Post-XMAS HD DVD Sales Surge: #8 ranked HD DVD surpasses #1 Blu-Ray in sales (1 Viewer)

[Ryan-G]

While I too have bought the vast majority of my titles online for DVD, I recently switched to B&M shopping. Two things made me switch...

1. The price of B&M is comparable to Etailer until you get into large volumes, 10+ titles, at which point the shipping cost is offset. But only for a couple dollars.

2. The Etailer I've generally used is very close to my house, other side of the city in fact. But with LoTR Fellowship, my Etailer didn't ship till the day of release, which was unusual for him. Again a short time later with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, didn't ship till the day of release. Both of those cases made me realize I could get my movies on the day of release for basically the same price without hassal.

So I switched!
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Interesting to note, as an anecdotal...

I went to BB yesterday to burn my 2 gift cards. My plan was Superman Returns and Mummy or Sahara all on HD-DVD. My BB had all of them in stock before Christmas IIRC.

Much to my chagrin, No Superman Returns. No Mummy, nor was Troy present. While we're not talking an overwhelming supply here, perhaps a dozen at best, I found it *very* interesting they were all gone. I even cornered a BB drone and got him to check the stockroom.

Not commenting on the sales of HD-DVD vs BR, to be honest I didn't even pay attention to the BR display(Well stocked one at that, surprising since the last time I'd looked both displays were anemic).

But I was surprised and heartened to see that there's significant interest in HD media. IMO, at this point, it's going to penetrate alot faster than people expect.

Especially since over the holidays I showed a few people the Eragon trailer at 720p from my X-box 360, and they've all set up HDTV savings funds! (Read they got out the piggy bank and are tossing money into it with each pay, or at least they say that's the plan.) Don't know how good the movie is, but the trailer is pretty decent.

 

[threepio]

I need you to throw the brakes on right there. There is no "flagrant BD Prommotion (sic) by Future Shop". Sony has purchased the rights to an end cap - they pay for it, we put what they want on it.

We (speaking unofficially) are firmly format neutral. Our media buyer owns both formats. I own both formats. Our TV guys have both formats. We are simply *not taking sides*.

I wrote this article (futureshop.ca/learnmore/BuyersGuide/en/bluray_hddvd.asp?logon=&langid=EN) which I think is fairly balanced. It's representative of the path we're taking: Here's the information, without the FUD, make your own decision.

 

[Douglas_H]

I think that compared to Amazon, Future Shop Canada would be statistically insignificant.
Point of clarification, when is say Hi-Def, I mean both formats.
While WalMart sells a huge amount of DVDs, they actually are the insignificant stat when it comes to Hi-Def DVD sales.
In my and other's geographic areas, Best Buy's support of Hi-Def DVDs is abysmal in regards to having titles on the shelf when they release and re-stocking sold out titles
They've gotten better about selling the hardware but as a company they are clueless and not really interested in promoting either format as they go for the low hanging fruit, which right now are flat panel displays.

My take is that people such as myself are tired of dealing with lame big box stores that can't deal with anything other than the lowest common denominator and have turned almost exclusively to online purchases.

Buy.com cleaned up with the Google checkout deal. So much so that DVDEmpire has followed suit.

Right now the Amazon figures are really the only comparative barometer available.

 

[Todd H]

Looks to me like Blu-ray is approaching parity with HD-DVD.

 

[Chris S]

I'm pretty sure Amazon still has the best prices on BD releases. If anyone knows of anywhere cheaper and as reliable I'd definitely be interested.

 

[threepio]

My issue isn't whether or not Future Shop is statistically significant in comparison to Amazon (.Com I'd imagine, not .ca) but Peter's implication that Future Shop is in bed with the BDA - which, being on the inside, I can vehemently declare to be untrue.

That being said, Future Shop and Best Buy in Canada do a fair chunk of sales in media. It's a back and forth battle on launch day whether these two brands take the prize or whether it goes to Wally World. We've always pushed OAR, we very quickly moved to DVD as a format (took one hell of a customer service beating from all of those customers who were convinced that we should carry VHS until the Apocalypse) and we're adding 4' sections of HD formats regularly (we're at up to three for each in some stores now).

Some folks love to hate the big target (justified or not) but pick a good reason to hate, not a conspiracy theory for which there is no basis.

 

[Tim Glover]

Amazon and other etailers might not have the overall sales figures for movies like a Best Buy, CC etc...but I do believe the HD early adopter who is normally a bit more savvy in all this stuff IS buying most of their stuff from amazon. Especially with the 10% off promo for HD movies for a year discount amazon ran earlier this year. Just look at many of the software threads here and on avs....Amazon has been a rather big player with the HD software market. I own 31 HD-DVDs and all but 3 have come from Amazon.

It's certainly possible that Amazon's figures normally may not represent true status of dvd sales, but in this early adopters, niche....hard to find HD title market, amazon has indeed been a major player and shouldn't be discounted.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I've seen too many savvy HD early adopters state on forums like this one how they bought this HD disc or that BR disc from BB, CC and other B&M retailers to put much stock in Amazon's sales data.

Also, the difference in MSRP per disc between the two formats is because Fox and Disney have refused to get their head out of their "you know what" and adjust their pricing down to their competitors pricing. This has to hurt BR to a certain extent in software sales.



Crawdaddy

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Agreed.

Crawdaddy and me are in sychronicity...

 

[Matt Hough]

I couldn't agree more! I went to Amazon to buy X-MEN 3, and the Amazon price had risen from $27.95 to $34.95! Naturally, I didn't buy it.

Fox did the VERY same thing with laserdiscs often charging $10-$20 more for a single platter than their competitors. If they want Blu-ray to be something other than a niche market, they must bring prices in line with the other studios and with standard DVDs.

 

[Chris S]

Weren't the original DVD releases from Fox overpriced too? This would seem to be their modus operandi with respect to new formats.

 

[dkny75]

If I'm not mistaken I think they were priced around $39.95 also.