Read this article this morning about Blu-Ray v HD DVD format war. I included a copy of it below. Which will you get?
By Mark Hachman, ExtremeTech "Within three years it will just be Blu-ray." – Frank Simonis, the Blu-ray Disc Association's European chairman, at the CeBIT trade show.According to the latest sales numbers from Nielsen VideoScan, the Blu-ray format appears to be gaining momentum.
The format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD has been relatively short, ugly, and brutal. And, given all of the interest in which format will control the multi-billion dollar market for next-generation DVD sales, each format's supporters are doing all they can to ensure their camp is the chosen one.
For many, a key move in the struggle was the inclusion of a gift certificate inside boxes of Sony PlayStation3 consoles, which began selling late last year. In an early assessment of the Blu-ray/HD-DVD race I wrote in early February, I noted that the certificate could have had an unbalancing effect on the sales of Blu-ray media. According to experts cited by USA Today, gift certificates sold during the holiday season should have been cashed in in January or early February.
It's now March, and Blu-ray appears to be holding its edge -- proving either that the assumption was incorrect, or that Blu-ray's apparent momentum didn't need the crutch. Moreover, the total of Blu-ray discs sold now outweighs the number of HD DVD discs sold, giving both the short-term and long-term edge to Sony's format.
Since inception, Blu-ray movie sales represent 52.2 percent of the total sold, versus 48.8 percent for HD DVD. This is a reversal from February, when HD DVD held the advantage.
As I've said before, Nielsen's analysis does have some holes. It excludes Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and Sam's Club. However, the firm's findings represent the most comprehensive survey that I'm aware of, or at least that has been publicly released. (Note: Nielsen doesn't provide analysis, forcing me to try and do my own.)
I'm not sure that recent developments will have a great effect. The HD DVD association formed a European working group this week to promote the standard, and executives reportedly claimed that the technology holds a roughly 2:1 lead in sales of PC hardware, however slight that may be. Alpine reportedly is interested in manufacturing an HD DVD player for the car, to use the disc as a digital audio repository.
The Nielsen numbers also reflect the sales of movies, not hardware. I haven't been able to find publicly available data on next-gen DVD hardware sales, at least broken out by format.
I've asked NPD and IDC for data before; this time, I added the Consumer Electronics Association, the industry group responsible for the CES show, and which represents the entire consumer electronics industry. According to the CEA, just 250,000 next-gen DVD players were sold in 2006, with 1 million players forecast to be sold this year, and 4 million players in 2008.
Unfortunately, the CEA didn't break this down by format. But what we know, for now, is that it's a very small number of users who are serving as the foot soldiers in this format war. Continued...
Title fight
Meanwhile, the numbers seem to grow more convincing. Sure, there might be a slight softening in Blu-ray sales at the end of February, but that doesn't seem statistically significant. I'm banking quite a bit on the assertion that gift certificates handed out during the holiday season would be consumed by the end of February. But the numbers don't reflect any sort of decline; they're flat, constant, and steady. Reports that a Blu-ray version of Casino Royale cracked the top ten sales rankings at Amazon.com seem to support the claim.
Interestingly, in terms of titles, the disparity is closer than the sales figures would indicate. According to Nielsen, which tracked sales through March 4 (before Casino Royale was released) the top-selling title was an HD DVD title, Warner's Batman Begins. Close behind it, however, was Warner's The Departed, in the Blu-ray format. (The Departed, in HD DVD format, ranks sixth; a Blu-ray version of Batman Begins has not been released.)
Of the top twenty titles, nine support the HD DVD format, while eleven are in the Blu-ray format. However, two of the HD DVD discs (the fourth-ranked Superman Returns and the seventh-ranked The Departed are both in the hybrid DVD/HD DVD format, which allows either the standard-definition and high-definition formats to be played back, which allows for a transition between both formats.
Nielsen doesn't release sales figures, for movies, instead assigning them to an "index." Ranked at 100 and 99, respectively, are the HD DVD Batman Begins, followed by the Blu-ray-encoded The Departed. Superman Returns (Blu-ray), Superman Returns (HD DVD/DVD) and Underworld: Evolution (Blu-ray) rounded out the top five, with index scores of 89, 85, and 64, respectively.
I'm not sure how much more you can say about the titles' popularity as an indicator of the success of both formats, however. The Blu-ray format of The Departed holds a clear edge over the HD DVD version of the same movie (99 to 61, in the index). The Blu-ray version of Superman Returns slightly outsold (index: 89 to 85) the HD DVD version. But the HD DVD version of Mission: Impossible 3 outsold the Blu-ray version, 52 to 50. This is the stuff which fans of the formats can argue about, although the overall unit sales seem more compelling.
I think it's also time for some analyst firm, somewhere, to bite the bullet and start releasing hardware numbers. It's fairly obvious what's going on here: analysts firms like NPD and IDC count the major electronics companies as they're clients, and the losing camp doesn't want these numbers released.
In my previous column I argued that the format war would be won when either one of two conditions was fulfilled, creating a critical mass: either one format holds an 80 percent market share for three months; or, one format holds a two-thirds market share for six months. Well, Blu-ray's won the head-to-head battle for two months, and it clearly has the advantage.
Copyright (c) 2007 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.