One million Blu-ray movies sold in Europe

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 28 November 2007 10:48

Business IT - Technology

Sony's crowing about Blu-ray movies hitting the one million unit milestone, but is that really anything to get excited about?

The fact that Blu-ray is outselling HD DVD by nearly 3:1 is good news for Sony and other members of its camp, but in absolute terms one million units among roughly 800 million people doesn't amount to much.

Another figure that Sony is bandying around is that approximately 20 million Blu-ray game discs (presumably for the PS3) have been produced for sale in Europe. Let's assume that they've all been sold, or will be by Christmas. That's 20 games for every movie!

It seems to me that the only reason the Blu-ray team is getting so excited is because HD DVD is doing even worse.

"This is an important milestone for Blu-ray Disc in Europe and proves once again that whenever consumers have the choice they decide overwhelmingly in favour of BD," said Frank Simonis, Chairman of the Blu-ray Disc European Promotions Committee.

Hmm, choice... you mean I should be able to go out and buy any movie released in hi-def form on either Blu-ray or HD DVD? Chance would be a fine thing.

Despite these numbers from Europe, it no longer seems as obvious that Blu-ray has an unassailable lead over HD DVD as it did earlier this year. For example, JB Hi-Fi (a major music and movie retailer in Australia) originally announced it would only stock one hi-def format, and that would be Blu-ray. In the last few weeks it has begun advertising HD DVD titles as well.

Given the apparently rapid takeup of LCD and plasma TVs, why aren't more people buying hi-def players and discs? The continuing existence of two formats must be discouraging adoption. In years to come, the consumer electronics industry and the movie studios will look back at this chapter and rue the opportunity they squandered by failing to agree on a single standard.