I hate to say 'I told you so....' but some of us did.

Repeatedly and in large part for these very reasons.

Blu-ray really was the dumb choice for HD movies on disc for the mass-market.

Thanks to this kind of stupidity, wrong, short-sighted and greed-based nonsense it's creators have merely guaranteed that it will never truly move into the mainstream.

Enjoy it for the short-lived niche product it is.

The next one will be along shortly.

It's not a "grudge".

It's merely a reflection of the true state of affairs.

Blu-ray was the wrong choice (if seeing a disc based HD video format ion disc was what you wanted to see).

I have my Blu-rays and I do enjoy them (the latest Jeff Beck and Police shows are outstanding).
None of that takes away the fact that Blu-ray is well and truly parked largely in a PS3 niche and is showing absolutely zero sign of ever going much beyond that.

(that is what this article is saying at heart)

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

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'.

Richard, how is watching an in-house Sony made video about Sony products really any different or for that matter in the preferable to getting the latest PR flannel from some paid Sony shill?

LMAO Deeznutz.

Despite it being made set out & made perfectly clear the best you can manage is to avoid what's said and try to take refuge in your own invented laughable & delusional 'they hate.....' nonsense.

I'm finding it hilarious how those who were once such big advocates for Blu-ray (and who spent an age telling us all how it was the one that would take over from DVD and be an even bigger success) have now lowered their sights so much & so obviously, making little but the most defensive comments.

If I've been saying similar things for a while now then it stands to reason that I must have been telling the truth - otherwise you could point out and prove the explosiuon in Blu-ray ownership & sales.
You can't. Boo hoo.

Actually Darren prompted this.
Darren is the one who can barely make a single Toshiba thread without including some of his own fanboy-ism for Blu-ray and his continual moan that they won't join in and help force the issue.
Typical, but so enlightening that that is the last hope, forcing consumers (which also goes for those who would see the market rigged to try and push people off of DVD, get over that too, it's not going to happen. DVD might be low margin but it's vast volume, the studios know what side their bread is buttered on).

It seems to me to be perfectly fair and balanced that at least one of two of the people responding point out the Emperor's new clothes once in a while.
No-one forces you to read or agree with it.

Too bad you can't (and never could) bear to see it, eh, child?

Actually Deeznutz what's 'old' is your tedious assertion that anyone who criticises Blu-ray hasn't gotten over HD DVD departing the field.

What a ludicrous thing to say.

The facts are exactly as I said, Blu-ray has a minute presence in the mass-market and despite some admirable price-cutting that continues to be the case.
Nielson does indeed show Blu-ray sales bumping along at a mere $10million a week
(and you better hope they have a few 'Batman' or Iron Man' movies, that are decent enough to sell, to stand a hope of matching last year's numbers).

It is also very well know that Blu-ray's R&D costs were enormous and stand about zero chance of ever being recouped.

So, with players now selling at $150 and more than a few catalogue discs now discounted down to DVD levels how can there possibly be any real margin for anyone to make money on it?

That being the case why would Toshiba bother with it?

With the state of the economy it's perfectly clear that Blu-ray is stuck with tiny growth prospects for another year and probably 2 - and even that's largely dependent on whatever new and existing PS3 owners can be attracted to bothering with it....like as if the general public could care less about collecting large numbers of movies anyway.

So, that'll be 5 years (and still counting) going nowhere and all the time digital distribution grows and grows.

Between Netflix, Xbox XBL, even the PS3's PSN and the other services (practically a new one is posted up here every week) it's clear the space for Blu-ray to grow into is shrinking every passing month.

Sorry, try again, not one bit of this has anything to do with HD DVD.

Get over it Darren!

Why would Toshiba bother with Blu-ray anyway?

Blu-ray is close to dead if not actually dead.

Already they are having to drop their prices and are fast approaching DVD levels - and still the Nielson numbers (hmmm, anyone surprised at how come they've been dropped from being shown weekly here?) - show it stuck at $10 million insales per week.

Still the mass-market couldn't care less.

So, there's almost no margin for anyone to make any money out of it and a public who couldn't care less and that's all happening against the background of an economy tanking worse than at any time since the 1930s.

It just can't happen fast enough for Blu-ray now and we can all now stop kidding ourselves that it's ever going to happen.

Too little too late, bye bye Blu.

I wouldn't buy a small HD TV.
The 'HD' part of it would be pretty useless.
Unless you're going to use it like a monitor and sit less than 1 meter away from it, it's pretty pointless and wasted.

In fact I'd say anything 'HD' under 50" (for most people at 'normal' viewing distances) is wasted.

http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/

3mth into the year & with sales even on the Nielson numbers still bumping along @ the $10 million per week level it just gets harder and harder for EngadgetHD to cheerlead the delusion that a new Blu-ray dawn is breaking.

It's no surprise the numbers have been MIA in the last few weeks.