It's hard to believe it's actually over, but for more than two years we've followed what has come to be one of our favorite topics as Blu has faced Red in a battle to be the next physical home media format. In the end it came down to studio and consumer electronic industry support -- not to mention the PS3 -- but it was by no means an easy victory, and just because it was more popular than HD DVD, doesn't mean Blu-ray can win over the hearts of millions of DVD fans. But while we wait to see how well Blu-ray is adopted by the masses, we wanted to take a second to look back at how it all ended up working out.

We'll start this story way back in the Summer of '05 where the talks to create a unified format broke down: this is the moment most of us realized we were in for some fun. Sure, this thing got started way before that, but we have to start somewhere and this is when it really began to get interesting. As HD DVD approached the BDA to join forces and demanded too many changes to the Blu-ray disc format, the BDA told them to pound sand.

Paramount couldn't wait for the Nielsen numbers to announce that Transformers has become the best selling day one and week one HD title on Blu-ray or HD DVD. Blu-ray or HD DVD is important, because it appears even its 190,000 HD DVDs sold in the first week is still behind 300's week one mark of 250k combined. Still, over 100,000 of those sold on the first day and definitely make this the biggest exclusive release since Sony's Casino Royale broke the 100k copies shipped barrier back in March. Two things appear to be confirmed, that the lack of lossless audio wasn't that big of a deal to many buyers, and that HD sales are still miniscule when compared to the 8.3 million Transformer DVDs that sold in the first week.

[Thanks, domerdel]

250,000. nearly 1 million. 69%. Those are Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's Blu-ray sales in Europe, the U.S. and Blu-ray's share of the total HD market in Europe. Apparently someone knows the PlayStation 3 plays Blu-ray discs, as the company touted weekly Blu-ray sales of two to five times that of its competitor, HD DVD since the console made its European debut in March. Sony Pictures was first to carry the Blu-ray banner in Europe and plans on bringing Spider Man 3 and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind this fall to join the #1 best selling HD title in Europe, Casino Royale (no word on if that includes all those PS3 pack-ins). With or without StudioCanal, Sony's moving forward in Europe and around the world, hardware, software and all.

[Thanks, Tom]

As if moving over 100,000 units wasn't enough, those involved with the making of The Departed have yet another reason to celebrate -- right alongside the equally successful crew involved with 007: Casino Royale, of course. At the first Entertainment Merchants Association's Home Entertainment Awards to hand out honors for high-definition titles, Scorsese's latest gem managed to take home the awards for HD DVD Title of the Year as well as DVD Rental Title of the Year, while the latest in the Bond series took home Blu-ray Title of the Year. Unfortunately, these two films (Casablanca notwithstanding, which nabbed the Hall of Fame Award) were the only notable winners residing on an HD format, but we'll be interested to see how all that changes on the next go 'round.

[Via HighDefDigest]

Sony just announced that Casino Royale has become the first high definition release to ship over 100,000 units, with over 50% of those sold through to consumers. Apparently its success surprised even Sony, according to The Hollywood Reporter, it only shipped 50k initially, resulting in a complete sellout after only a few days. Following up on its quest to not only surpass rival HD DVD, but supplant the existing DVD format, Sony Pictures counts only 9 months since Blu-ray's launch to the first 100,000 unit shipped mark, compared to eleven months for the first DVD to hit that number (Air Force One). With a 700 percent increase in disc sales since the PlayStation 3 launched, and all of its just-announced upcoming releases on the once rare 50GB discs, Sony sees all this as a clear sign Blu-ray is pulling away in the format war, not only in the U.S. but worldwide, as the U.K. release of Royale sold 10,000 in the first week despite being the PS3 pack-in bonus. Blu-ray was a slow starter last year, and now with one big title under its belt, we'll see if the format war is as close to being over as the BDA keeps telling us it is.

Read - SPHE press release
Read - Hollywood Reporter

After the somewhat disappointing Talladega Nights pack-in with the U.S. release of the PlayStation 3, Sony has announced that the first 500,000 people to buy a European PS3 and register it on the PlayStation Network will get a free copy of the James Bond flick Casino Royale. Sony's been pimping Blu-ray synergy with the movie from the start, as it prominently features a Blu-ray player in one scene, and is headlining Sony Pictures 2007 lineup of releases. Casino Royale is slated for U.S. release on March 13th while the PS3 hits Europe on March 23rd.


[Via Joystiq]