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Some Blu-Ray, HD DVD Discs Sell Only 200 Copies
An anonymous reader writes "Much has been made of the strong sales for some recent high-def disc releases (such as 'Casino Royale' on Blu-ray), but a new Sony research report reveals some startlingly low sales numbers for other titles released on the next-gen formats. When disc sales of under 1000 can land you on a weekly best-sellers list, you know your format is in its infancy."
FTA: "While we should note that the VideoScan numbers are not all-inclusive (for example, they don't include discs sold at Wal-Mart or some online merchants)"
Yeah cause it's not like Walmart or some online merchants contribute much to home video sales...
I hate to break it to anonymous submitter, but depending on when a disk was released, it may have -zero- reported sales when a summary report like this is generated. And said movies may very well suck anyway, and not be selling for that reason alone.
So much for the sensationalist submission title.
"Casino Royale" is being sold in a bundle with the PS3 in my country. Could this be where many of the sales of that particular movie are coming from?
At the store where I work, BluRay has outsold HD-DVD 8-1 during the last few months.
We have sold 8 BluRay discs and only one HD-DVD disc.
On the other hand, we usually sell at least 50 DVDs on most days.
It doesn't look like these titles are all so new that you'd be correct (and anyway, new releases nearly always have greater weekly sales than ones that have been around awhile). The real story here is in comparing the HD/BD sales to regular DVD sales--the low rate reported here would probably remain quite low.
Even if Wal-Mart isn't on the list, weekly sales of less than 1000 copies isn't good news for the next-generation titles (particularly because all the HD/BD discs I've seen tend to be the "money makers"--not box office flops). Lots of the movies do suck, but that never stopped people from buying them in massive quantities on DVD or VHS.
The more pressing problem is that no one really needs these discs. There are about 30 million HDTV sets, which is still a small fraction of all televisions in this country. Of those, most people think DVDs look good enough. Why buy an expensive player with wacky DRM schemes and maybe-HDCP and all kinds of other bogus crap, only to have to buy more expensive movies that are presently nowhere NEAR the quality difference that DVD had over VHS? I have an HDTV, and I've seen some amazing HD-DVD content, but I was an early adopter of DVD players and I'm just not doing it again for HD/BD players. It's someone else's turn to fund the birth of this industry.
Wake me when I can get the player for $100 and the disc gives me something better than "great high-definition video mastering" on one of my TVs. I can play my DVDs anywhere, and they mostly look pretty good with progressive scan. Maybe that whole "multiple camera angles" vaporware from DVD would be a good thing to include so I could have some fun with my movies.
What about the music market? Would you say the same thing? I'm guessing that number is going to jump.
If only such a small percent of the market is concerned about DRM, then why has adopting it been such a problem for the entertainment market?
DRM isn't a concern to me only because it's so easy to crack.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Call me a luddite, but I don't really care about the quality of the sound and image. I just like entertaining movies. And I can get movies that I like in the 5$ bin at Wal Mart. Who needs to spend the money on a new TV, new player, new library of discs, and assorted cables and gadgets, when my computer and a handfull of old movies suits me just fine.
Ah, come on, some good stuff will slip past the guards ;-)
A DVD like "The Corporation" is quite amazing for how much is jammed on it -- 6 hours of interviews plus a 2 hour movie, all on a "2 hour" DVD. And recently companies are putting out 2 movies on one DVD -- "48HRS / Another 48HRS" comes to mind. In an HD world this could be "Batman 1 2 3 4 5" on one HD disc. Sure it wouldn't be the special editions, but it would still be handy for a Batman marathon (even though I only really like the first and last ones. I'm more likely to have a Lethal Weapon, Robert De Niro, Mel Gibson or David Fincher marathon.)
I see the movie studios responding to the market better than the record companies. Yes DVDs started off ridiculously expensive, but now they are ridiculously cheap (unless you like the BBC). Also, the special editions have become the standard editions in many cases. Called double dipping when done too soon after the first release, this is a huge value add and I love it. Run a search on Amazon (I did 500 such searches recently when I was updating my favorite movies page) and you will be amazed at the value.
Like buying a new machine in 2006 to forestall having Vista rammed down their throat, now is a great time to stock up on DVDs. And I think the same will be true with HD discs in a few years. No they probably won't be unencumbered, but they will bring value and I will probably get an HD player. Beethoven's 9 symphonies alone were enough to get me to buy a CD player.
I still like the idea that some portion of HD content is unencumbered. I think it is natural that the more time-consuming stuff to listen to (face it, you never need to watch the extras) like "Making ofs" and director commentaries be available in MP3 form. Make it 24kbps or something, I would be more than happy with that. While you are at it, ban the group commentaries -- those truly suck. If someone has something to say, use all that space to put it on a separate track, or at least manage it like the excellent Bond Double Oh 7 editions do.
I come here for the love
When The Matrix came out on DVD it was a big factor to getting people to finally switch formats. Lots of people who didn't previously buy DVDs picked that one up first.
A movie with the potential to do the same would probably be 300. I'll be very interested in seeing if it doesn't kick start this format war into the next level.
Sigs are awesome huh?
I wonder how Netflix fits into all of this. For no extra charge, one can have bluray and HD-DVD versions of movies sent to their home. I've never bought a HD-DVD but I am a rather heavy consumer of them. I have rented 34 titles so far from them. All of my friends that have HD-DVD and BluRay players do the same thing. The cost of the movie is prohibitive, but Netflix charges no more for the privilege.
It's also laden with high prices. The most expensive conventional DVD's (with few exceptions) are priced in the $18-$22 range. The average price of DVD's I pick up are under $12 each.
A good many of those have poor transfers also. In fact, after recently purchasing a hi-def television, I've begun to notice drastic differences in picture quality between different dvd's. The tendency seems to be $10 for crappy transfers, $15-$20 for hi-def remasters. Of course, nearly any DVD from Criterion will be around $30. So, the price isn't that big of an issue for me.