Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending May 25th, 2008
Oh what a difference a new release makes to the Nielsen VideoScan charts courtesy of Home Media Magazine. The National Treasure series helped excel Blu to a 7% share this week, which is the second highest we've seen since HMM started tracking Blu-ray's share compared to DVD. The Nic Cage movies took all three of the top spots on the Blu-ray chart, leaving every other title in the dust by a large margin. But while Book of Secrets may have outsold any other Blu-ray title by almost 4 to 1, it only managed a 6.98% share of the overall title's sales when compared to DVD. Although Blu-ray had a great week this week with a 54.94% increase over last, we still can't help but to harp on the fact that 10 of the top 20 DVD titles aren't available on Blu. The market share per title chart is back this week (after the jump) and it's very obvious that Blu makes up for not having the same new releases by selling catalog titles like V for Vendetta and Twister, with the number one title on both the DVD and the Blu-ray top 20, is the number 20th in regards to Blu-ray market share. As for next week, there is no way Blu-ray can sustain these numbers with only Rambo, but the week after should be really interesting considering how many movies are due to be released on Blu on the same day.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
shawnmos @ May 30th 2008 10:20PM
Short Circuit made it onto that list. LOL.
wreckedchevy @ May 30th 2008 10:47PM
honestly i could really care less either way but seeing short circuit on the list kind tells ya how low of volume sales were
truegamer @ May 30th 2008 11:44PM
not surprised it made the list, it was $9.99 to $11.99 many places. I guess the cheap price help!
Galley @ May 30th 2008 11:45PM
"I'm sporting a tremendous woody!
mcrexx @ May 30th 2008 10:48PM
If you release it (good releases that is), people will buy. :)
CharlieX @ May 30th 2008 11:31PM
There's the problem.
There is an enormous amount of crap in BD.... and all the stuff you would ABSOLUTELY buy isn't available.
Who in the %$#% had a HD master transfer of Short Circuit lying around?
Jason @ May 30th 2008 11:35PM
Toshiba sucks dude.
CharlieX @ May 31st 2008 12:39AM
Oh, you've changed your avatar.
But not your core argument.
DrXym @ May 31st 2008 3:59AM
All fairly predictable really. Popular titles mean more sales.
Studios have been targeting late May / June for Father's day and the consequently sales shoot up. You can more or less see how sales are going to be in advance by looking at the releases. Rambo will probably top next week's list and the figures are likely to be similar.
Dave @ May 31st 2008 4:51AM
Soon dvd, soon :)
Omar @ May 31st 2008 5:54AM
You guys in the states are so lucky concerning to the prices of bluray discs! You pay 20 dollar for harry potter 5 - we in switzerland 40 dollars!
mntwister @ May 31st 2008 7:48AM
Having been in the video field for over 30 years, there is never any push this time of the year for any format, people are spending their money on the summer...and outside activities. The first few years of dvd, when I was working back then at Best Buy, we had no promotions for dvd until late summer into the fall, and then it started to go wild when the studios and the manufacturers got together and made quite the splash for the fall and the holidays. I remember this very well.
This is exactly what's happening this year. The forces are gathering and I think we are going to see the biggest push ever starting this fall for blu-ray. The 2.0 players will be out in force, players that can be reduced at retail will be available (already a $299 player at Walmart, plus Samsung's 2.0 ready 1500 at $349). This is right in line with the same period after DVD's introduction. Another thing that happened when these big promotions and advertising campagnes started with DVD, is that the studios took many of their releases that were already available and cut the price. That is going to be a big factor too. This fall and holiday season is predicted to be the biggest yet for high-def televisions too. With lower priced players, I can easily see people picking up a TRUE high def player, and many will be packaged with the HDTVs.
I am excited to see this big push coming. There are many companies involved, all of which want blu-ray to be the next entertainment format. That's alot of advertising power. And I truly hope it happens, because we finally can view movies in full high definition with lossless sound. Toshiba can keep their new upscaling player, no matter how good it looks, it will never look like a blu-ray disc, and it will never improve those awful compressed Dolby Digital soundtracks. Plus there are so many dvd's with sub-par transfers that have never been re-issued with remastered editions, no matter what is done those won't look very good upscaled by any method compared to a well-transferred blu-ray disc.
I believe we will see players starting on Black Friday advertised as low as $199 to $249. That is quite a value for the consumer who has spent thousands of dollars on a HD television. Will consumers replace their upscaling dvd players with another upscaling dvd player (the new Toshiba) or spend the 200.00-300.00 on a true high def player. The answer is very obvious. My opinion is that much depends on the pricing of the movies by the studios, and they must come down. I believe all studios across the board will cut prices on already-issued blu-rays in time for the holidays. I believe we have only begun to see blu-ray shine, and looking at what is happening right now is absolutely no indicator of its future. It's summer, people are spending on trips and the outdoors in an economy that is really hurting where it takes 50.00 for a tank of gas and rising costs like food and electric. But when it comes gift-giving time and it gets cold outside again, that's when people start to think about how to entertain themselves in the long winter months.
You cannot judge blu-ray's success by spring/summer sales, just as DVD never did that well in those 2 quarters, especially in its first 3 years, and if you want to see how close the figures are for blu-ray and dvd in the first few years, check out this chart:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/cemadvdsales.html
For the naysayers who post that have some doom wish for the format and there are some, it's a shame you feel that way and that you seem to be hoping that the Toshiba upscaler kills blu-ray. One would think you would want the highest quality format to succeed, and be able to view your entertainment with the best possible picture and soundtrack. I think those people must have some personal vandetta against the format..because the quality of a high-def disc is like nothing before it and it's too bad some of these people are surfing the net posting negatives at every opportunity about a great new format, one of high quality for home viewing. I find many of these people, judging from their previous posts to be bitter hd-dvd owners who unfortunately cannot accept the way the format war ended. Heck, I went into blu-ray from the start, but had hd-dvd won, I would gladly have embraced the format because I want to see my movies in true 1080p with a soundtrack that matched the studio master.
DrXym @ May 31st 2008 1:46PM
Exactly. The first half of the year is the quiet period. Sales start to rise in June, with another spike in September and then biggest spike of all in November / December. I expect there to be some massive promotions for the format from studios, stores and CEs to coincide with major holiday dates, as well as some extremely aggressive pricing from the likes of Walmart.
lakersin2025 @ May 31st 2008 10:07AM
Although I didn't read your post INfinity because I already know it is some stab at Blu, I must say thank you for changing your avatar. I would even go so far as to say it's kind of cute. Thanks for changing it from that screaming serial killer.
Anthony Pivac @ May 31st 2008 10:50AM
mntwister
Excellent post.
I think sales numbers will increase greatly by this time next year, just as dvd did. New tech generally has a slow start. As more people become aware & as prices come down it will give a big push.
It's just a shame the U.S economy and gas prices are killing people.
Truth Teller @ May 31st 2008 11:46AM
Ok, so it's a marginal improvement on last week
(going by the actual amounts involved and not playing the percentage game).
Like I have said for some time 50% more of almost nothing is still almost nothing.
$12.3 million in the USA is not a lot of sales, not taking into account the prices Blu-ray charge and the fact that a large segment of the DVD market refuse to purchase at release prices.
Quite clearly a direct comparison is not as valid there as so want to insist.
A set of figures showing actual numbers of units sold in the first 6 - 12 months would be extremely revealing - and totally prove my point regard how utterly minute Blu-ray sales really are when compared to DVD.
There is no "soon DVD, soon" about this......well, not to anyone rational.
They could double sales next week and it would still be 'drop in the ocean' stuff.
You don't need to be a market analyst (amatuer or otherwise) to see this, just honest about it.
Naturally those who want to trumpet the virtues of Blu-ray will try to avoid or deny this and in addition insist direct comparisons with the beginning of DVD are not only valid but are indeed directly comparable to the BD tale so far.
They are not.
There are umteen differing significant factors now in play that were not before.
Not the least of which is that we now have a market well used to disc media at inexpensive price-points & that is are currently buying the latest upscaling DVD players in fast accelerating numbers - much faster than Blu-ray's growth for instance
(which remains almost totally confined to the PS3 game console niche)
If you really can't or won't see that then that's just your own problem.
WebDev511 @ May 31st 2008 12:03PM
Better results than last week. I actually bought NT1/NT2 set, but I doubt they'll be counting my HD DVD purchase of Twister for the week ending June 1st.
I will be curious to see how well Patton sells on Blu. The PQ/AQ reviews seem to be very positive so far. That's good news since just about every catalog title from Fox seems to be a crap shoot.