So one year after Blu became the only physical HD format, sales have doubled? Not that we would know from info published here because we never see the sales charts (let alone which version) here anymore. I can believe this because I now have just over 30 titles on BD versus the 15 I had a year ago. At this pace I'll have as many titles on Blu as I have on HD DVD in 12 years!
Some of us did warn this would be the case and for some time too. Of course the zealot Blu-ray fanclub (taking their cue from the significant PS3 game console fanbase) did nothing but howl us down.
It's now pretty obvious. Blu-ray simply cannot grow fast enough nor penetrate the mass-market quickly enough before the next tech establishes itself in that mass-market.
It'll take about 3 - 5yrs (according to my ISP fibre to the cabinet is going to happen across the UK for most of the population in 5yrs).
Blu-ray will be almost 8yrs old by then and still it will have failed to dislodge DVD by then.
All too little too late.
Great if you accept that and treat it for the 'next laser disc' it really is, pretty cr@p if you swallowed the lies and BS of the fanclub who pretended it would just roill in & 'become the next dvd'.
I don't find it hard to believe sales have doubled to 10 million for Blu-ray, but it's still a far cry from the 200 million DVDs sold during the same time frame. And doubling 5 million discs would be expected due to the increase in players, but it's not what I would call a strong fold hold just yet. It's momentum. Even if it doubled again by next year which I would expect it to do, we're still looking at 10% of the overall market.
As far as the players are concerned, I'd imagine the 10.5 million blu-ray players are probably 80% PS3 and 20% stand alone. Of those, I'd have to assume some of the PS3s are only used for gaming.
I firmly believe we're still in the early adopter/curiosity phase when it comes to Blu-Ray. I also believe if the disc were cheaper it would sell much better.
Blu-ray is selling just *slightly* less than DVD at the same point in its lifetime according to DigitalBits. Up until the recession, Blu-ray was selling *better* than DVD in its comparative lifetime.
However, comparing current Blu-ray sales to *current* DVD sales isn't any way to assess the format. Had you done the same with DVD / VHS, you would have had similar disparity... and similar doom and gloom.
So despite all the "I wish HD-DVD won" and "DVD is selling 200 million right now" silliness, Blu-ray is doing very well, though it's been negatively effected by the recession.
EatingPie "Blu-ray is selling just *slightly* less than DVD at the same point in its lifetime according to DigitalBits."
Well you can believe DB if you prefer but I just don't see them as a credible source on this topic, they have been far too partial on this subject, for years now, and I wouldn't trust a word they said on the subject.
Ditto any of the claims the BDA have made about numbers sold.
The best they can manage is to obfuscate and blur the facts.
They almost never release verifiable straight factual numbers (and only used to do so when the old format war was still happening).
The truth is, as best as we can tell, that in a global market now well used to disc based video media (which was not the case with DVD) Blu-ray adoption trails DVD.
The most pertinent fact is that Blu-ray is still about as far away from mass adoption as a video format as can be.
It is still true that the PS3 dominates Blu-ray to a deeply unhealthy degree and that despite this Blu-ray growth has been very slow, PS3 owners only buy very occasionally. That has always struck me as a very poor basis on which to try and launch a new video format into the mass-market.
Like I said, even if sales double every year for the next 5yrs it will still be too slow and Blu-ray will still not have reached anything like the sort of mass-market penetration necessary to establish itself as anything other than a passing niche before digital distribution takes over.
Every week here we see several new services springing up for VOD and some sort of streaming or downloading service. In five years that present steady trickle will be an unavoidable torrent (lol).
Blu-ray (if your concern was ever that you really wanted to see the mass adoption of HD on disc) was absolutely the wrong choice. Sadly we all have to live with that now, for a relatively short time at least. :P
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So one year after Blu became the only physical HD format, sales have doubled? Not that we would know from info published here because we never see the sales charts (let alone which version) here anymore. I can believe this because I now have just over 30 titles on BD versus the 15 I had a year ago. At this pace I'll have as many titles on Blu as I have on HD DVD in 12 years!
Yeah.
Some of us did warn this would be the case and for some time too.
Of course the zealot Blu-ray fanclub (taking their cue from the significant PS3 game console fanbase) did nothing but howl us down.
It's now pretty obvious.
Blu-ray simply cannot grow fast enough nor penetrate the mass-market quickly enough before the next tech establishes itself in that mass-market.
It'll take about 3 - 5yrs (according to my ISP fibre to the cabinet is going to happen across the UK for most of the population in 5yrs).
Blu-ray will be almost 8yrs old by then and still it will have failed to dislodge DVD by then.
All too little too late.
Great if you accept that and treat it for the 'next laser disc' it really is, pretty cr@p if you swallowed the lies and BS of the fanclub who pretended it would just roill in & 'become the next dvd'.
I don't find it hard to believe sales have doubled to 10 million for Blu-ray, but it's still a far cry from the 200 million DVDs sold during the same time frame. And doubling 5 million discs would be expected due to the increase in players, but it's not what I would call a strong fold hold just yet. It's momentum. Even if it doubled again by next year which I would expect it to do, we're still looking at 10% of the overall market.
As far as the players are concerned, I'd imagine the 10.5 million blu-ray players are probably 80% PS3 and 20% stand alone. Of those, I'd have to assume some of the PS3s are only used for gaming.
I firmly believe we're still in the early adopter/curiosity phase when it comes to Blu-Ray. I also believe if the disc were cheaper it would sell much better.
Blu-ray is selling just *slightly* less than DVD at the same point in its lifetime according to DigitalBits. Up until the recession, Blu-ray was selling *better* than DVD in its comparative lifetime.
However, comparing current Blu-ray sales to *current* DVD sales isn't any way to assess the format. Had you done the same with DVD / VHS, you would have had similar disparity... and similar doom and gloom.
So despite all the "I wish HD-DVD won" and "DVD is selling 200 million right now" silliness, Blu-ray is doing very well, though it's been negatively effected by the recession.
-Pie
@Web & Mayhem.
Forgot this FYI. Those numbers are YEAR TO DATE. Not total since inception, which is what you guys seemed to assume.
So in the first 3 months of last year, they sold 4.8M units. In the first 3 months of this year, they sold 10M units.
-Pie
EatingPie
"Blu-ray is selling just *slightly* less than DVD at the same point in its lifetime according to DigitalBits."
Well you can believe DB if you prefer but I just don't see them as a credible source on this topic, they have been far too partial on this subject, for years now, and I wouldn't trust a word they said on the subject.
Ditto any of the claims the BDA have made about numbers sold.
The best they can manage is to obfuscate and blur the facts.
They almost never release verifiable straight factual numbers (and only used to do so when the old format war was still happening).
The truth is, as best as we can tell, that in a global market now well used to disc based video media (which was not the case with DVD) Blu-ray adoption trails DVD.
The most pertinent fact is that Blu-ray is still about as far away from mass adoption as a video format as can be.
It is still true that the PS3 dominates Blu-ray to a deeply unhealthy degree and that despite this Blu-ray growth has been very slow, PS3 owners only buy very occasionally.
That has always struck me as a very poor basis on which to try and launch a new video format into the mass-market.
Like I said, even if sales double every year for the next 5yrs it will still be too slow and Blu-ray will still not have reached anything like the sort of mass-market penetration necessary to establish itself as anything other than a passing niche before digital distribution takes over.
Every week here we see several new services springing up for VOD and some sort of streaming or downloading service.
In five years that present steady trickle will be an unavoidable torrent (lol).
Blu-ray (if your concern was ever that you really wanted to see the mass adoption of HD on disc) was absolutely the wrong choice.
Sadly we all have to live with that now, for a relatively short time at least. :P