Bourne, Harry Potter HD DVDs outpacing Blu-ray titles

[admin]

Fourth-quarter HD DVD releases The Bourne Ultimatum and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are outpacing similarly high-profile Blu-ray titles, according to Universal Studios Home Entertainment and other industry research sources.

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Additionally, notes Universal research, Warner Home Video’s HD DVD release of Order of the Phoenix is edging out the titles’ BD version by a 55-to-45 ratio. Order of the Phoenix also streeted Dec. 11. That claim matches information gathered from Amazon.com sales rankings in recent weeks.

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6515097.html?nid=3512

[Chewy]

at the bottom of that article was the bottom lines

Toshiba sold 90,000 players in a two-day period in November, thanks to Wal-Mart and Best Buy pricing HD DVD players below $100 for the first time.

“This is a real testament to the momentum we are gaining with the set-top players,” said Graffeo. “We are beginning to realize the attach rate with movie sales.”

[admin]

Yeah, it was always going to take some time for the people who purchased the $100 players to start buying movies, especially since these players already came with quite a few free movies. I think I read somewhere that the attach rate for Blu-ray (including the PS3) was something like 0.6 movies per player (including PS3s, of which according to Sony's own figures, 70+% have used the Blu-ray player), whereas with HD DVD, it's 3 or 4. Even with PS3 not being used for Blu-ray movies taken out, Blu-ray's attach rate may still be under 1. Of course, you could remove the PS3 altogether and then the attach rate goes up, but HD DVD then has the advantage of having more standalones (the number is said to be above 1 million now, when the holiday figures are taken into account).

Basically, every PS3 owner might on average buy a single Blu-ray movie to test out the machine, but these are not hard core movie buffs and it's unknown whether they will continue purchasing Blu-ray movies or rely on cheap DVDs and the PS3's excellent upscaler. But because the PS3 has sold in greater numbers, even 0.5 movies per player is already about half of HD DVD's total number of sales, even if the HD DVD attach rate is as high as 4.

Because of this, the Blu-ray group has focused more on cheaper/discount movies to get their attach rate up, while the HD DVD people are focusing on getting hardware into people's homes because they know their attach rate is high. A stalemate is what I see for 2008, unless some studios change their position.