News from the front in the format wars: just two weeks after its release, 100,000 copies of the Blu-ray edition of Casino Royale have shipped, the first time any high-definition DVD title has hit that benchmark. This is where people start kicking the word "milestone" around because this comes just nine months after the first Blu-ray discs started to appear; however, it took eleven months for the first DVD title to sell that many units.
Blu-ray boosters have a right to be crowing, I suppose, but I can't help wondering: how much sooner would this milestone have been hit if there were one unified hi-def disc format? I'm just askin'.
Meanwhile, Sony bashers might want to concede that, for all of last year's missteps and misfortunes, Sony might have had the right idea when it came to hitching the Blu-ray format to its PlayStation 3. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) reports that Blu-ray movie sales increased more than sevenfold after the PS3's launch, while Blu-ray "has accounted for approximately 70 percent of the high-definition market since the first week in January," according to SPHE Worldwide prez David Bishop. Which, I suppose, boils down to two words for the HD DVD camp: It's on!
I keep seeing this 100,000 statistic everywhere, and I think it's pretty misleading. 100,000 discs have SHIPPED. Congratulations, there's probably what, 80,000 of them sitting on shelves? Either we need to use the correct measurement (100,000 SOLD) or wait for the format to actually set this record.
It doesn't really matter how many have sold to consumers. As far as the retail industry is concerned, as soon as they hit the warehouse they are paid for.
As far as Sony is concerned, and as far as the movie studio is concerned, 100,000 copies shipped is 100,000 copies sold. When the movie studio calculates the ammount of money that a film has made, they don't use the $25 per disc sales of the Blu-Ray disc, they use the price that the retailer paid for the disc, a number that is nearly 200% less than that $25.
That said, I agree that this is less of a milestone if 80,000 of those units remain on the shelf, however, consider this:
The combined buying power of the national DVD retail industry has decided that they can sell 100,000 copies of a Blu-Ray disc before an HD-DVD.
I love the way statistical numbers are interprited and miss understood. The only reason that Blu-Ray is selling more discs is because of the Playstation 3. Now while I agree that it was a shrewd move on Sony's part to iclude a Blu-Ray player with their game deck, it only means that the current consumers of Blu-Ray movies, are gamers, which I would dare to guess, is a small part of the potential market. The general public, of which I belong to, is afraid of chosing the wrong format and being stuck with the Disc version of the Betamax Machine, so we are keeping untold millions of dollars in our pockets until there is a decisive winner.
Also, the 100,000 shipped Casino Royal Discs is deceiving, because of the fact that Casino Royal is the movie included with the Eourpean release of the Playstation 3, again numbers that only reflect the Gaming Consumer.
I have no interest in which format prevails, but until I am sure of the future, I will be keeping my money in my wallet.
That's not a completely fair assessment either Xenovic. I know 3 people personally who really aren't gamers but bought the PS3 for the cheap blu-ray player. Now, that isn't to say it was a smart decision necessarily, but to say that only gamers are making the HD market go in blu-rays favor isn't quite correct either. Also, gamers make up a huge share of the market. For instance, you walk into many houses these days and you find either a PS2 or and XBOX. Now we are moving to the next-gen as they say with the 360 or the PS3. Hopefully the format war will be over soon so we can start purchasing HD movies without worry. I for one am a PS2 user and like the PS3 as well and personally have noticed that blu-ray looks better, but I don't like the fact that Sony is basically at fault for the format war in the first place.
At least we can hope this ends soon and we can see movies in HD in the correct format......whichever format it is.