Stan Beer
Wednesday, 23 January 2008 15:41
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
The Blu-ray camp has won the high definition video format war and can start popping the champagne corks. It was a brave fight but based on the latest US sales figures of standalone HD video players, it's time for Toshiba and the rest of the HD DVD camp to throw in the towel and concede defeat.
According to US sales figures from NPD, as
detailed on video enthusiast site
Digital Bits , the defection of Warner
Bros to Blu-ray has proven to be the final nail in the HD DVD coffin
which was already primed and ready to receive the dying corpse of the
Toshiba backed format.
The HD DVD camp has always argued that the market should discount sales
of PlayStation 3 consoles and the add-on HD DVD players for Xbox 360,
even though to many the argument is fallacious. With 9 million PS3
consoles already in homes around the world, sales of the Sony console
already dwarf sales of all other HD consoles put together. However,
taking Toshiba and the HD DVD supporters on their own terms, it's game
over.
According to NPD figures, HD DVD put up a respectable fight in the
holiday shopping season month of December 2007, managing to capture
nearly 40% of standalone HD player sales compared to a trifle more than
60% for Blu-ray standalone players. In the first week of January, the
much cheaper HD DVD standalone players (48.83%) almost matched it with
standalone Blu-ray players (51.17%) - the raw figures were 14,558 HD
DVD players and 15,257 Blu-ray players. Then came the Warner Bros
announcement.
For the HD DVD camp, the Warner Bros announcement at CES was like a
knife in the heart and its effect was devastating. In the second week
of January, Blu-ray standalone players in the US shot up to 21,770
(92.53%), while standalone HD DVD player sales dropped like a stone to
1758 (7.47%).
