The Industry Standard - Blu-Ray market share will not exceed 50% this year - Comments

14% for the week before Xmas

David Kuan — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:21:19 -0800

Both the BDA and the

Woochifer — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:29:24 -0800

Both the BDA and the Sony/Blu-ray haters out there are wrong. There was no freakin' way that any home video format would achieve 50% market share, from the 3.5% market share that you saw from HD-DVD and Blu-ray COMBINED at the start of the year. They would be projecting a percentage rate increase of +1,300%, which is ridiculous.

Concurrently, the latest issue of Home Media shows that Blu-ray's market share increased to 14% during the week that The Dark Knight came out, which is the best showing ever for the BD format. Just because a format does not meet inflated projections doesn't mean that it is a failure -- merely that the projection was wrong.

http://www.thehdroom.com/news/Blu-ray_Increases_Market_Share_vs_DVD/4030

The number that BOTH sides should be paying attention to is 2003 -- that was the year that the DVD's market share reached 50%. Yes, the DVD is the most rapidly adopted home entertainment format in history, yet it took the DVD format nearly SEVEN years before it finally conquered VHS.

By that standard, Blu-ray is already ahead of the DVD's adoption curve and by no means a market failure. But, it also says that Blu-ray still has a long road ahead before its market share even comes close to challenging the DVD for market supremacy. A lot of the negative comments being directed at Blu-ray right now seem like they got lifted verbatim from articles written about the DVD back in 1998 and 1999. People forget that it wasn't until about 2001 that the DVD's reign became inevitable, yet it took another two years for the DVD to actually achieve majority status.

According to Home Media,

David Kuan — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:28:30 -0800

According to Home Media, Blu-Ray market share is a mere 11% in the week of Dec 14-20 issue.

Sorry, my last (and first

Mike HD The Pirate — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:38:48 -0700

Sorry, my last (and first comment here) was in response to Milt R Smith claiming that Blu-ray was in some sort of decline. Well, the simple fact is that Blu-ray (apart from the now defunct HD DVD format) is the ONLY format capable of delivering 1080p video with lossless sound. It is amazing that someone would contend that a format is moribund when it is the ONLY remaining format that can give full justice to the new HDTVs. Go figure

This is a flat out

Mike HD The Pirate — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:48:20 -0700

This is a flat out distortion. In fact, Blu-ray hasn't even reached its full potential yet. The BOTTOM LINE to that article was:

However, Sony’s chief technical advisor for home audio and video, Eric Kingdon, explained that the Blu-Ray format is still a long way from reaching its full potential.

“I’ve seen prototypes for 400GB discs,” he said. “That’s approaching half a terabyte. If you went to 4K (twice the resolution of full HD), Blu-Ray is still big enough for a full movie. If it’s enough, then there’s no need to do any more development.”

Blu-Ray took a bump up to

David Kuan — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:47:29 -0700

Blu-Ray took a bump up to 12% for the week reported on Sept 25 It seems that market share sales are highly dependent on the titles released during the reporting week.

Readers: I've just posted

Ian Lamont520988 — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:01:45 -0700

Readers: I've just posted some related commentary, based on some of the articles that David and others have pointed out:

Bad signs for Blu-ray: Free discs, cheap players, and declining market share

Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard

Blu-Ray latest market share

David Kuan — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:41:31 -0700

Blu-Ray latest market share is at 8% and down nearly 14% from previous week. Also, there are signs that optical disk as physical media will end its life with Blu-Ray.

This just in: Sony has now

Milt R. Smith — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:12:26 -0700

This just in: Sony has now tacitly admitted that optical disks are on the way out,
which I've been predicting for MONTHS: Wanna buy the same title on BluRay?:
http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2008/09/01/sony-blu-ray-format-can’t-be-improved/

Despite the estimated 400%

David Kuan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:31:17 -0700

Despite the estimated 400% increase in BD purchase this year, it will at most translate to at most 12% of total market share.

Are you kidding? Is Sony

Milt R. Smith — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:44:13 -0700

Are you kidding? Is Sony kidding somebody else, or just itself? At current prices, BluRay is just another niche format, much like D-VHS or LaserDisk. Your columnist: (http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/07/01/sony-s-blu-ray-will-keep-them...) got it right.

340% increase on BD disk

David Kuan — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:23:13 -0700

340% increase on BD disk sales in 1H2008 relative to same period in 2007

I agree. Many people won't

Michael — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:14:36 -0700

I agree. Many people won't even be forced into a new tv until next year. Who wants to pay top dollars for a player and more for the movie? DVD's look pretty good and the big screen tv's that are shown in the stores don't have sources that look any better - there is no WOW factor. Plus, it seems hollywood is cranking out a lot of loosers and who is going to pay $$$ to see those in hi-def, especially if you can wait and get them on tivo or the net?
Disclosure: I've been watching grainy stuff for so long that even youtube looks good to me :)

Not a chance in

Chuck Ball — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:31:05 -0700

Not a chance in Hell...Non-HD (of either format) Library sales are FAR too formidable.

Blu-Ray market share will not exceed 50% this year

The Standard — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:38:54 -0700

MG Siegler over at Venturebeat explains that:

"This ambitious goal will rely not only on Blu-ray’s new Hollywood studio partners (those who were formerly with HD DVD), but also the growing success of the Playstation 3 video game system, which contains a Blu-ray player. Recent reports indicate the PS3 will outsell the rival Xbox 360 game system this year."

But he advises caution:

"However, if they think it will be such an easy transition from one dominant format to another, they have another thing coming. Many consumers are perfectly content with their standard DVDs, which cost less and does no require an expensive new piece of hardware to play."

This is a prediction that Blue-Ray will NOT acheive 50% share in the global market for movie disc sales by the end of the year.

Obviously we are beholden to Sony's internal numbers in a certain respect, so this will be a difficult prediction to judge. Our process will be to first use any and all respectable industry resources and research tools to ascertain the numbers, and we will require 2 credible sources in order to make a decision (even if one is Sony itself). If two requisite sources are not available, and Sony does not itself make any announcement one way or the other regarding the 50% goal by 30 days after the close of this prediction (i.e. January 31, 2009), we will be forced to make a favorable judgement concluding that Sony did not in fact acheive its goal.