Amazon offers up Buy 1 Get 1 on Blu-ray flicks
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 2nd 2008 4:55AM
posted Jan 2nd 2008 4:55AM
Sure, you may still be clearing your head after a few nights of debauchery, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Buy 1 Get 1 ain't a half bad deal. Just a week after offering up such a deal on HD DVD flicks, Amazon is now giving Blu-ray owners (another) shot at picking up a number of films in BOGO fashion. Per usual, there's a limit of two per title, per customer and you can only snag 25 free titles per order, but why not hit the read link and check out the selections, anyway?[Thanks, Jim]
FTW
BTW - The Amazon sales ranks seem to do just as expected, HDDVD went down, and now blu-ray occupies the top...
What's interesting overall.. is that HD DVD does just as good in sales on a first real BOGO as Blu-Ray. If they organized BOGOs more often for HD DVD I'm pretty sure we would see pretty noticeable shift in weekly numbers.
I can't wait to see what results will be today when Amazon BOGO gets counted in. I'm pretty sure that HD DVD took that week. If it did, it proves that HD DVD has reached Blu-Ray levels with almost 4 times less hardware.
I'm extremely interested to see if HD DVD took last week.
So now the PS3s count Nfinity? ;)
What about your famous "Attachment Rate (lol)" ?
It will be interesting to see if HD DVD came close indeed, but if I were you I wouldn't keep my hopes up too much.
This being said, as per your comment of HD DVD doing just as good, Blu Ray didn't take the 1-4 spots, it took the 1-6 :)
I would say it made a shift in the top sellers. As of 8:55 AM EST Blu-Ray holds 17 of the top 25 DVD slots. That is crazy. I guess Amazon really moves some product with these BOGO.
Nfinity just counts the PS3 as it suits his needs. When BR outsells HD DVD he claims HD DVD actually won because they have much less hardware on the market. But when actually talking about install bases and not media sales he says that the PS3 doesn't count and that only standalone players count. He also totally ignores that 1/3 of HD DVD players are 360 add-ons. The bottom line is there is no clear way to define the PS3. Many are just being used as game players. So statements like "HD DVD has reached Blu-Ray levels with almost 4 times less hardware" are utterly meaningless. You would have to know exactly how many PS3s are being used as movie players for any statement like that to have any validity.
Infinity is the HDDVD version of
Baghdad Bob http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/
lol
Can't beat 7x27.95 + 23.95 for less than $90. 8 Movies for about $11 a piece. These BOGO's can build a collection fast, I am spending less on these movies than I did originally on DVD at this point.
I was just thinking the same, the 4x Harry Potter's I just picked up amount to about $10 a piece when a friend just picked up the DVD special editions @ Best Buy for $20+...
I've never had a big movie collection, but as a result of having the PS3 and the BOGOs I've built a small collection of around 30 enjoyable BDs, now with ten more on the way as a result of todays, and have likely paid no more than $10-15 per title after the BOGOs, rebates, sales, etc.
The week ended 28/12/2007 results are the same as the weeks ended 21/12/2007.
61-39 FOR bLU.
From AVS FORUMS PREDICTIONS thread
A glance at eproductwars shows what you might expect. Blu Ray sales just shot up and HD DVD sales tanked.
Here something that I always find to be interesting. HD DVD continually sells roughly 50% of what BD sells with respect to the sales percentages -- consistently around 33% to 66%. Yet HD DVD has some 25% (if not fewer) of the players that BD has. But the BD assh^H^H^H^Hfanboys continually point to this as some kind of indication that BD is crushing HD DVD. Come again??
If HD DVD can consistently sell 50% of the quantity of media with less than 25% of the players when compared to BD media and players, that tells me that HD DVD owners are purchasing twice as much media as BD owners, relatively speaking. The huge difference in price between hardware is also a big issue. I'm sure that Hollywood is keeping a close eye on that statistic.
These BOGOs regularly skew that percentage, of course, and we still don't have total numbers of ALL media that gets sold because some retailers don't participate in "the numbers". But as long as the BOGOs are consistent with respect one the same number (and quality) of BOGOs for each format and people are taking advantage of it, I don't see where either side has room to gloat from week to week.
I want to see things settle down from the holidays before we start looking at the overall numbers. Let people who got their PS3s or HD-A2/3s for Christmas start to get their finances back in order and buy media for themselves. **Then** let's come back in March or April to see what the numbers are.
Anything number-throwing before then is nothing more than fanboys with nothing better to do than to try to soothe their overly-inflated egos by trying to piss people off with their immature "Nyah nyah nyah! My format is better than your format!"
@John B,
Gotta say I agree with your attitude, but I've been following this forum and format war with distanced interest for over a year now, and at least once a week there are faily logical sounding arguments of "Oh let's wait for date xyz and then see" or "Wait for the release of xyztitle and then see". It's not a new idea by any means, but unfortunately doesn't usually have any real results and is used by fanboys to delay or dodge bad news for their format.
As for your numbers argument, remember that the total BD player #'s include PS3s which throws an unmeasurable at best factor into your argument. For instance I know 7 PS3 owners including myself: 3x own HDTVs and actively buy BDs, another bought the PS3 @ launch and just now started buying BDs after getting and HDTV for Christmas, and the others either don't own HDTVs, care about movies or HD movies, and overall own PS3/BD players counting toward the total but aren't buying BD media (I don't even think 1 guy knows what the HD disc is). So you can get an idea just how hard it is to measure this and to count it as a negative against BD.
A lot are like myself with no real devation to one format or the other, but had PS3's and HDTVs for gamning so why not take advantage of BD movie deals?
Fortunately, this "wait-and-see" attitude is worth it. Let's all wait for CES 2008 about what Warner is going to do? I'm specifically waiting to buy Harry Potter on HDM because of this. It would be amazing if we could have a week of "peace" until CES 2008's Warner announcement is over.... but I doubt too long will go by before someone ruins my hope by declaring they have an insider who just-so-happens to work at Warner and knows exactly what's going on... or some nonsense like that. Please, just give it a break, guys.
"So you can get an idea just how hard it is to measure this and to count it as a negative against BD."
Personally, I don't bother with counting negatives towards one format or another, but keep in mind that it's always the BD fanboys who spout the number of PS3s out there when they start on about number of players. So, even if a significant number of PS3 owners don't use BD for movies, the fanboys out there are continually pushing the numbers as one of their pathetic reasons for BD or win out.
If the inclusion of PS3s for my statement is inappropriate, then it needs to be considered as inappropriate every time the BD fanboys try to include it in their numbers as well. At least with HD DVD we know that it does nothing more than play movies, so there's no other reason to own one.
As long as each format ends up in a net positive for the studios, then I see no incentive to either side coming out "winning". Unfortunately, with each format doing their best to buy out studios (Disney = BD, etc.) and with HDM being relatively new, it's difficult to determine whether a format (as in the disc sales themselves) is or is not profitable for a studio.
That brings to mind another question: are these BOGOs subsidized by Amazon, the studios, the format backers, or a combination? Certainly, they get more media pushed out, but someone has to take a hit with respect to the loss of profit that would have been made on an individual sale. Who takes the hit from that?
Don't forget to use DVDSAVE5 coupon code with your amazon CC, and orders over $50 (before bogo discount taken).
"The week ended 28/12/2007 results are the same as the weeks ended 21/12/2007.
61-39 FOR bLU.
From AVS FORUMS PREDICTIONS thread"
per dave vaughn, the week ended 12/23/2007 results are the same as the week ending 12/16/2007 (both 61/39 in favor of blu-ray). the last nielsen numbers published by home media magazine were from the week ending 12/16/2007.
the amazon hd dvd bogo sale (which included the first four harry potter movies) started during the week ending 12/30/2007. hd dvd sold a large number of movies last week at amazon, and blu-ray is selling an even larger number of movies (per day) this week at amazon with roughly twice as many titles available compared to the amazon hd dvd bogo sale.
hd dvd bought the week ending 12/30/2007; blu-ray is buying the week ending 01/06/2008. i wouldn't be surprised if amazon has sold more high definition video discs in the last week than all other outlets that are counted by nielsen combined (i.e. best buy, circuit city, etc.). if amazon normally sells 10,000 high definition video discs per week, i would not be surprised if amazon sold over 100,000 high definition video discs this past week (hd dvd and blu-ray combined).
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom123007/index.php
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom121607/index.php
"with roughly twice as many titles available compared to the amazon hd dvd bogo sale."
This is exactly why the BD BOGO, HD DVD BOGO, and their associated sales numbers cannot be fairly compared, but I'm sure that the BD fanboys will try to do it anyway.
Give us equal BOGOs with the same amount (and quality) of titles in each and THEN we'll have something to talk about.
Since I went Purple recently, I bought up a number of BDs yesterday. Great fun, with all discounts coming out to 60% off Amazon's already discounted price, free shipping and no sales tax added.
But one thing to notice: even though BD rankings have skyrocketed, HDs have not particularly tanked relative to normal. In fact, they are rather higher than normal.
The #20 HD DVD ("Fear and Loathing..") is still #233 among all DVDs, which is much higher than the 500th place showing that was normal before Christmas. And of course there are 19 HDDVD discs rated higher.
It looks like HDM sales are just generally doing better in 2008, relative to DVD, BOGO or no BOGO.
harry potter 5 hd dvd plus bourne ultimatum hd dvd at best buy before christmas = $35 with bogo sale (after adding in sales tax -- may be slightly more less depending on your state)
harry potter 1-4 hd dvd's for $35 at amazon after christmas bogo sale (with dvdsale5 coupon using amazon visa credit card)
i know it is not exactly apples to apples (harry potter 1-4 are not new releases), but the amazon sale is half the price of the best buy bogo pre-christmas sale.
cutting the price in half will more than double the demand.
John B, before you start touting the word "Blu Ray fanboys" some more, let me remind you of a few facts (yourself being an obvious HD DVD fanboy, hang in there):
- The HD DVD BOGO had two supporting factors compared to the Blu Ray one. What will come of it is still unknown atm (Week 52).
It was coming hot on the tail of two Day and Date releases (The Kingdom and Eastern Promises), AND it included a near Day and Date release in the form of HP5, which the Blu Ray BOGO is not getting (only HP 1-4). On top of that, it was only the 2nd Bogo ever on HD DVD, enticing supposedly a much larger volume of buy than the Blu Ray one.
I say supposedly, because the numbers we are seeing right now about this Blu Ray Bogo are -huge-. I am talking about near HALF (48) of the DVD ranks being Blu Ray, and 8 of the top 10.
- When you say Blu Ray fanboys like to "tout the PS3 number", you seem to forget how much gloating there was when the 750k HD DVD standalones number was released, eh?
Of course there was much less gloating when the 269k HD DVD addon number was made public, which implied that 1/3rd of the standalones are actually tied to a console :)
Last, the Bourne week, which was immediately followed by a BOGO (amazingly enough - Why slash the price on a Day & Date ? O.o), failed to realize, and despite the movie being excellent and facing neither a Blu Ray Bogo or a Day & Date.
Not putting conclusions out of any of these, just little facts I thought you'd like to be reminded about.
Oh, please. I'm no fanboy of any format. The whole format war is pathetic. If Wal-Mart had the same kind of fire sale for BD as they did with HD DVD, I'd be thrilled to announce my chameleon-like change to purple. Right now the BD player of my choice would be a non-40GB PS3, but I'm not willing to pay $500 for one of them.
But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that whereas HD DVD has its share of zealots the fanboys in the BD camp are far more vociferous, venomous, and downright condescending. Look at various individuals just around here who have even gone so far as to say that you're not truly a home theatre fan unless you spend $500 for a BD player and that if you own HD DVD you're nothing more than a Joe Six-Pack. Excuse me???
So, yes, I have more dislike for BD -- not for the format, but for the jackasses who act like BD is the Second Coming of Christ or something like that. Quite frankly, I think that most of the HD DVD zealots only became so in order to counteract the BD zealots.
Now we're going to have to have a historian to wade thru the format war history to find out who fired the first fanboy shot.....
There are equal zealots on both sides and they where here before I jumped into HD, but the most ridiculous shot has been that Blu-ray is a game format, lol.
Not to try to get into the middle of this whole thing, the HD-DVD BOGO did NOT have HP5 included in it. There were 4 Potter movies, and #5 wasn't one of them.
Commence the format war, NOW! :)
"the most ridiculous shot has been that Blu-ray is a game format"
0_o Uh ... yeah. 50 GB of data capacity is meant only for games? Wow. Someone was smoking something *really* good when they came up with that statement.
"- The HD DVD BOGO had two supporting factors compared to the Blu Ray one. What will come of it is still unknown atm (Week 52).
It was coming hot on the tail of two Day and Date releases (The Kingdom and Eastern Promises), AND it included a near Day and Date release in the form of HP5, which the Blu Ray BOGO is not getting (only HP 1-4). On top of that, it was only the 2nd Bogo ever on HD DVD, enticing supposedly a much larger volume of buy than the Blu Ray one."
HP5 was available on Blu-Ray as part of a BOGO sale at Best Buy at the same time as Best Buy was having a HD DVD BOGO sale. Amazon did not have HP5 as part of the BOGO sale (only HP1-4). Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray got HP1-4 for $35 (with dvdsale5 coupon and using amazon credit card). Amazon has sold out of Harry Potter HD DVD's, but the HD-DVD BOGO is still ongoing.
Eastern Promises and the Kingdown were available as part of a B2G1 sale last week at Best Buy and now (this week) as part of a B3G2 sale. three movies for $60 plus tax or five movies for $90 plus tax is not that enticing even if you can get new releases like EP or the Kingdon compared to newer catalog titles HP1-4 for $35. neither EP or the Kingdom are or were available as part of Amazon's HD-DVD BOGO sale.
The Blu-Ray sale is better than the more recent Amazon sales. Amazon was running a BOGO sale in early December on Fox titles, I believe, but they were selling titles like Die Hard for around $28. Even with one title free, it was not that big of a bargain. fry's was selling Blu-Ray discs for $14 (no BOGO restrictions, but you would have to pay for shipping and/or tax). die hard and the terminator came out in the 80's (twenty years ago) -- harry potter came out this decade (within the last five years).
http://www.themanroom.com/news/Amazon_Offering_New_Blu-ray_Fox_Lionsgate_BOGO_Sale_for_Two_Days_Only/1822
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=753
Why must you people argue? BOGO's are great, if we didn't have this format war, prices wouldn't be going down so quick, and we wouldn't have these great deals on Hi-Def media.
If HD-DVD gets another studio on it's side, or WB goes HD-DVD exclusive, i'm sticking with HD-DVD as I have from the beginning. But if NOTHING happens for HD-DVD this coming CES (like XBox coming out with an included HD-DVD drive, or a shift in studio support), i'm buying a blu-ray player and going format neutral to cover all bases.
No one's arguing about the merits of BOGOs. The arguing is all about what the numbers from those BOGOs mean to either side, to which I say that they are of no merit because they're not equal in either the number or quality of titles that are offered for each.
Oh and because of this "format war", everyone can get an HD-DVD player form Amazon.com for $179 ... and it comes with 10 Free HD-DVD's
The HD DVD B1G1 is still going on: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_6102152_2?ie=UTF8&docId=1000183001&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0HV6EMJ4Y6MXQ28AM224&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=344916501&pf_rd_i=193642011
@ Nfinity
Let me be the first to tell you, the week ending 12.30.2007 Neilsen #s are in, 61% BD VS 39% HD-DVD [for the 3rd week in a row]
Aren't these the numbers you were just dying to see?
Weren't you proclaiming a HD-DVD victory? Blathering on about amazon's bogo + BB b2g1 etc.....?
Let's all enjoy the victory.
Gotta savor the flavor. I may have room for seconds...........