HD DVD defies death as Wal-Mart sells-out of Toshiba’s HD-A3
Filed under: Electronics, High Definition | By: Daniel
Posted on: February 8, 2008 | 37 Comments
It has become widely known that Sony Blu-ray is winning the high definition war, but someone forgot to tell HD DVD this as it defies the slow death of the format and starts selling out of the Toshiba HD-A3 HD-DVD player on Wal-Mart.
The HD-A3 has now been handed to consumer in the masses, this can only help HD DVD, but by how much as Blu-ray keeps outselling its competitor.
VideoScan reports that during the seven days between Jan 7 and Jan 14, Sony Blu-ray has closed the gap by 7% of total discs sold since inception with HD DVD. It looks like the two formats could be at disc sales parity within weeks if this trend continues.
Source: blorge
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“If you build it they will come”
7% ?
What happens when Toshiba sell 100 million HD DVD players? Do think the studios will care then. I bet they will.
And what if Paramont and Universal sell there HD DVDs for the same price as DVDs? What does the consumer have to loose? Nothing. Price might matter after all.
I don’t see all the above happening but just a thought.
The big reason I think the HD DVD system will prevail is that HD DVD disks are produced on the zillions of existing standard dvd making machines–with a $37,000 upgrade. Blu-ray disks must be made on not yet existing new machines that cost $1.2 million apiece.
Another big reason is that basic HD DVD players are currently priced the same as some upcovert standard dvd players. This will improve the picture quality of peoples’ existing standard dvd collections.
A third reason to go HD DVD is that Blu-ray disks have their data nearer the surface so that Blu-ray disks are more easily ruined.
As an afterthought, I think the news of Warner dropping HD DVD is really causing the suicide of Blu-ray. The decision forced Toshiba into a price war, which all of a sudden has brought the price of an HD DVD machine into the price range of the masses of buyers. Even if HD DVD were to fail, the machines still are upconvert standard dvd players. You just can’t lose on a decision to buy and HD DVD machine.
The way I’ve been looking at it ever since the Warner move to BluRay only, is that if there isn’t significant sales jump in BluRay hardware sales/movie sales, and I’m not talking about the one-sided #s going around these past few weeks because it’s all still relative and right now High Def movie discs aren’t that big in the market yet. I would tend to believe that a significant sales jump would mean a significant drop in DVD sales, accompanied by a rise in BluRay sales. Anything less would have to be deemed a failure in the first half of the years, based on the fact that more studios are on the BluRay side and millions of PS3s have been sold. Don’t be fooled by the studio support at this point. Neither HD DVD or standard DVD will go away enough for the studio support to matter right now.
If any HD player can get to the magic $99 pricepoint again, it will sell VERY well.
We’ve seen how attractive this pricepoint is, when it moved 90,000 units* in one weekend:
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6498141.html?nid=3511
I have both formats and I know exactly what I am getting into when i bought by hd-dvd player… I love it. Right now i am getting deals on movies all over the place…
i think that the consumer is starting to have its say!
so far its been the moviebuff against the gamers
but now its shifting to the masses,
dont forget ps3 is the only full spec bluplayer and thats only if its upgraded on the net.yet not everyone has access to the net so out the box hd dvd is your best choice,full spec all compatible with awesome upscaling for the price.
alot of you hd-dvd fan boys are living in a fantasy woorld even if you were to sell ?00,000, it will not look good next to the ?,000,000 ps3 sold this year all toshiba is doing is positioning them self to get a big go away cheque from sony with a (tiny) peice of royalty pie, and once toshiba gets that money in there hand the will drop all suppurt like a bad habit, good luck with that.