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Downturn in US economy and its effects on the whole format war?

post #1 of 3
1/8/08 at 10:32pm
Thread Starter 
I know Warner has defected to the blue side and everyone is saying the war is over, but personally I haven't heard the fat lady sing yet. My question is, with blu-ray singing victory and the recent press releases stating 10mill BR players in the US by end 2008, who's going to buy them? There's talk of recession, major defaults on mortgages and house values dropping like rocks. What J6P, JSomeone will have $300+ dollars to pay for a new BR player when he/she is having trouble keeping a roof over their heads?
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post #2 of 3
1/9/08 at 5:47am

Re: Downturn in US economy and its effects on the whole format war?

The downturn in the economy has resulted in my junior mining stocks taking a tumble, resulting in me having less money, resulting in me not upgrading my reciever even though I have both HD and BD!

Beyond that, I am going to suggest that more people will actually buy HT since they will decide NOT to buy bigger homes and new cars. In Saskatchewan, where I lived in the early 80's there was a collapse of the agricultural sector, the main economic engine of that province. The result was a huge increase in the money spent by homeowners on renovations as they decided to stay put rather than move up. Auto sales suffered as well.

BTW..what format war? I haven't heard any fat lasdies singing, but I did hear the quoir doing the Hallelujah chorus
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post #3 of 3
1/9/08 at 11:05am

Re: Downturn in US economy and its effects on the whole format war?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Overduin
Beyond that, I am going to suggest that more people will actually buy HT since they will decide NOT to buy bigger homes and new cars.

That's an interesting thought, and it just might turn out to be true to some degree.

I suspect a recession will indeed drive people to spend more time and $$$ on movies and less on certain other luxuries like expensive vacations on top of bigger homes and expensive new cars. Isn't there a history of such trends? People flocked to the movie theaters during the Great Depression. And even the last big bump we had several years ago did not drive people away from the theaters and HT, but might've actually helped.

I think part of the reason for the phenomenon is that HT is actually a good value proposition for many folks, including myself. In down times, people still need something to enjoy and find cheer from afterall. And HT (and the movie theaters back before HT) can represent a good value compared to spending $$$ in most other luxury items. Yeah, people will cut back some as they find need, but if there's any discretionary $$$ to spend at all, it could very easily be in HT though it's hard to know whether they would actually jump into BD or simply buy/rent more DVDs and go to the theaters more...

_Man_
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