HD DVD Rallies Consumer Audience in 2007 Driving Nearly One Million Dedicated Player Sales in North America

film11 · Post by **film11** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:50 pm

stevekaden wrote:
But it's just crazy to argue for HD DVD anymore - as much as I am addicted to reading this and other forums. The market has been stomped. Sales of players were just shown to have dropped massively, even with price drops.

First, sales number from the price drops aren't in yet.

As for the stomping, apparently those sales figures have been "misconstrued" (to put it graciously) by those Blue Meanies. See below:

NPD: Free Blu-ray player deals led to boosted sales this month
By Nate Mook, BetaNews
January 24, 2008, 2:46 PM

A report from NPD Group claimed Blu-ray standalone player sales accounted for 93 percent of the high-def market for the week ending January 12, but NPD itself won't stand behind the numbers, saying they were leaked and that weekly sales data is not a long-term indicator.

According to Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD, the data "came from an NPD subscriber" and "wasn't approved for release from NPD." He added that the firm typically sees big fluctuations in sales volumes each week, and never makes long-term judgements based on weekly data.
"It reflects what was going on during that week," Baker said, adding that it wasn't smart to "extrapolate that out for six months."

So what went on the week ending January 12 that led to such high numbers in Blu-ray standalone player sales? Bundling deals with HDTVs, explained Baker. Sharp Blu-ray players accounted for over 30% of sales, as they were offered free to buyers of the company's LCD televisions.
Sony -- also accounting for one-third of sales -- had a similar $400-off deal for Blu-ray players when buying a Sony HDTV.

Panasonic, like Sharp, offered a free Blu-ray player and made up for the remaining third of units sold. Samsung Blu-ray sales were almost non-existent, as the company did not offer any special deals to TV buyers.
The NPD figures did not include Sony's PlayStation 3 or Microsoft's HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 -- only standalone players.

Baker wouldn't get specific -- since NPD normally never even comments on weekly sales data -- but said there was some drop in HD DVD player sales. For its part, the HD DVD Promotional Group told BetaNews the weekly sales data was from before the HD DVD player price drop Toshiba announced last week.

Baker did provide BetaNews some insight as to how NPD counts sales. It receives its data from point-of-sale systems from a number of retail outlets across the United States. He would not say how many retailers send data to NPD, but said it was "double digits."

NPD's numbers do not include online sales from the likes of Amazon, where Toshiba's HD-A3 HD DVD player is the number one seller in the DVD player category and number 14 in all of electronics. By contrast, standalone Blu-ray players do not make the electronics list.

http://www.betanews.com/article/NPD_...nth/1201203983

stevekaden · Post by **stevekaden** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:32 pm

Stomped.

I stand on my trite comment, accurate references or not. film11 is just building my case: Once bundling and any other deal you want to describe makes a sale...the buyer's best friend sees it... and they then go buy the same thing. (Probably before the first buyer starts cranking about the downsides). I'm sure there was a lot of that in the PS3 context, backed by the good reviews (it doesn't seem to be the games that sold it!).

BR is now an unrestrained choice to the non-particular customer. The one that just wants to feel secure in their purchase. HD DVD is seriously tainted with insecurity and as friends sell friends in BR, it will be the opposite in HD DVD...negative rumors (if not reality) will fly like the wind.

Niche, the best we can dream of.

pmalter0 · Post by **pmalter0** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:43 am

stevekaden wrote:Stomped.

Niche, the best we can dream of.

Don't give up the ship.... yet. It usually takes quite a while from the time of the unlawful act until the filing of an antitrust lawsuit. Although in this case, inasmuch as the damage is already being felt, I would expect a more rapid filing or a leak to the press. Moreover, even if an antitrust action is not filed, if someone can break the BR copy protection, the studios' anti-competitive conduct would be an excellent defense to a copyright infringement action(but..alas, I think it's also illegal).

Disclaimer: Although at one time I was a partner in a law firm that did antitrust work, I am now semi retired and limiting my practice to only representing municipalities (long-term clients only) against the natural gas industry.

Phil

stevekaden · Post by **stevekaden** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:54 am

Another old saying: At the same time, make peace like there is no war, make war as if there was no peace. I posit the "stomped' case. But I have not given up - ergo that last player, and I'm snatching up discs as much as I can (though mostly used or sales). I am hoping for the best, but have a rational to cover my spending, I try to talk that up to my (few) HD DVD friends (most of which hardly have bought any discs!!!).

akirby · Post by **akirby** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:08 am

stevekaden wrote:I try to talk that up to my (few) HD DVD friends (most of which hardly have bought any discs!!!).

And there you have the crux of the problem. Very few people are willing to make a big investment either way right now.

Is there any reason why the features that everyone loves on HD DVD can't be added to the Blu-Ray specs and players? Wouldn't that solve the problem? Or it really just the "I hate Sony" syndrome?

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:17 am

Don't think the hardware fully supports the HD DVD standard - PIP specifically. That said I don't see why the blu-ray camp would allow it since that is exactly what this war was about; royalties, not only for Toshiba or Sony but for the benefactors as well which includes all the software.

akirby · Post by **akirby** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:18 am

Seems to me it would be in the best interest of Toshiba to partner with Sony at this point (if they're willing) as opposed to stubbornly holding on to a format with little to no studio backing.

free2speak · Post by **free2speak** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:19 pm

Xbox 360 VS PS3 developing

Everything I have read indicates PS3 is significantly more difficult to program. The Cell is a radically different CPU, and I am not saying that is a good thing. On paper it looks like a killer, but developers have serious problems programming it. Some of this is due to poor development kits provided by Sony. I also read a developers blog a year before the PS3 launched. The developers took Sony to task about the PS3 design. A very fast powerful (7) core CPU tied to a small data pipeline. The developers said it wouldn't work, but Sony said it would if you do it their way. PS3 Madden runs at 30FPS and Xbox 360 Madden runs at 60FPS maybe a result.

Xbox 360 with its 3 core CPU is easy. Microsoft produced a strong developer kit. Moving from PC to Xbox 360 is supposed to be easy. Xbox 360 launched a year early and established a large volume of high quality games. By the time PS3 shipped developers were already working on 3rd generation Xbox 360 titles. Xbox 360 has become the dominant development platform because of this. EA announced last year that Xbox 360 was their lead development platform. This also means the PS3 power is not used. PS3 has lost most of the exclusives that made Playstation special. Sales of Xbox 360 games are significantly higher than PS3 which will continue the trend. Game developers last year scrambled to develop Wii games as it dominates hardware sales, but originally developers planned to skip Nintendo again. Nintendo continues to have the best games on Nintendo game consoles. Wii is also supposed to be easy to program.

free2speak · Post by **free2speak** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:29 pm

We will see if HD DVD gets "stomped" by the end of the year. But we will know better even if the worst comes true. I will use my HD-A2 for years to come. The best $99 DVD (HD DVD) player I could have purchased. I just can't see $149 HD DVD players not selling at Walmart. "Um, excuse me can you point me to the $399 Blu-Ray players?" Can you see it? Is there a recession coming here in the USA? I better buy an expensive HD movie player.

Don't give up the ship just yet. I intend to buy some HD DVD movies this year and rent some more from Netflix. I have Comcast HD On Demand and Xbox 360 Live! for even more. I am certainly not going to run crying and buying a new Sony Blu-Ray player this year.

stevekaden · Post by **stevekaden** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:55 pm

One of my fears is that there will no longer be casual HD DVD outlets. Amazon, sure as long as there are discs available. But, for example Best Buy...the one I was in 2 days ago has already shrunk their HD DVD space to about 5 feet. BR - about 20 feet. If this is where the retailers go...people will not even know HD DVD is there, and buy BR players or...if the money is not there, upconverting SD players.

Funny, arguably the best of those are HD DVD players.