After Blu-Ray won the war it seemed to become quite fashionable to get on the Blu-Ray won’t become mainstream bandwagon. Luckily for me I have the archives that can be scanned to see that I have always thought the HD revolution isn’t going to happen until late 2009 at the earliest.
Anyway back to the point at hand, Sony came out earlier this month to announce the sales figures for Blu-Ray discs and they are not pretty. After announcing it had sold over 5 million PS3’s I would have thought that every PS3 owner would have at least 1 Blu-Ray movie in their collection, hell a whole bunch of PS3’s were bundled with movies at one time.
So how many Blu-Ray discs were sold in Europe up until the 1st of May 2008?
3.3 millions discs have sold to date with 1.4 million of those this quarter”,
Now I may not be the best at mathematics but that equates to less than 1 per console, which means that the vast majority of PS3 owners in Europe don’t have a Blu-Ray movie to play on their PS3’s…
Why do you think this is? Are they to expensive? Are their not enough of them? Do most people just not care about them?
Honestly I think it’s the latter, while the more hardcore movie fans see a huge difference the mainstream man still doesn’t understand or care to understand what the difference is.
HD will become a reality soon enough but will our movies be arriving on Blu-Rays or flash discs or online? That is still to be seen, what is telling though is that stand alone Blu-ray players sales dropped 40% after the hollow victory against HD-DVD and then only increase 2% the following month…. Has someone been fudging the figures?
Blu-ray sales less than disc one per player
Last Updated: May 9, 2008
Evilredzombie
May 9, 2008 at 07:26
I don’t buy them because they too expensive.. the cheapest I have seen is 200 going up to 400. Il wait a while till they drop slightly. And some of the ones iv seen don’t have all the special blu ray features…
Evilredzombie’s last blog post..Racer Driver: GRID demo up on Live and PSN
Naudran
May 9, 2008 at 07:30
I think it could also be because most households does not as yet have HD TV’s. I think it’s still just to expensive to make the jump, when most of the mainstream people will be happy to just get the movie in a cheaper format.
kabraal
May 9, 2008 at 08:42
Eh the attach rates for BD has never been good when taking the PS3 in consideration…
It has always been below one and will stay below one if you’re going to take PS3’s into consideration. Fact is, since Toshiba left the scene there where a number of BD titles getting 12% of the total home video disc sales. And this number bearly made 1% (during xmas 07)for both formats during the “war”.
So I’d hardly call it “tanking”. And you have to remember that the catalogue titles are few and far between this time of year, with almost now big titles being released during Feb, Mar and Apr
Evilredzombie
May 9, 2008 at 08:56
A lazy ….can we get some sort of comparison to when DVD was launched ? how long it took to take off etc..
Evilredzombie’s last blog post..Racer Driver: GRID demo up on Live and PSN
kabraal
May 9, 2008 at 09:18
You can go to highdefdigest.com and get links to sales figures of BD/HD and DVD. In particular, check out the figures of DVD. They also spike and drop as releases come and go.
“3.3 millions discs have sold to date with 1.4 million of those this quarter”
I don’t know, that absolutely does not look like tanking to me? I mean we are in year 2 now with the PS3 launch and also in year 2 now since BD launch. So you’re telling me in total, 3.3 million disc’s have been sold in EU with 1.4 million (42%!) being in this quarter alone? Am I understading that right? Because if I am, you need to forget about the darn attach rate and change this topic to “BD Saled Spike since winning the format war”
Damn, this thread is fail.
LazySAGamer
May 9, 2008 at 09:40
5 million PS3’s in Europe… only 3.3 million Blu-Rays sold..
You call this good?
40% drop in sales of players? Does that sound like a spike to you? Seriously now come on… Blu-Ray has not caught on yet, I don’t expect it to this year either.. 1.4 million is a pathetic number of sales for the entire of Europe. GTA sold more than that in ONE day..
TurboZA
May 9, 2008 at 09:53
I too think that is it because many people still do not have HDTv’s. You don’t need an HDTv to enjoy a PS3 game, but you need 1 to reep the benefits of Blu-ray… plus R300 per movie is way over-priced. If Blu-ray discs costs the same as DVD’s then and only then will I buy them.
kabraal
May 9, 2008 at 10:15
You’re going about this the wrong way. Forget about the size of the numbers. What did you expect 100 million figures. Hell GTA is the biggest entertainment launch in the last 10 years. You can’t compare that with a format staring its life.
And like I said, BD has always had a low attach rate when including the PS3. Yes, your analysis is right, not everyone owning a PS3 buys movies…It has been like that all of last year.
I suppose that 40% drop in hardware excludes the PS3? Cause last time I checked, the PS3 is doing very well for themselves in the EU. You see these articles includes/excludes the PS3 to their taste. They include it whenever it suites them. When they try to calculate attach rates they’ll include it, and the number will generally be bad. When they try to calculate hardware sales alone they’ll exclude it, and again the number will be generally bad. The stand alone market is very volatile atm due to the price and availability of players.
You can spin it all you want; fact of the matter is that according to your figures BD sold 42% of its total software sales (the important part) in the last 3 months since inception in 2006. That is very a significant. HiDefDigest recorded 12% total market share for most of the big releases for BD post format war, that from a figure that hardly reach 1% during xmas 2007 with all those big releases. That is very significant. No BD is definitely not “tanking†it’s ruffling its feathers…
LazySAGamer
May 9, 2008 at 10:25
“what is telling though is that stand alone Blu-ray players sales dropped 40% ”
I did state stand alone.
What I don’t understand to be honest is that when someone says something bad about Blu-Ray people start defending it as religiously as the PS3… They are seperate and I think what we are seeing is that Blu-Ray isn’t taking off like people hoped.
I stick by my prediction of virtually no real movement until the end of next year in the HD movie side. Which is a pity as I would prefer it to hit mainstream right now.
doobiwan
May 9, 2008 at 10:40
Sorry, Lazy, you didn’t include the second link in the thread – the one about the 40% drop off in player sales.
People were apprehensive about chosing an HD format during the war (cue sepia tone 😉 ) But now they have to compare DVD and HD themselves I think people realise it’s not worth the $400 upgrade, especially when cable and satellite providers are now offering HD channels as options as well as the various HD VoD services.
There is easy access to content capable of justify and demonstrating the abilites of their 1080 rigs without needing BD, so it becomes a superflous luxury upgrade for the average user, BD has to outprice DVD in order to beat it, because the public doesn’t care enough.
kabraal
May 9, 2008 at 10:50
“What I don’t understand to be honest is that when someone says something bad about Blu-Ray people start defending it as religiously as the PS3”
Jesus man, are we not allowed to defend anything? What the hell are these boards for then? Should I just agree with everything I read here and say, “O ja…ok”
Your prediction that BD won’t catch onto mainstream until next year might be right. It might be wrong. That’s not the point and that’s not what I’m aruing about. I’m saying, since Tosh left the room, BD has not tanked nor does it show any signs of tanking.
SlippyMadFrog
May 9, 2008 at 11:02
Also remeber that this quarter Blu-Ray had no competition while in the past they competed against HD-DVD. People thought since Blu-Ray is the only remaining HD format that people will adopt like crazy and clearly it isn’t the case. I sy give it a couple of more years, but not too much because as soon as internet is fast and cheap enough, downloads will take over IMO.
LazySAGamer
May 9, 2008 at 11:07
Sales of standa alone Blu-Ray players DROPPED 40% that is tanking in my book. 1.4 million units in 3 months is pathetic in a region the size of the EU especially considering the wealth of the region.
darthdad
May 9, 2008 at 11:16
Lazy are you saying that people are actually buying a PS3 for the games?!!! 😯
kabraal
May 9, 2008 at 11:19
There you go again and only look at the size of the number and not the growth. It’s growing rapidly and that’s all you should know.
Oh and another reason for my ranting here (in case you haven’t picked it up the first time) is that this article contains two figures that will generally be perceived as “bad†but someone reading it. This first figure is attach rates where they conveniently add PS3 sales numbers. So they literally include PS3 hardware here and they see it as part of the whole HD market. Then, when they want to look at hardware alone, they conveniently throw out the PS3 sales number to make things look bad…again. “Hell, we can’t include the PS3 man, it’s a different market!!â€.
If you want to quote numbers, you have to decide whether you want to include the PS3 or not. Don’t be inconsistent in adding/removing PS3 sales numbers to make things look bad around.
You see, whoever wrote this article and whoever goes in head down believing this hogwash is against BD for some very very very weird reason only they would know. I label this article as BS, and if you don’t want to and believe everything you read on the internetz well then be my guest. I can point you to various BS pro BD websites are articles to.
kabraal
May 9, 2008 at 11:20
“especially when cable and satellite providers are now offering HD channels as options as well as the various HD VoD services.”
I’m sorry, but where can I get all this? 😉
SlippyMadFrog
May 9, 2008 at 11:28
Kabraal, considering our beef with each other yesterday, I’m going to keep this very neutral and sober.
If the stand-alone player sales are down 40%, how is it growing rapidly?
kabraal
May 9, 2008 at 12:04
What beef, you take this shit seriously don’t you?
Long read…sorry
I’ve said it two times now. On the one hand, they account for PS3 numbers and on the other hand they leave it out. They do this to fudge figures and make things look bad for BD. And they’ve done since the PS3 launch. And before you jump on your “Fanboy†wagon, they did similar shit as well for HD-DVD and the 360 add-on.
So with the 40% drop in stand alone sales, they’ve chosen to leave out the PS3 although they have now evidence how many PS3’s sold within those 3 months are or will be used to play movies. They didn’t think to add it in their hardware sales basket as a BD playing device although they added it two paragraphs earlier to calculate an attach rate. I’m sure you can see the inconsistency there?
This is like a machine starting up and it has not yet reached a steady state. Hell, stand alones are just as expensive and just as volatile in the EU as they are here. Quote some US numbers and you’ll see that although their stand alone market had their rough ride, things are steadier at the moment. You can’t go from 1 million SA’s, to 100 million SA’s in three month, even if they cost $100…
If you just followed the format war slightly last year, you would’ve noticed that software sales is a better indication as to where the format is going than hardware sales. It is also where the money is btw. This for the simple reason that we just don’t know what people are using their playstations for. So let me reverse your question. A 42% jump in software sales in 3 months out of 18. How is that bad for the format? And please don’t look at the physical numbers. Last year they sold 1 million BDs in the EU and probably had similar numbers for HD-DVD. Now they do it in 3 months. Surely we can see that as healthy growth?
darthdad
May 9, 2008 at 12:09
Stop making sense kabraal! 👿
doobiwan
May 9, 2008 at 12:19
1.6 million is probably the fence sitter spike after the CES coup.
Look at it however you like. Sony includes PS3’s, but frankly Consumers don’t buy game consoles as players. The feature may swing the opinion of someone already in the market for both.
Until the PS3 includes an HD cable and BD remote in the box, it’ll never be taken seriously as a dedicated BD player.
SlippyMadFrog
May 9, 2008 at 12:39
And you’re saying I’m taking it seriously… 🙄
kabraal
May 9, 2008 at 13:09
lol, ofc I’m taking it seriously. What I don’t take seriously is your “beef” with me.
SlippyMadFrog
May 9, 2008 at 13:21
Cool, my bad. I guess you have a good point. I still think anybody can subjectively spin this the way you want too. Anyway, I realy don’t care about blu-ray so I don’t know even why I’m here.
MaXiM
May 10, 2008 at 12:58
Blu-Ray sales up 351%
‘Steve Beeks, president and co-COO of Lionsgate commented, “Blu-ray had its second-best week ever in the seven days ending March 23, and we anticipate Blu-ray sales of $800 million to $1billion-plus for all of 2008, up dramatically from approximately $300 million last year.”
‘
Standalone Player sales may have dropped discounting the PS3 which is the best value for money BDPlayer, but disc sales are on the up and up…. 351% already from last year.
kabraal
May 10, 2008 at 14:51
Blu ray is tanking. LG said so.
LazySAGamer
May 10, 2008 at 15:21
Hi MaXiM, you got a link to that?
kabraal
May 10, 2008 at 15:57
I just like to point out that the BD stand alone hardware drop, according to your quote, dropped in Jan-Feb. Something you failed to mention in your self assessment of the article. You generalized it as “post format war.” Now we all now Jan is a shitty month for anything sales wise. Esp $300-$600 SA players.
oh, here is your link
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/home_entertainment/video/e3i91323da4b3be14d2f74080ce44d7b5c4
MaXiM
May 11, 2008 at 17:34
Yo Lazy… Sure. Here it is -> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/home_entertainment/video/e3i91323da4b3be14d2f74080ce44d7b5c4
MaXiM
May 11, 2008 at 17:56
Also remember that studio’s like Paramount and Universal still have to come to the party with Blu-Ray offerings, which in time will even further lift Blu-Ray Disc sales.
MaXiM
May 11, 2008 at 17:57
Why am I a Panda? Ar’nt they endangered species? 🙂
LazySAGamer
May 11, 2008 at 21:29
lol, just my default gravatar…
If you want a special one go to http://www.gravatar.com and sign up…
HoodedGrub
May 12, 2008 at 00:06
Gravatar…. nice