HD DVD re-takes the lead!

[meStevo]

I played the full version of Motorstorm at a Kiosk in some store.

Then I went home and play Flatout 2 on the PC.

Don't feel like I am missing too much.

 

[navychop]

That Lurch We All Just Felt...

...was the world returning to normal. Blu-ray is back ahead, leading in all sales ranking reports on eProductWars. OK, they're tied at 2 apiece for # in top 100.

Anybody participating in the "Buy a Blu-ray Today" campaigns for 4/21 & 5/27? Think it will be as successful in putting a blip in the data as the "Buy an HD DVD Today" campaign was?

 

[CochiseGuy]

...was the world returning to normal. Blu-ray is back ahead, leading in all sales ranking reports on eProductWars. OK, they're tied at 2 apiece for # in top 100.

Anybody participating in the "Buy a Blu-ray Today" campaigns for 4/21 & 5/27? Think it will be as successful in putting a blip in the data as the "Buy an HD DVD Today" campaign was?

Maybe it's changed since you looked at it, but it seems tied or a slight advantage to HD DVD.

Tied to 2 each in the Top 100
Top 1000 - 19 each
Top 10,000 - BD 143, HD DVD 122

I was on both the AVS and HighDefDigest forums last Sunday, and there was a definite "Buy HD DVD Day" campaign, as I disclosed. It was actually kind of fun to watch. But that endgadget story was wrong. The campaign was to buy as many titles as possible; there was no effort to buy any specific title to push it past Casino Royale in the Top 10. And if their had been, Planet Earth would not have been the one title to pick, at $70. And there's been no bigger HD DVD supporter here than me, and I sure wasn't going to buy Planet Earth. I watch the episodes weekly on Discovery HD - gotta get some use out of that Dish HD monthly bill.
I only bought 3 on Amazon, to "support the cause", and those were older releases I'd been resisting upgrading my DVD's to. And if I didn't get 10% off HD DVD's from Amazon from their promotion last year, I would have passed completely.

I dunno, it would seem if the "sales blip" on Amazon was solely / largely due to the AVSforum Buy HD DVD Day, the rankings would have tapered off the next day, not take almost a whole week to tape off and become even again.

 

[navychop]

Well, as of 15:18 today, Central time, it is again as I posted. But they update every 15 minutes. Or claim to.

Looks to me like a one day spike, and then tapering off.

Discouraging. Let's guestimate 250,000 high def discs sold during April (both formats). I understand Wally World sells about half, so we're down to vaguely around 125,000. I'd guess (again) that Amazon sells less than half the remainder, so we can swag 50,000 discs for April from Amazon. Let's round that off to around 1600 per day. I've seen estimates that the HD DVD "buy" drive had about 2,000 participants. If they bought on average, 2 or 3 discs- yeah, I can see that affecting the data for a few days. But surely many, maybe most, of those discs would have been bought anyway- they've just concentrated the sales on a day or so, rather than over a couple of months or so.

No matter how we look at it, it just drives home how few high def discs are sold. Will sales double over the course of the year? Would it settle anything if they did?

And yeah, I'm DVRing "Planet Earth" and watching it cheap. That's $70 that will stay in my pocket.

 

[mike123abc]

My local Walmart has 3x the Blu-Ray titles as they have HD DVD. But that is not saying much, it is like 10 HD-DVD and 30 BD titles.

 

[CochiseGuy]

From the "Buy HD DVD Day on Amazon" thread on AVS, they claim 1519 discs were purchased. Highdefdigest (HDD) Poll looks like 250. But the HDD campaign was to just buy, not specifically on Amazon. Several small online retailers were offering discounts.

I'd be really surprised if "Wally World sells about half" of the high desk sales. And if so, that would kind of discredit the Nielson reports, since they don't include Wal*Mart. I rarely go to Wal*Mart, but it doesn't seem the place "early adapters" would go for their high def titles. In fact, I see more and more grumbling in the forums that they can't find the current week's new HD releases at any brick & mortar store - Best Buy, Circuit City, Target & Wal*Mart. When they only sell maybe a dozen or so copies, the stores just don't seem to bother like they do for new DVD releases that they'll sell hundred or thousands of. And so I see more & more posts in the forums that they don't bother, they just pre-order new releases online and get them within a few days. I have just over 40 HD DVD and I've bought 1 in a store. But then, I hate shopping. If it's not something I have to see & feel - like food and clothing - I buy it online.

 

[dfergie]

My local Walmart has 3x the Blu-Ray titles as they have HD DVD. But that is not saying much, it is like 10 HD-DVD and 30 BD titles.

Mine has zero of either... Only thing I've seen is Blu-Ray Remote's...

 

[navychop]

Now I don't have a link, but I seem to remember reading that Wal Mart stopped reporting to Nielson, and that somehow some study was done to test the validity of Nielson's figures. They determined that the buying pattern within the Nielson reportees was about the same as the Wal Mart buyers' pattern, so the Nielson figures were still valid.

However, I can't remember for sure if that was DVDs in general, or high def, or what. You do have a point- Wal Mart shoppers would not seem to be big buyers of cutting edge anything. But there are so many of them.....

So if we go with the figures you mentioned, it seems that the conclusion is the same- they could easily affect the eProductWars numbers.

It occurs to me that if there are people in the two camps that want to flex their buying muscles and blip the data- they should just schedule their "Buy X" day on the same day there's a "Buy Y" day. That way, they can offset the other guys!

Come on, guys- duke it out! Buy more More MORE! Lift sales volume so better cheaper players come out! Settle the war! And then maybe I can buy one.

 

[mike123abc]

You have to hunt down HDDVDs and BDs at Walmart. Mine just has a couple columns in the middle of the regular DVD section. If you did not happen to notice the blue/red cases you would not even realize they were not DVDs. I wonder how many people have bought the HD ones and did not know they were HDDVD or BD until they tried to play them.

 

[CochiseGuy]

You have to hunt down HDDVDs and BDs at Walmart. Mine just has a couple columns in the middle of the regular DVD section. If you did not happen to notice the blue/red cases you would not even realize they were not DVDs. I wonder how many people have bought the HD ones and did not know they were HDDVD or BD until they tried to play them.

I thought it was funny when my HD DVD' started appearing with a large sticker on them "HD DVD. For Playback only on HD DVD Players". But apparently that's what was happening. I remember Blockbuster created a fiasco when they first added HD DVD & Blu-ray in with regular DVD listings. Folks ordered them and then got all p1ssed off when they wouldn't play, so BB had to take all the high def listings out and then do it like Netflix - you have to go through a few steps to enable HD DVD or Blu-ray for your account.

And to inject a little humor - I sell DVD's I don't want anymore on Amazon Market Place. I recently listed the Robin Hood HD DVD there. (A classic, but too boring for me). It was listed in Amazon's listing for the HD DVD with a picture, and my listing specified HD DVD. Well, some folks in Alabama bought it. Within a week I had a complaint and return & refund request from the buyers. Their note said "This DVD ain't no good, we tried it in 3 different DVD players and it don't play! It's in a funny looking little red case - is this some kind of furin DVD?"

I took a wild guess that "furin'" was Alabamese for "foreign".
I replied that it had been listed as an HD DVD and HD DVD's only play in the new HD DVD players, and offered to to refund in full when I got it back. It's on its way back home . . . .

 

[dfergie]

I rented 2 Tuesday and the salesgirl asked me if I was aware they were HD DVD's (and they just started renting them here)

 

[navychop]

Nielson reports that for the week ending 4/29, Blu-ray outsold HD DVD by almost 2.5 to 1.

 

[dnyce]

Please change the title!

Unless a quarter million people purchased a HD DVD last night please change your Thread title! What exactly is HD DVD leading? Shouldn't it be HD DVD is catching up??