Blu-ray blues: sales are sluggish but PS3 will help

Stuart Corner
Monday, 04 August 2008 05:50

Your IT - Entertainment

Blu-ray players are not flying off retailers' shelves in the numbers the industry had hoped for, according to a new consumer survey from ABI Research.

ABI says its survey "revealed a widespread reluctance to commit to a Blu-ray player in the near future" with over half of the 1000 respondents, citing 'other priorities' and saying they had no plans to purchase a Blu-ray player. A further 23 percent said they were likely to buy, but not until sometime in 2009. The results are similar to those from a survey carried out by NPD Group, and reported in iTWire in May . Both surveyws were of US consumers.
ABI Research principal analyst, Steve Wilson, said that much of the lukewarm response could be attributed to consumers' perceptions about the value proposition that Blu-ray delivers. "Consumers were happy to embrace standard DVD when that format arrived because the improvement in quality over VHS videotapes was dramatic. Standard DVD didn't require the purchase of a new TV either. In contrast, while half of the respondents to our survey rated Blu-ray's quality as 'much better' than standard DVD, another 40 percent termed it only 'somewhat better,' and most are very satisfied with the performance of their current DVD players."
 
ABI says its survey also identified high Blu-ray player prices and the need for an accompanying high-definition television as being significant barriers to wider adoption. "We expect that player prices will remain above $US300 for tier one models for the remainder of this year," said Wilson. "Look for disc bundling to become the buyers' incentive."
 
ABI did identify one bright spot: "Sony's Blu-ray-enabled PlayStation 3 game console is rapidly becoming a favourite for hard-core gamers and so the installed base of sockets for Blu-ray discs continues to climb." Said Wilson: "PS3 console shipments will go a long way to help bring down manufacturing costs and drive down Blu-ray player prices [and] "while you might think gamers purchase fewer movie discs that others, we didn't see any significant evidence of that in our results."