Sony’s master plan looks like it’s starting to unfold...
Despite all the negative press over the Playstation 3 and it’s sluggish sales here in the USA, the Playstation 3 is having a major impact on next generation DVD sales.
The industry questioned why Sony would sacrifice so much just to put a new unproven BluRay DVD Rom drive into the Playstation 3. There’s no doubt that gamble cost them big in the short term. However with new sales figures coming in on next generation DVD sales, Sony may have the last laugh.
Retail BluRay disc players sell for $900-$1000 USD where as HD-DVD players cost $500-$600 USD. Last year HD-DVD hit the market first because of component supply problems for BluRay player manufacturing. HD-DVD also had a price advantage and stronger brand recognition with ‘DVD’ being in the brand name. Movie houses lined up behind one disc or the other with some behind both. Once the first generation players hit the market, early reviews showed the BluRay disc’s not being very durable. Early BluRay releases were using the very old mpeg2 compressions instead of the new state of the art H-264 making BluRay’s video quality looked sub standard as well.
For the Holidays, Microsoft launched the add-on HD-DVD ROM player for the Xbox 360. With an install base of 5 million units, the $199 add-on seemed like it would give HD-DVD a great edge. Indeed going into the holiday season, many retailers were reporting very strong HD-DVD sales, far surpassing BluRay.
The latest sales figures for January, however, show things have changed. According to consumer research group Nielson VideoScan, BluRay outsold HD-DVD 2 to 1 the first week of January. Now that the second week results are in, that lead has increased to 3 to 1 or for every 100 BluRay movies sold, 38.36 HD-DVD movies are being sold.
With the Playstation 3 coming with BluRay built in, it seems that many new console owners are giving the new BluRay movies a try. In fact a recent survey done by Sony showed that out of 100,000 who responded, 90% of them had watched a BluRay movie on their Playstation 3. This isn’t the first time Sony has been instrumental in a media migration, the Playstation 2 was the machine that converted many people over to DVD from VHS. Are we going to see history repeat itself and Sony get the last laugh?
The industry questioned why Sony would sacrifice so much just to put a new unproven BluRay DVD Rom drive into the Playstation 3. There’s no doubt that gamble cost them big in the short term. However with new sales figures coming in on next generation DVD sales, Sony may have the last laugh.
Retail BluRay disc players sell for $900-$1000 USD where as HD-DVD players cost $500-$600 USD. Last year HD-DVD hit the market first because of component supply problems for BluRay player manufacturing. HD-DVD also had a price advantage and stronger brand recognition with ‘DVD’ being in the brand name. Movie houses lined up behind one disc or the other with some behind both. Once the first generation players hit the market, early reviews showed the BluRay disc’s not being very durable. Early BluRay releases were using the very old mpeg2 compressions instead of the new state of the art H-264 making BluRay’s video quality looked sub standard as well.
For the Holidays, Microsoft launched the add-on HD-DVD ROM player for the Xbox 360. With an install base of 5 million units, the $199 add-on seemed like it would give HD-DVD a great edge. Indeed going into the holiday season, many retailers were reporting very strong HD-DVD sales, far surpassing BluRay.
The latest sales figures for January, however, show things have changed. According to consumer research group Nielson VideoScan, BluRay outsold HD-DVD 2 to 1 the first week of January. Now that the second week results are in, that lead has increased to 3 to 1 or for every 100 BluRay movies sold, 38.36 HD-DVD movies are being sold.
With the Playstation 3 coming with BluRay built in, it seems that many new console owners are giving the new BluRay movies a try. In fact a recent survey done by Sony showed that out of 100,000 who responded, 90% of them had watched a BluRay movie on their Playstation 3. This isn’t the first time Sony has been instrumental in a media migration, the Playstation 2 was the machine that converted many people over to DVD from VHS. Are we going to see history repeat itself and Sony get the last laugh?
