14 DAY TRIAL // Although nothing's absolutely sure for the time being, it would seem that the next-generation format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray might end a lot sooner than expected, with HD DVD about to suffer a bitter defeat. And in order to further emphasize their market dominance, the group supporting Sony's format has issued at this year's CES a statement based on several market research reports, in which it kinda thrashes their rivals.
Thus, according to sales figures from Home Media Research, Blu-ray Disc movie titles outsold HD DVD in the United States by a nearly 2-to-1 margin last year, in just about every week of the year. Furthermore, Blu-ray editions of titles released on both formats consistently outsold their HD DVD counterparts by significant margins. Moreover, the total US sales of Blu-ray movie titles topped six million in December, 2007, compared to the sales of HD DVD discs, which are yet to reach four million units.
On the other hand, according to the European based market research firm, GfK media control - OCC, high-definition movie title sales in Europe were nearly 3-to-1 in favor of Blu-ray. The Japanese market also seems to largely favor Blu-ray, since the margin was an overwhelming 14-to-1.
Another important fact pointed out by the a Blu-ray Disc Association was that sales of high-definition playback devices were even stronger in Blu-ray's favor - more than 3 -to-1 in the United States, 10-to-1 in Europe and more than 100-to-1 in Japan.
Furthermore, as the Blu-ray supporters declare, in November, despite the $99 HD DVD player fire sale, Blu-ray accounted for nearly 70 percent of all high-definition disc sales in the United States. During the final week of November - including Black Friday - Blu-ray accounted for 72 percent of all high-definition disc sales. Actually, the strong consumer preference for Blu-ray was even cited by Warner Bros. as the principle reason for their January 4th decision to publish solely on Blu-ray Disc beginning May of 2008.
Of course, it's rather hard to determine just how accurate the aforementioned figures are, but even if some errors did occur during the survey, the overall result is the same: good-bye HD DVD, was nice knowing you....rest in peace.
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