Blu-ray player sales - Page 2

andrew markworthy · 05-05-2008, 02:06 PM

EDIT: Erroneous post.

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cleverland · 05-05-2008, 08:01 PM

I'll will have to agree with Alfonso on this except that I would expect purchases to increase dramatically by the upcoming holiday season when both the new Panny and Sony full featured models will be available. Hd audio has been a real challange to understand for most consumers even some of the advanced tech types due to the confusion of passing high def audio like DTS HD MA v.s. the ability to decode it. (PCM, bitstream, coax audio output jacks, decode, passthrough, only via HDMI etc etc) I believe both the Panny BD50 and Sony S550 will finally be able to decode all of the HD audio formats? The idea of "final format compliant and decodes all HD audio" may help consumer confidence levels along with holiday sales compitition..

Goko · 05-06-2008, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TravisR

I still think that most people are missing that the figures that they are comparing are from January and February. The format war ended in January and so the clear winner boosted Blu Ray player sales for that month. After that bump in sales, they went back to normal. The article just twists the figures to say that the sales dropped.

Sales have dropped and as well they should. Most hi-end CE enthusiasts would have to be an idiot to BUY at this stage of the game. Recent history has shown how badly you can get "burned" by paying close to retail prices for hardware/software items when all you need to do is exercise a little self control and wait for holiday sales which are sure to come.

The formula for mass acceptance for Blu-ray may be easily achieved by simply duplicating the economic strategies standard DVD used a decade ago: cheap players, a lot of titles (PQ/AQ is irrelevant at this point) and lots of sales on software. No big deal!

Now whether the average CE customer is willing to replace their current collections with Blu-ray is the question that has yet to be answered.

troy evans · 05-06-2008, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goko

Sales have dropped and as well they should. Most hi-end CE enthusiasts would have to be an idiot to BUY at this stage of the game. Recent history has shown how badly you can get "burned" by paying close to retail prices for hardware/software items when all you need to do is exercise a little self control and wait for holiday sales which are sure to come.

The problem with that is, if everybody adopted that attitude, those sales would never come. When and if they did come they would be firesales( see HD-DVD) and it would go bye-bye. Someone has to take the hit on high prices to have the format take off. If we don't then you can bet we wouldn't even be this far along right now.

Goko · 05-06-2008, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by troy evans

The problem with that is, if everybody adopted that attitude, those sales would never come. When and if they did come they would be firesales( see HD-DVD) and it would go bye-bye. Someone has to take the hit on high prices to have the format take off. If we don't then you can bet we wouldn't even be this far along right now.

Naaaaa. I don't buy into that, but feel free to make those economic sacrifices because I won't.
It's not the early adopters that determine if a format is a success or a failure. Ultimately it's consumers like me that are not on a crusade and simply BUY because it is our pleasure and the price is right.

Dennis Oblow · 05-06-2008, 12:23 PM

Blu-Ray will be a niche market, until players and software come down to near sd dvd prices. The only thing holding back Blu-Ray is greed.

JeremyR · 05-06-2008, 01:50 PM

I guess that blows that whole idea that the Format War was what was keeping people on the sidelines. HD DVD would have hit mainstream in much shorter order because of price. Blu-ray will probably get there, but it's going to be a long haul.

troy evans · 05-06-2008, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goko

Naaaaa. I don't buy into that, but feel free to make those economic sacrifices because I won't.
It's not the early adopters that determine if a format is a success or a failure. Ultimately it's consumers like me that are not on a crusade and simply BUY because it is our pleasure and the price is right.

It is early adopters, that are in some part, responsible for more affordable pricing for the masses. Like it or not. If it were any other way we would all have HD-DVD players and be saying bye to Blu-ray. HD-DVD couldn't even survive when they put out players at under $200 or even $100. The reason why is because the market just wasn't there at the time in the numbers it needed. Blu-ray dvd sales consistently outpaced HD-dvd sales in the software reports month after month. So, early adopters decided which hi-def format you will end up buying, if you do buy one. What makes you think they don't play a part in making the Blu-ray players affordable? The way it works is when new tech hits the market prices are high. As the money gets made back for developement prices start to drop because the company is now seeing profit. That's anything in the electronics field. Game consoles, tvs, stereos, phones, etc. etc.

TravisR · 05-06-2008, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goko

Sales have dropped and as well they should.

According to the article, sales had a small increase from February to March. The drop they note is between January and February and, as I've said, there was an increase when the format war ended in January so there was no way for the sales to go but down between those two months.

The reasons people are citing in this thread are all probably very valid reasons that Blu Ray isn't in every home in the country but that's not the topic of this thread (although it has become that).

Scott-S · 05-06-2008, 02:08 PM

There is no reason why Panasonic or Samsung would sale a player for less than it costs to build. (Sony can, because they hold a vested interest in getting the format cranking - thus the underpriced PS3)

The price will come down when the components come down. This takes time for the Manufacturing to start mass production.

This is not new info.

I guess I will bring it up again. DVDs took many years to come down in price. To expect a BD player to magically come down in price instantly is either naive, or you have an axe to grind against BD.

Believe me, the player manufacturers want the price to come down as well. They make their money in volume. They know that the current pricing is not realistic for the mainstream. They will drop the prices as soon as they can.

Besides, these new generation players are expected to also be top of the line audio decoders. Something DVD doesn't have to do. Since the early adopters are constantly moaning about how they want every player to be able to decode 100 different formats and be able to send the signal out any possible connector. This adds greatly to the cost to design and build these things. Audio and video decoder chips are not cheap. And since the players all need multiples of each to try and keep up, this adds a lot to the cost.

Douglas Monce · 05-08-2008, 12:32 AM

Frankly, blu-ray player sales won't really take off until you can replace a dead DVD player with a blu-ray player for just a few dollars more than it would cost to just get another DVD player. In other words the prices have to fall below $150 before the general public will start buying them.

Until then, it's a premium product that won't sell in large numbers.

Doug