Home Video Asylum

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, Home Theater systems and more.

Questions, comments

Question: Are these figures for the US or for the whole world?

Comment: HD DVD was released months earlier in the US than in Australia, and BD was actually first out the door here by 2 months. BD sales here are probably relatively stronger here than in the US for that reason, but the fact that BD sales are stronger in the US on a week by week basis and in total, given their late start there, does say something. HD DVD's failure to capitalise on their advantage of being first by releasing product in other countries prior to BD may work against them long term and also says something about their commitment to those other parts of the world where they released second: little or no commitment.

Question: Planet Earth—are figures for BD, HD or aggregate of both?

Comment: Hard to tell what some of these figures mean when a title has been released in both formats and format isn't included in the data.

General comment: where things are now is interesting but what will count a lot more is where things are a bit further down the track, say by year end. Toshiba has just downgraded it's forecasts for hardware and software sales which does not look promising. I haven't seen any forecasts come out of Sony for BD over the next 6 months. Weekly sales comparisons are interesting but are strongly influenced by just what new discs got released that week. A popular release for either format will sway those figures easily. Monthly figures,YTD, and cumulative figures are probably more indicative of how things are travelling because they won't be affected by the same immediacy factors as the weekly comparisons so I wouldn't read too much into any single week comparison, regardless of which side it favours. Overall, I think the data to date favours BD, especially when HD's 5-6 month early start advantage in the US is taken into account. HD lost its total to date lead very fast once BD got released and it hasn't been able to regain it. That fact, coupled with Toshiba's sales estimate downgrades for the rest of the year, is disturbing.


David Aiken


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