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12.6 percent of all Hitman disc sales were on Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc "No Country for Old Men" dents DVD sales

As much as technophiles and home theatre addicts preach the wonders of high-definition movies on the latest LCD and plasma displays, nearly the entire mass market is still squarely focused on standard DVD movies. That, however, could begin changing this year.

According to Home Media Magazine, sales of Blu-ray Disc have finally begun to carve out a noticeable groove from DVD sales. Nielsen Videoscan numbers say that 9.8 percent of No Country for Old Men home video sales were from Blu-ray Disc, and an even more impressive 12.6 percent of Hitman sales were on the high-definition format. Transformers, currently available in high-definition only on HD DVD, sold 4 percent in the high-end format.

The two recent Blu-ray Disc releases fared considerably better than even the top movies of 2007, which saw 2 or 3 percent share on the format. For example, on Blu-ray Disc the Simpsons Movie captured just 2.8 percent, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End accounted for 3.7 percent of total sales.

Analysts resort point to the end of the high-definition format war as the root of the increase in consumer confidence. “Before, there was a tendency to play it safe and stick with the standard DVD,” said Tom Adams, of Adams Media Research, to Home Media Magazine. “But now there’s no longer anything to worry about.”

Also key in the recent growth of Blu-ray Disc is the simultaneous rise of the PlayStation 3 – the market’s best-selling high-definition movie player. Console sales for the first two months of 2008 show Sony’s latest console outpacing the Xbox 360.

“The promotion to PlayStation 3 homes hasn’t really kicked in yet,” added Adams. “And assuming that works, when you’re talking 5 million homes, getting them to buy just one more movie a year can make a significant difference in a small market like this.”

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HD looking up
By rdeegvainl on 3/31/2008 9:38:49 AM , Rating: 4
I think we will see a real boost in Blu Ray sales. The declaration of Blu ray being the winner in the media, combined with the tax rebates could really stimulate this. People who could before, not afford HD might have a real shot of being able to now, and probably alot of people who can't will still use the tax returns as an excuse to convince themselves they can afford it.




RE: HD looking up
By mdogs444 on 3/31/2008 9:44:12 AM , Rating: 1
Blue Ray will increase at the same rate as prices decline on standalone players - as long as the prices of the movies are comprable to standard DVD's.

Also, i cannot see anyone using their tax rebate to buy a blue ray player - at least not anyone with any common sense. Purchase something what falls under the category of "needs" or put into an interest bearing account.


RE: HD looking up
By rdeegvainl on 3/31/2008 9:48:32 AM , Rating: 3
You act like the general populace isn't generic trend following sheep. Look at the success of all the untalented people, everyone just jumping on every bandwagon they see without researching first.

If they general populace used real sense in making decision I could agree with you, but the vast majority of the people I know are not fiscally responsible and will use the tax returns on frivolous things they can barely afford or can't afford.

I see this being done by enough people to make Blu ray sales take off a pretty decent amount.


RE: HD looking up
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 3/31/2008 9:50:03 AM , Rating: 3
I would like to see the total sales numbers. Percentages don't mean anything.

I'm betting total sales numbers are relatively unimpressive on the BR side and that on the DVD side it's wildly unpopular.


RE: HD looking up
By stargazr on 3/31/2008 12:03:44 PM , Rating: 1
Still sourgraping?

LOL


RE: HD looking up
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 3/31/2008 1:26:46 PM , Rating: 3
No. If the "total" number of BR disks was really high I would bet dollars to donuts that there would be a huge announcement of another "best selling BR title ever" and the approximate number of copies sold. Since I don't see this, I have to assume that previous BR movies have out sold it and this is just a way of twisting facts using percentages.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.


RE: HD looking up
By therealnickdanger on 3/31/2008 2:40:19 PM , Rating: 2
"No Country for Old Men" BD sales: 68,000 in first week (3/11-3/16)

68,000 (BD copies) / 9.8% (BD percentage) = 693,878 total DVD+BD copies sold.

"No Country" is certainly no mega-seller blockbuster (although it is pretty awesome), but that even makes a ~10% share more impressive in my mind. It's not a family movie or a mind-blowing spectacle, not a movie you would expect to be a good high-def seller.

While not as well acted or written, I expect the PG-13 "I am Legend" to have a MUCH higher percentage of sales. It's really the first mass-market-drivel spectacle to hit post-HD-DVD-demise. Hmm... however, that means it will probably sell even more DVD copies, so the percentage will probably be lower... BUT the BD sales will likely be higher.

I should be a market analyst. LOL


RE: HD looking up
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 3/31/2008 4:09:44 PM , Rating: 3
Not even a million sold combined. In hollywood terms we call this "sucking".


RE: HD looking up
By dluther on 4/1/2008 1:23:32 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Not even a million sold combined. In hollywood terms we call this "sucking"


Ehh -- sort of. The thing of it is, "Hitman" sucked as a movie. So saying that DVD and Blu-Ray sales sucked isn't addressing the fact that the movie sucked to begin with, and DVD sales won't overcome that obvious handicap.

According to 'Boxofficemojo.com', "Hitman" only did $98,143,991 in worldwide ticket sales, which is decidedly anemic -- which when combined with an undisclosed production budget, we can pretty much deduce that "Hitman" was a box-office loser.

That people want to see their suckage in high definition shouldn't come as a surprise.


RE: HD looking up
By sweetsauce on 3/31/2008 12:46:38 PM , Rating: 2
You beat me to it. 9.8% of total sales for that movie is probably 0.001% of total sales of pirates on DVD. I love percentages, it helps you spin anything you want.


RE: HD looking up
By mmntech on 3/31/2008 1:26:00 PM , Rating: 2
Hitman was a terrible movie, like 99% of all game based movies. I'd like to see numbers too. I've had my PS3 for six months now and I've only bought one BD movie. At $30 per movie and lacking a 60'' 1080p screen to get the full effect, it's pretty pointless. I'm going to have to get a proper HDTV one of these days instead of using my 19'' computer monitor.


RE: HD looking up
By therealnickdanger on 3/31/2008 2:45:41 PM , Rating: 2
Hitman was not "terrible" IMO. I rented it from Redbox expecting it to suck, so I had low expectations, but me and my buds were very surprised by it - it was pretty good! The lead actor (Olyphant?) is probably the weakest link - I didn't like him in Transformers or Die Hard 4 either. Obviously, 47 isn't supposed to be charismatic, so I guess Olyphant lives up to the character...


RE: HD looking up
By NullSubroutine on 4/1/2008 1:59:52 AM , Rating: 2
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0241049/

this was the gentleman in transformers, not Olyphant. A guy who looks a cross between Ryan Secrest and Olyphant maybe, but not him.


RE: HD looking up
By BansheeX on 4/1/2008 1:03:44 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I would like to see the total sales numbers. Percentages don't mean anything.


This just proves to me yet again how manipulative and grasping you are on these forums. If total DVD sales are doing great by your subjective measure, why then would increased blu-ray sales relative to that performance not automatically infer that it is doing better? Does that not connote that sales once going to DVD are slowly shifting to blu-ray? Why do you think it makes more sense for blu-ray to tout sales against its own past performance? That's a retarded way of marketing the same thing, especially when the product you're pushing is a replacement for previous one.

This isn't rocket science. By definition, a new format can only take sales away from an old one. Nobody is buying both the DVD and blu-ray versions of a film. They are choosing one or the other, and they are increasingly going to choose blu-ray. I'm sorry you think this is an outlandish conspiracy on blu-ray's part. If you want real marketing bologne, look no further than the HD-DVD format you supported all these years. Toshiba included the dual purpose PS3 into the attach-rate comparisons, then left it out of player sales comparisons in order to get the most favorable statistics for both.


RE: HD looking up
By Alexstarfire on 4/1/2008 3:32:55 AM , Rating: 3
This is exactly why the average Joe gets fooled by statistics all too often. They simply don't understand. I'm not saying I'm an expert, but you should read a couple of the posts above. They shed some light on the subject.

I am having a hard time understanding your first question. It seems to me you are trying to draw a connection between actual sales numbers and percentages. They both have there strong points, but you can't really compare them apples to apples. Percentages hide the total volume they represent. It doesn't really matter if 90% of the people bought Eurotrip on Blu-Ray if they only sold 10 copies of the movie all together. A movie like Hitman that only has a 12.8% Blu-Ray sales still beats it in total numbers because they sold 600,000 copies all together. That's just one example of course.

A higher percentage than previous movies could possible indicate that sales are shifting from one format to another, or it could just indicate that the people that once bought DVDs are no longer buying movies all together. In that case, Blu-Ray isn't gaining support, DVD is just losing it.

Again, the whole reason for using percentages is to hide total sales figures. A bigger percentage looks better than showing total sales numbers. I mean, would you rather compare 3.7% to 12.8% or 370000:1000000 to 128:1000? I'm sure you'd choose the percentage too.

Let's be honest here, marketing is all about deceit. Very few, if any, companies tell you the whole truth. They are almost always hiding something from you. I don't think anybody here would say that HD-DVD had more players out there than Blu-Ray. Obviously you can't count all PS3s as players as not everyone uses it as such, but you can't completely exclude it either. Even if only 50% of the PS3s were used as players, that's still loads more than HD-DVD. Of course, I'm not saying that Blu-Ray should have won, but it's really no surprise that it did.

BTW, I don't own either format and likely won't for several years. I'm simply too broke to be able to afford an HD player, let alone an HDTV to play it on.


RE: HD looking up
By BMFPitt on 3/31/2008 10:30:17 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
Also, i cannot see anyone using their tax rebate to buy a blue ray player - at least not anyone with any common sense.
What percentage of the population do you think has common sense? I have a hard time believing double digits.


RE: HD looking up
By MaulBall789 on 3/31/2008 1:40:57 PM , Rating: 4
Classic George Carlin quote:

"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize that half of the population is dumber than that guy."


RE: HD looking up
By Mitch101 on 3/31/2008 10:31:30 AM , Rating: 2
I got a Direct TV HD-PVR for FREE with 1 year FREE HD service when the format war was at its peak and haven't had any desire since to buy a BLU-RAY even though the war is over.

The $300.00 price tag is still too high and we just discovered that you can download movies through the web to the Direct TV PVR Device.

We recently got hooked on Dexter and CBS has really been messing up the start time of the show but I just go into the one feature and say download it and 30-45 mins later there is an episode and nicely done its the Showtime episodes which aren't edited like the CBS versions. While its not HD. Its an awesome feature to just download episodes to the DVR. So you can record 2 HD programs Watch one already recorded while downloading a Show to the DVR. Sweet.

Not sure how far away HD downloads to the device (Might be there already) but with features like this and it being a HD-DVR to begin with I think the days of me buying a DVD or even HD movie are probably over. I can live without owning a HD copy of transformers after all you know it will be on HBO or Showtime 600 times a month soon enough. 5.1 surround sound is good enough for me I don't need raw audio streams to be happy since my audio system was $1300.00 and sound incredible to begin with.


RE: HD looking up
By omnicronx on 3/31/2008 12:01:51 PM , Rating: 2
I agree with some of what you say, but I can just not get myself to pay for an HD box and channels, when the only channels that I can not get for free over OTA HD are ESPN and the sports packages, and HBO/TMN if you wish.

I was paying over $120 a month for me channels HBO, and HD packges. Thats just not worth it to me. Buying and renting BD's while getting free OTA HD has been much much cheaper for me, thats for sure..

Anyone who lives in the larger US cities can receive multiple channels depending on where you live. Just stick a 100$ DB-8 antenna on your chimney and you are ready to go ;)