HD DVD outsold Blu-ray 4 to 1 last year...in England
By Richard Lawler 
posted February 24th 2007 8:06PM
posted February 24th 2007 8:06PM
HD DVD might have lost the sales lead in the U.S. but like many acts that struggle for acceptance domestically, it can take solace in knowing that it's still topping European charts...for now. HDTV Org reports that UK figures show HD DVD outsold Blu-ray 4 to 1 in the period leading up to Christmas last year, helped by the fact that the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive was by far the most easily available HD player on the market. Unlike U.S. charts which have only provided ratios and no specific numbers, the British figures show just how small the market is at this point, with 8,200 HD DVD movies sold to Blu-ray's 1,834. We'll keep an eye on the market to see how it is affected by the launch of standalone players and the PlayStation 3 in March, and how well that tips the scales proportionally towards Blu-ray and how much total sales increase in general.
Also the reason why in January Bluray sold HD DVD 2:1 was because Niesel counted the Movie that came with the PS3 and the movies that where bough with $15 off coupon that all PS3's came with. HD DVD players still outsell Bluray players.
Nice addition Ed... here's my thoughts. I am getting fed up with Sony and the blu ray camp announcing they have won?! When so long as hd dvds are still being produced, and SOLD, then this is no more than wishful thinking, and propoganda! I think HD DVD is the superior format, as its the natural successor to dvd, it is cheaper to produce, and therefore to buy, and even provides superior sound and picture quality, as many reports suggest. Why bluray is getting so much attention just cos sony stick it in a lousy console is beyond me! If there is ever an 'end' to this 'war', (other than both formats just selling alongside each other) then it will be hd dvd that is the global format for hidef movies, with bluray being left for no more than Sony to produce their games on.
Ed, don't spread misinformation and don't fall for the HD DVD spin machine.
The neilsen numbers DON'T include the free PS3 title (limited to first 400,000 units). There was no $15 off coupon with any PS3's (I wish!). There was a mail-in rebate book similar to those in the early days of DVD. However the qualifying titles were fairly poor and only $10 per title.
If it were true you'd see a huge spike in November followed by a huge lull in December and Janurary. In fact sales have climbed rapidly from November and managed to outsell HD DVD by mid-december. Sales of BD are now double that of HD DVD.
As we saw last month, Blu-ray stand alones had equalled the sales of HD DVD standalones by the end of 2006.
Lee, HD DVD isn't substantially cheaper to produce and any difference is kept by the studios rather than passed on to the consumer. There is nothing to say that reducing costs automatically mean cheaper products.
One thing though. You realize they realsed that 7,500 copies of Crank on BD were sold in January right. So that just show's you how small the next gen market in the U.K. is now. If there is even a 1:1 ratio of installed players per movies bought. That means that there are at the most 8,900 HD-DVD players in England right now. The article also says that stand alones and the Ps3 are launching in March, which means that the 1,800 BD that sold were to people that either imported a player, or are so excited about the launch of BD that they wanted some before the even had their player.
Now if there has been a record number of Ps3's pre-sold in the U.K.. You can assume that their will be around one million within the first month and a half there. Keep in mind the ratio that I pointed out before about HD-DVD players. One million BD capable units+any stand-alones, to say 30,000(at best for all the U.K.) HD-DVD players. When BD launches in the U.K it will be a very sad day for HD-DVD owners. Just like in the U.S., were it has sold better than anywhere in the world, and has lost it's SI lead and with the titles that are coming out. It insn't likely to change. That's probably why WB and Paramount decided to back BD at it's U.K. launch!!
Blu-ray holds more data and has quicker transfer rates, so its better for genreal data holding purposes. Its been developed with the cooperation of most of the big electronics companies, not just sony. Only 2 major companies have signed for HD, all the others are signed for Blu-ray, including DISNEY. As for price, a quick scan of amazon or play.com will show you there is negligible difference if any. There is no question of which format will sell the most units by the end of 2007...
Blu-ray WAS NOT RELEASED LAST YEAR! hd dvd OUTSOLD NOTHING!
Watch the silly Blu Ray owners get their panties in a bunch. Oh Well, at least you guys can have that one retailer in Australia. LOL!
Sorry but dave shut up here get a BD candy, blu-ray was out in uk last year, dave I don't think you like to read he said december. The problem is that BD is just TO f*ck**g expensive. And bill uk won't have 1 Million ps3 300000 at the most (maybe less). As I said on an earlier comment BD player are to expensive in UK (or even europe) the cheapest is around £700 that's $1400 for a first gen player HD DVD players are around £350 about $700 still more expensive than US, BUT BUT HD DVD players are region free so we can get them on ebay for $500 which is around £250 bargain. A ps3 will cost £425 here so in many cases BD players are to expensive. But that doesn't say who will win, but it is fact that BDA cares only about they profit. Ok now BD fangirls oh sorry boys, drop on me now , I really don't give a shit. Give your money to sony. http://www.gizmocafe.com/blogs/gizmo_cafe_blog/archive/2007/02/08/106130.aspx ======> enjoy dave.
freduk, the end is near. Soon PS3 will crash your hopes.
Fool, the crap hd dvd cant win. Pull your head out of your ass and see the truth already.
http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/
dave you still base yourself on US sale fair enough, but US is not the all world. anyway maybe I got my head in my ass, but an advise GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF SONY'S ASS. I wonder if HD DVD wins what will you do buy standard dvd (which are not even sony's format). Please i feel sorry for you. In my case I support HD DVD but I see the good and bad in both formats and if blu-ray wins so be it, I'll be pissed off if it does just because i'll be under sony's power. Ok dave answered who's fucking next, maybe dave again, bring it on, I'm waiting for you guys, I got my head in my ass BUT NOT IN SONY'S, BDA, MICROSOFT, or TOSHIBA, all I see is a cheaper format which is good enough for us, HD DVD.
"but US is not the all world."
OK:
http://wesleytech.com/blu-ray-takes-96-of-the-japanese-market/
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Blu-ray-hits-Australia-JB-Hi-Fi-stocks-Blu-ray-only.html
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Blu-ray-hits-96-of-Japanese-market-with-help-of-PS3.html
Dave a link I found from the eproductwars site HHHmmm UK and PS3 still taking preorder should be all gone by now isn't it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/
stevej before you put link think, Sony=blu-ray sony=japanese company. Your link for australia it's only JB HIFI not all australia's shops, I saw this thread already and many australians thinks it's stupid. and your last link is the same as the first just from an other site as I said sony is japanese so japanese support there people, american should do the same and support HD DVD. So please find me a uk site or even a site talking about europe sales. http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/ same site again PS3 doesn't sale in uk so does BD. Next please.
Yeah...LAST YEAR!!!
BTW, I just bought Kung-Fu Hustle and Reservoir Dogs at $19.99 each on Blu-Ray.
LOL
This site is so retarded!
Get and IQ and some education and then reply me again...
Dave the site is not retarded, you just don't like when it's something wrong about blu-ray, i can understand that you are a fanboy. And I think your the one that needs an education.
Are you running out of ideas to keep spreading FUD? You just don't know what else to do to keep getting hits, do you Engadget?
Get over it: Blu-ray's winning, HD-DVD's failing and the situation keeps looking like it is not going to change.
What this shows is that high definition DVD sales of both formats are insignificant so far. As HDTVs and Sky HD are selling very well, this can only be because of the format war. It also shows, sadly, that studios are not losing much if anything by not backing one format or the other.
The launch of PS3 in Europe will probably swing things Blu-Ray's way as it has in the US, but probably not so dramatically. PS3 will not sell a million units in the UK in 2007. The UK market is much smaller than the US market - the US population is 5 times larger - and the UK price of the PS3 is far higher despite the fact that it will support fewer old PS2 games. Also, PS3 is being launched in the UK in March and peak sales will not be until Christmas.
So the format war will go on and I'm not prepared to buy either player or any DVDs yet.
Let's look at these simple facts: Of the 12 major and mini-major Hollywood studios (Fox, Disney, MGM, Sony, Lionsgate, Paramount, New Line, HBO, Warner Bros, Universal, DreamWorks and The Weinstein Company) 9 support Blu-ray, 5 of them exclusively. Only 6 support HD-DVD, just 2 of them exclusively (one studio, DreamWorks, remains uncommitted). Not counting computer hardware or budget brands, Blu-ray Disc has 9 major set-top hardware manufacturers behind it (Sony, Pioneer, Samsung, Philips, Panasonic, LG, Mitsubishi, Thomson, Sharp), while HD-DVD boasts just two (Toshiba and now LG). HD-DVD is an add-on to Microsoft's Xbox 360, while Blu-ray is built into EVERY Sony PlayStation 3. Nielsen VideoScan is reporting that in software sales, Blu-ray has virtually erased the sales lead enjoyed by HD-DVD since the formats were launched, and is now outselling HD-DVD by a 2 to 1 (and growing) margin.
I can understand that some people just love HD-DVD and have had great experiences with it. We have too. I understand that some people hate Sony for perceived corporate arrogance. I'm not a big fan of their tactics either, particularly how they went around the DVD Forum to develop their format. But let's face it - the biggest corporate cheerleader for HD-DVD seems to be Microsoft, which isn't exactly comforting either. All of those issues aside, however, how do you argue with the facts that are clearly becoming obvious - namely, ALL those things I just mentioned above? Frankly, the best sales pitch the HD-DVD camp seems to be able to make right now is: "Hey, we've got DVD right in the name! Plus cheap off-brand players are on the way! And porn!" I guess I have to be the guy who states the obvious, but doesn't that seem a little odd to anyone?
freduk, you seem to want to hate sony and "their" format, but you seem to forget that it is NOT sony's format. here is a list of the corporations on the blu-ray board:
* Apple
* Dell
* Hewlett-Packard
* Hitachi
* LG
* Mitsubishi Electric
* Panasonic
* Pioneer
* Philips
* Samsung
* Sharp
* Sony
* Sun Microsystems
* TDK
* Thomson
* Twentieth Century Fox
* Walt Disney
* Warner Bros.
I guess you hate all of those companies, too. Some of them are even *gasp* Japanese. Heaven forbid...
I would add that part of the higher sales of BluRay discs in the US could be the lack of PS3 games that have come out. People need to do something to justify paying $500 or 600 for just a few games. Once more games come out for PS3 does anyone think there might be a downturn in BD movie sales? Also, has anyone paid attention to the HD DVD titles released since christmas. There has been a flood of movies for BD and only 1 or 2 movies a week for HD DVD. I'm waiting until I see actual sales numbers instead of the best guesses everyone can get from Amazon sales charts and reports without any specifics.
Cos sony is the one talking the more about it and saying they won the war, so fuck that. I have nothing against blu-ray as I said whoever wins so be it, it's just the fact that it's an expensive format, maybe not the discs but the players, they cost a lot of money in UK, England and europe, and if I import a player I'll have to buy my discs from the country I imported from, why? because BD are not multi region (YET). We'll see if blu-ray wins if we'll be happy with it. And yeah I still don't like sony. Promises, promises and no delivery. But anyway all I need is a format to win.
WHY CAN'T ENGADGET LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UK AND ENGLAND?????
there's a massive difference, and the flag you show is Britains Union flag, not England's St. George's cross!
as for the story and comments, Blu-ray was available last year here in the UK, but there's still very few players here (and no PS3). I personally buy both formats, but myself and everyone else I know buys them from abroad as they are a hell of a lot cheaper
Do you think that BD is still couting for all the returned Sony Playstaion 3's? My local Best Buy says they have been seeing about 3-6 returned Sony Playstations 3 a week in exchange for eather an XBox360 or Nintendo Wii (because they are cheeper). I am not opening this up for argument, it is an honest question.
Can I just interject and comment on the bashing of education amongst the members here? It's very enlightening to hear all these facts (if they are true) but stop bashing on others' intelligence when you can't even differentiate between you're/your and their/they're/there... seeing that kind of dumbfok-ness makes you look even dumber...
leo lee I understand your point, but this is a just like a forum people do not really care about how you write things. Your right reads as you're right. ;-).
*LMFAO* why are HD-DVD fanboys such dumb***es?? accept it boys, Blu-ray is going to win no matter what bullsh** or lies you say. When HD-DVD dies out completely, I'll be laughing in your faces for supporting a dead format!!
What a dink, the reason everyone hates Blu-Ray is because of it's loose corporate-favoring copy protection, any idiot who accepts that so willingly, namely people like you, for fanboy-sake only, deserve the vague new rules the companies will be allowed to set with HDCP, and the frustration that will come from it fully.
People should really look into what kind of harmful copy protection is laid in the palms of companies who sue grandmothers and preteens for five digit numbers before they blindly leap into the arms of their favored company.