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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%).
