 5

so you chose HD-DVD over BD.
well youre completlely wrong. around 95% of movie producers supports BD thats because of the capacity and sony's good support.
plus i guess we should annouce the BD the winner of this war you know why?
cause BD sold more than HD-DVD... way way more! like 2 on 1. BD sold around 1M and somethin(i dont know maybe 400 or 500k) ... but HD-DVD only sold around 700K.