Blu-Ray Bitch Slaps HD DVD, Sells Twice More Disks

The Christmas shopping frenzy is approaching fast and this has spurred yet another conflict between the two parties involved in the next-generation format war, namely the supporters of the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. This time, we're talking about the number of discs sold, which, as market research studies indicate, point out to Blu-ray to be the victor by a landslide.

Thus, according to a report by Reuters, the latest study from Home Media Research, a division of Home Media Magazine, indicates the fact that the total U.S. sales of Blu-ray discs totaled 2.6 million units from January 1 through Sept 30, versus 1.4 million HD-DVD discs sold. Thus, it would seem that the Sony's format is dominating Toshiba's version 2 to 1. Or is it?

As mentioned earlier, the figures were recorded in the January 1st - September 30th period, not taking into account the huge success enjoyed by Paramount's "Transformers", which hit the shelves in mid-October and sold more than 100,000 HD-DVDs on its first day of release. Thus, Toshiba's next-gen format might really pick up the pace over the next months and especially during the all-important Christmas shopping season. Furthermore, the study from Home Media Research says nothing about HD DVD or Blu-ray rentals, which are an extremely important issue and seem to seriously favor the former.

Since both formats launched in the spring of 2006, an estimated 4.98 million high-definition discs have been sold, including 3.01 million in Blu-ray and 1.97 million in HD-DVD through the end of September, according to Home Media. However, this is a relative low number, compared to the number of consumers, which means that the rate of adoption for the next-gen formats is not exactly as high as either Sony or Toshiba had hoped for.

Nevertheless, this whole battle and "format war" might become just a hilarious part of technology's history soon enough, due to one very simple reason: people won't be keen on spending too much money on standalone players compatible with a single format, especially since most major studios have already chosen sides and will release movies in just one format. Instead, they'll go for dual-format machines, which work with both HD DVD and Blu-ray, much like the devices announced by both Samsung and LG. And after all, who among you would be willing to pay good cash for a device that is capable of playing only half of the movies you want to watch, instead of paying a bit more for a device that lets you view both formats?

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