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Toshiba announces that 100k stand alone HD DVD players sold

post #1 of 8
4/17/07 at 4:35pm
Thread Starter 
Some interesting news. Is it positive or negative; I will leave up to the reader.

Quote:
The North American HD DVD Promotional Group on Tuesday claimed a milestone: It said that 100,000 HD DVD players have been sold since the introduction of the format to the North American market a year ago. That figure doesn’t include HD DVD drives in PCs or ones sold as Xbox 360 accessories, either. MAC News report
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post #2 of 8
4/17/07 at 5:36pm

Re: Toshiba announces that 100k stand alone HD DVD players sold

That should go even higher this spring and summer Tom as one can now jump in with a paltry $300 for a top HD DVD player.

Good news. Rumors abound that Kenwood & Hitachi are planning to join in soon. Samsung already said, "Yes, we're in".
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post #3 of 8
4/18/07 at 5:13am

Re: Toshiba announces that 100k stand alone HD DVD players sold

There exclusion of the x-box add on and pc drives gives them the opportunity to trumpet the 100K sales. Sony, of course, will say that they achieved 100k units back in November with the launch of the PS3.

Still, 100k stand alone units is pretty impressive and I agree with Tim that it should grow quickly with cheap entries into the market place. Just need to convince the consumer that it is a worth while upgrade.

Easy sell for me with a 61" TV and no Hi Def alternatives other than Blu Ray(plus I love the new sound formats) but I am not sure the average consumer is all that concerned. There will have to be some discernable value to the switch and I am not sure the increased interactivity, better picture and sound (if you have the equipment to notice it) is enough of a plus to warrant the upgrade in most people's mind, even if it is only a few hundred dollars...

Dave
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post #4 of 8
4/18/07 at 6:02am
Thread Starter 

Re: Toshiba announces that 100k stand alone HD DVD players sold

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Glover
Good news. Rumors abound that Kenwood & Hitachi are planning to join in soon. Samsung already said, "Yes, we're in".
Hopefully, this will put an end to the endless 'HD is only supported by one manufacturer' comments. They are really getting old.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave>h
Still, 100k stand alone units is pretty impressive and I agree with Tim that it should grow quickly with cheap entries into the market place. Just need to convince the consumer that it is a worth while upgrade.

I think what is really impressive is the buy rate of disks for these machines. Looking at apx. 250k HD players in the market compared to the 2.5 Million BD players (includes add-on and PS3), the buy rate is almost 8 to 1, HD vrs. BD, per player. And with the HD DVD version of Planet Earth breaking the 'Casino Royale' top Amazon sale throne (by rising to the number 4 position) HD DVD has seemed to had new life breathed into it.

These new lower priced machines that will hit for the holidays my swing the balance, as it seems that the PS3 is being used as a game system first, and a BD player by few as many of us conjectured months ago.

I still am a long way from believing that these formats are going to break out of the nich market, but this holiday season should be a telling point. With new lower priced players due to hit the market (on both formats), and if the price of content can be brought down to DVD levels, maybe one or both of these formats will break out. Here's hoping.
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post #5 of 8
4/18/07 at 6:22am

Re: Toshiba announces that 100k stand alone HD DVD players sold

This is interesting as just last night went in to my local Blockbuster. Seems like when they see me coming, they know the question that will be first on the list: Tell me again when you are getting HD DVDs IN the store?

The manager said they are getting closer....just waiting until the machines become a tad more affordable and mainstream. I informed her of the amazing prices now on the HD A2 etc...and told her to report this to her regional manager.

This would be great if they could get these in more BB stores. I know in some bigger markets, it's already happened.

It would be interesting to see how many more players are sold from April to end of May when exclusives like The Matrix Trilogy, The Frighteners etc...are released.
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post #6 of 8
4/18/07 at 6:55am

Re: Toshiba announces that 100k stand alone HD DVD players sold

more from highdefdigest...

Quote:
HD DVD has beaten Blu-ray to a major sales milestone, becoming the first next-gen format to sell-through over 100,000 stand-alone players to consumers

Quote:
Still, being the first format to reach 100K in stand-alone sales is a notable achievement for the HD DVD format. Thanks to the "PS3 factor," and Blu-ray movie sales enjoying a more than two-to-one sales lead during the first few months of the year, many have already begun to write HD DVD off as a format without a future. But today's announcement certainly suggest it would be unwise to proclaim the format war as over just yet
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post #7 of 8
4/18/07 at 10:34am

Re: Toshiba announces that 100k stand alone HD DVD players sold

Quote:
Originally Posted by ppltd

I think what is really impressive is the buy rate of disks for these machines. Looking at apx. 250k HD players in the market compared to the 2.5 Million BD players (includes add-on and PS3), the buy rate is almost 8 to 1, HD vrs. BD, per player. And with the HD DVD version of Planet Earth breaking the 'Casino Royale' top Amazon sale throne (by rising to the number 4 position) HD DVD has seemed to had new life breathed into it.

In an informal analysis of this site and the HD DVD and Blu Ray "What disks do you own" threads, it seemed to me that HD DVD owners were buying lot more movies than the Blu Ray owners. I think your analysis has merit.

Quote:
I still am a long way from believing that these formats are going to break out of the nich market, but this holiday season should be a telling point. With new lower priced players due to hit the market (on both formats), and if the price of content can be brought down to DVD levels, maybe one or both of these formats will break out. Here's hoping.

I agree, it should be telling. Also agree with what Tim said about how many more machines will be sold as the result of the Matrix and Frightenerers being released on HD DVD (somewhat exclusively) and Warner not adding TRUE HD soundtracks to their Blu releases.

The war, such as it is seems to be heating up rather than "being over" as some Fox or Sony exec recently said.

I am curious to see (as I am sure are all sorts of Blu supporters) what the Blu interactivity will look like. It will need to be a lot more robust than the In movie experience in HD DVD to drive sales. For me, the advanced features really aren't that much of a selling feature. The in movie stuff is interesting for what it is and may yet be better with better internet connectivity (remains to be seen) but for now and for me, it isn't a selling feature at all. The better picture and new sound codecs were selling features for sure but the other stuff is just fluff...

Dave
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post #8 of 8
4/20/07 at 11:34am

Re: Toshiba announces that 100k stand alone HD DVD players sold

Does anyone have the sales figure for 'stand-alone' blu-ray players?
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