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Seesaw Battle Over HD Formats

Jun 17, 2007  •  Post A Comment

Every time a leader emerges in the ongoing high-definition home video format war, the race tightens up.
First out of the gate with players and movies, Toshiba’s HD-DVD took an early lead last year. Then Sony stole the advantage by releasing PlayStation 3 bundled with Blu-ray players in the fall. Then, slashing prices, Toshiba continually bested Sony’s sales figures of stand-alone players.
In the spring, Blu-ray once again took the lead by offering exclusive distribution of key titles including the first two “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies and “Casino Royale.”
In the latest scrimmage, Toshiba announced it continued to hold a firm lead in player sales, noting HD-DVDs now account for 60 percent of all next-generation players sold. Less than a week later, however, Toshiba dropped its projected sales estimates by 44 percent.
Now Sony says it may ship 600,000 Blu-ray players this year, up from 100,000 last year, when the product launched.
The downshifting of HD-DVD and ramping up of Blu-ray could tilt the battle in favor of Sony once and for all, though experts cautioned that the war is far from over.
“We’re still in the early stages,” said Bruce Leichtman, president of Leichtman Research Group. “They’re both still trying to posture for position.”
HD-DVD has led in sales partly because it’s the lowest-priced way to get into hi-def home video. Toshiba drastically cut prices on its HD-A2 to $299 last month, with some reports of that player selling for as little as $238 during Memorial Day weekend.
Pete Putman, president of Roam Consulting and author of the HDTVExpert.com Web site, said the recent cuts mark a significant turn in the HD battle.
“The key psychological price point is $299,” Mr. Putman said. “Once people see that and ‘HD’ in the same sentence, I think sales will pick up a lot. Another key is to start getting these blue laser titles aggressively into the Hollywood Videos and Blockbusters of the world, so people see they are a mainstream product.”
The current lowest retail price for Sony players is $499, which was dramatically cut from about $999 a mere six months ago. Pricing experts expect Sony units to reach the coveted $299 threshold by the end of the year.
Sony also is banking on several exclusive DVD titles in the next few months, which have proved to be a key factor in generating media reports declaring Blu-ray the HD leader. “Royale” and the “Caribbean” films were marketed heavily as titles exclusively available in the Blu-ray format.
When Toshiba dropped its player prices last month, the format briefly took the lead among DVD sales on Amazon.com. But Blu-ray quickly bounced back and currently continues to lead.
Currently, the best-selling title for both is not proprietary to either brand — BBC’s “Planet Earth” series, which aired on Discovery Channel. Sony’s other key titles are “Ghost Rider” and “Apocalypto,” while HD-DVD is exclusively stocking the “Matrix” trilogy and the first season of “Heroes.”

54 Comments

  1. I have both an XBOX 360 HD addon and the PS3 and for some reason I still prefer HD DVD over the Blu-Ray. For one thing, HD DVD players are backwardly compatible with your existing DVD collection while Blu-Ray is not.
    A regular DVD movie will not play in a PS3 or Blu-Ray player.
    Universal Studios is one of the lone movie studios that still only supports HD DVD. Microsoft as well only supports HD DVD at this time. Universal Studios needs to come out with some of its big guns as well although I believe that this decision may be in Steven Spielberg’s court. The big guns that I am referring to are movies like Jurassic Park 1-3 or E.T. or Jaws, etc.
    HD DVD needs to get one or several of the exclusive Blu-Ray movie studios like Disney to break ranks and at least issue movies for HD DVD as well.
    I have also read that Warner or Paramount is going to begin to issue combo HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs. On one side is the HD DVD version and on the other side is the Blu-Ray version. Hence is doesn’t matter which player you have, the same movie works on both. This would certainly help end consumer confusion and those sitting on the fence waiting for a winner could purchase the player of their choice and not have to worry about which version they are buying.
    Sony had claimed that the Blu-Ray had more storage capacity which is 50 GB but then not to long ago Toshiba claimed that they could release an HD DVD which has 51 GB due to some triple layering technology.

  2. The above commentator is incorrect. Conventional DVDs play on all Blu-Ray players. And with the latest upgrade, the PS3 will now upconvert standard def DVDs to 1080p resolution. There was an issue with audio CDs not playing on some Blu-Ray decks, like Sony’s first standalone player. The brand’s new model corrects that shortcoming.

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