Sony Set to Market Blu-ray as Winner of Format War

An anonymous reader writes "Citing the recent sales numbers, Sony exec David Bishop is claiming that the high-def format war can officially be declared over. With a movie sale ratio of almost 2:1 Blu-ray discs are being declared the victor over rival HD-DVD by Blu-ray supporter Sony. 'And yet while all agree that it was a strong month for Blu-ray, opinion is split on whether the surge in sales is an indicator of stronger user adaption of Blu-ray compared to HD DVD, or simply a reflection of the larger number of new Blu-ray titles that hit the market over the month -- 25 new Blu-ray titles were released in January, compared to just 11 titles on HD DVD for the same period.'"

Comments

Number of movies

[SnarfQuest]

Aren't the number of movies available related to the popularity of the format?

Re:Number of movies

[ngtvtw13ve]

If that was true then wouldn't we still be buying vhs tapes?

Re:Number of movies

[LiquidCoooled]

If thats the case, divx avi movies rule the world ;)

Re:Number of movies

[Andy Dodd]

Number of movies released in a particular month != total number of movies available

I believe that prior to this particular month, HD-DVD was consistently ahead of Blu-Ray. Declaring a winner based on a single months' worth of statistics (especially at this early point when both formats are in their infancy) is utterly idiotic.

Re:Number of movies

[SnarfQuest]

But, how many new VHS movie titles were released last month?

Re:Number of movies

[Babbster]

Aren't the number of movies available related to the popularity of the format?

You're absolutely correct, and that would be a good measure of a particular format's success. Here's the problem: The number of HD DVD and Blu-ray titles currently available is a virtual dead heat. The last time I did a count (about 2 weeks ago) via a popular website that sells both formats, the numbers differed by less than 10, with the total being in the mid 100s.

As regards the most recent numbers, it's pretty obvious that more Blu-ray titles have been released and purchased in the last two months because a) Sony finally released the PS3 and there is nothing else to do with that hardware other than playing Blu-ray movies and play Resistance and b) they're trying to catch up with HD DVD which had a significant lead in available titles prior to the holiday season.

It's obviously way too soon to declare a winner, but I'll give Sony props for trying to turn lemons into lemonade...

I should note, as I often do, that I don't care who wins. If Toshiba and company stand pat and don't push their format then Sony could indeed win the thing because the PS3 is going to sell as time goes by, even if it doesn't become the dominant game console that the PS2 and PS were. The HD DVD folks need to get a standalone player out ASAP for under $400 and by Christmas they need to have players under $300. If they don't, then they'll have to rely on the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on to compete with the PS3, and that's a dangerous road - not because the HD DVD add-on is a bad deal (it's actually a pretty good one), but because 360 owners already have what they need and want to play games without the bonus of an HD format, while PS3 owners are "forced" into possession of the HD format as a consequence of desiring PS3 gameplay.

Re:Number of movies

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Sony doing something idiotic? Naw...

Re:Number of movies

[pluther]

I think the problem with this is, that most people don't know there's a format war going on.

Those that do are the ones paying attention, and they probably won't be fooled by the marketing hype declaring Sony the winner.

25 titles release in a month, compared to 11 for the competition, is far too small of a number to actually draw any kind of conclusion. Sure, it's more than twice as much, but with numbers this small impressive-sounding percentages are easy to come by.

Re:Number of movies

[PopeRatzo]

I agree with TFA. Blu-ray has won the format war.

I'm also ready to declare Tom Vilsack the winner of the '08 presidential election and the Chicago White Sox the winner of next year's World Series.

Re:Number of movies

[compro01]

Interesting... *ahem* I hereby declare myself the sexiest man alive!
Now all I have to do is just repeat it often enough that everyone starts believing it... ;)

well, if you repeat as much as sony's marketing budget would allow, it's likely that a number of people would start believing it.

cool.

[President_Camacho]

Sony Set to Market Blu-ray as Winner of Format War

Are they also going to market their laptops as the winner of the battery war?

Re:cool.

[Reverend528]

Are they also going to market their laptops as the winner of the battery war?

They blow the competition away!

Re:cool.

[SatanicPuppy]

Why not?

"Sony lithium batteries smoke the competition!"
"Sony is on fire with these new batteries!"
"Put a Sony battery in your laptop and witness an explosion of power!"
"Sony lithium: Taste the Apocalypse!"
"Sony lithium batteries: Your laptop will never be the same!"
"Sony batteries keep burning long after the competition has gone out."

The marketing material just writes itself.

Head Sony Exec:

[Anonymous Coward]

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Sure....

[Anonymous Coward]

And these are the same people who already believe that the PS3 is the winner of the console wars against the 360 and the Wii, even though sales numbers in the US and even Japan say otherwise.

Will they say the same about the PS3?

[vjmurphy]

"Citing the recent sales numbers, Sony exec David Bishop is claiming that the next gen console war can officially be declared over. Looks like the Wii and 360 are the winners."

Perhaps they shouldn't be gloating.

Nice of them ....

[gstoddart]

Nice of Sony to declare themselves the winner. Now we can all get on with out lives.

Seriously, is this the same Sony who last week said the fact that they're being outsold by Nintendo doesn't mean they're losing, it means we shouldn't be counting Nintendo.

I'm fairly confident a company can't unilaterally declare themselves the winner in a 6 month old format war. It doesn't work like that.

Oh well, it's their Kool-Aid, they can drink it all they want. :-P

Cheers

because....

[President_Camacho]

Why is this article here in the games section?

You don't think a corporate pissing match is a game?

In other news

[TinBromide]

HD-DVD proponents throw up arms and say "That just about wraps it up for us". They began packing up the manufacturing plants and began work on other projects.

In other news, Apple declares victory over vista because of the ratio of new apple ads to new microsoft ads.

Two major advantages

[elrous0]

The two major advantages that Blu-ray has right now is

1. EXTENSIVE marketing. It's almost impossible to watch an HDTV cable network and not be innundated with Blu-ray ads (they should rename "HDnet" the "Blu-ray channel"). And Best Buy and other retailers all have blu-ray kiosks touting the glories of blu-ray. I've yet to see a single HD-DVD ad or kiosk, by contrast
2. Studio support. HD-DVD just doesn't have the support to turn out enough titles. Warner and Universal alone just aren't going to cut it.

Oddly enough, what everyone THOUGHT was going to be a big advantage for blu-ray--the PS3, hasn't really been that great, as so few people are buying them. Conversely, the supposedly big HD-DVD advantage of price (both HD-DVD players and media are cheaper) hasn't really helped it, apparently.

-Eric

Re:Two major advantages

[Pojut]

Wow, way to make it clear to everyone that you're just another idiotic fanboy.

Hey dipshit, the PS3 is selling at a faster rate than the 105+ million selling PS2...

Anyone wanna get in on this one?

Alien Technology

[ngtvtw13ve]

Of course Blu-Ray is the winner, it is by far a superior format. HD-DVD is nothing but DVD with 2 extra letters who wants to buy something unimaginitive, but Blu-Ray thats new and exciting. Its "blue" wich means advanced cause aliens are blue, and ray makes me think of an awsome ray gun from all those sci-fi movies. Its friggin advanced alien technology that Sony got its hands on hundreds of years before any other company. How could it not be the leader.

My thoughts exactly

[Weaselmancer]

How many coaches at halftime ever say they're going to lose the game?

That being said, IMHO this won't be a VHS versus Betamax thing. There is too much manufacturing set up for both sides to simply abandon one format. What I'm hoping happens is that one of the two becomes the dominant format (which it almost certainly will), and the other one will become the "ghetto" HD format.

The loser in this format war will still make money, but it will have to do it by underselling the winner. Lower prices, bigger numbers. When that happens, the loser will most likely wind up as a cheap burner you can stick on an IDE cable. And I'm really looking forward to that for data storage.

Re:My thoughts exactly

[Not_Wiggins]

When that happens, the loser will most likely wind up as a cheap burner you can stick on an IDE cable. And I'm really looking forward to that for data storage.

More likely, it'll wind up like the format war between DVD-R and DVD+R: you'll get a player capable of reading both formats, so it won't matter and the prices of the movies will be roughly equivalent.

If anything, consumers will pay for the war indirectly through hardware costs that integrate both solutions transparently.

Re:My thoughts exactly

[Pluvius]

DVD-R and DVD+R are nearly indistinguishable from each other, unlike BD and HD-DVD which are very different. It's a lot cheaper to make a dual-format player for the former than it is for the latter.

Not that it really matters; the massive amount of studio support that BluRay has over HD-DVD makes it rather unlikely that HD-DVD will long enough to where dual-format players would be a viable option.

Rob

Problem with Ratios

[flynt]

With a movie sale ratio of almost 2:1

Unfortunately, he forgot to mention that those were also the actual numbers of discs sold.

Free Movies, really sales?

[Innova]

Also to note...All PS3's came with a coupon for a free Blu-Ray movie. How many of those were included in the strong sale numbers?

Yeah, we trust them

[GweeDo]

This coming from the same company that owes me $9,600 for all the PS3's at my local walmart! source

Actually yes, all over but the shouting

[DumbSwede]

The first week of January it was 2 to 1 for sales of BD
The second week of January it was close to 3 to 1 for sales of BD

The HD-DVD camp Shot back that there where more title released on Blu-Ray the first two weeks (11 vs 21).

So what to make of this weeks releases? 12 titles to 1
It seems the distributors have decided for us.

HD DVD and Blu-ray releases on February 13th, 2007

Blu-ray

* Broken Arrow (Fox)
* Chain Reaction (Fox)
* Chronos (Koch)
* The Departed (Warner)
* Entrapment (Fox)
* Ladder 49 (Buena Vista)
* The Marine (Fox)
* Phone Booth (Fox)
* Planet of the Apes (Fox)
* Reign of Fire (Buena Vista)
* The Sentinel (Fox)
* The Usual Suspects (Fox)

HD DVD

* The Departed (Warner)

Titles to date HD DVD 159 vs Blu-ray 171.
and remember HD-DVD had a big head start and is now fading fast.

lets see

[way2trivial]

last VHS by publication date

amazon.com
#1 the mystery of love
VHS Release Date: February 6, 2007

#115 Dora the Explorer - Save the Day! was Jan 10, 2007
#116 Here Comes the Big Red Car ~ Wiggles was Jan 3rd, 2007- so 115 seems to be a safe bet for new vhs titles in the last month.

And he's right

[melted]

The primary thing that decides the success or failure of a format is content available on it. There's only one HD-DVD exclusive studio (Universal). There are quite a few that are Blu-Ray only, including all of the Sony studios and Disney. There are rumors of Universal throwing in the towel on HD-DVD.

Besides, Blu Ray is a better format. 50 GB per disk allows for lower compression ratios and uncompressed multichannel sound. The only advantage HD-DVD has is the "extras" and "interactivity features". I don't know about you, but I don't give a shit about picture-in-picture that they push so heavily. I just want to watch the goddamn movie.

As if this wasn't enough, Blu Ray also enjoys much broader industry support, including Apple (which gives you a hint as to what Final Cut / DVD Studio types will be using) and Dell. PS3 is by far the best value on the market as far as 1080p players are concerned. The fact that it plays games as well is gravy. Xbox HD-DVD add-on has an abysmal attach rate, and even if it did have a better attach rate, Xbox doesn't support HDMI, so it's not an option for folks who want an entirely digital signal path.

So there you have it.

Experience with Blu-ray/HD-DVD

[MrJynxx]

So, I actually own both Blu-ray/HD-dvd players (PS3, and HD-dvd addon for 360). I have both systems hooked up to a 50" sony SXRD LCD projection TV and so far . . . I think HD-DVD looks better even though it's displaying at 1080i. (My PS3 is @ 1080p)

I've now come across quite a few instances of really grainy video with the blu-ray movies I have. This has not been a problem with HD-DVD.

In terms of quality both are identical (except for the annoying grainy video on blu-ray). I've shown this to quite a few friends and they all see the exact same thing (so I'm not crazy). So from experience, I'm hoping HD-DVD overcomes blu-ray.

***SIDENOTE***
So far I've been really disappointed with the PS3. It's probably been the worst purchase I've made in years. Sony had better get their shit together, and get it together FAST!!!