Asc...Don't forget that this was a Blu-balls party where Silverberg allegedly made these comments. There is (in theory) a press conference being held tomorrow, again rumor. If in fact it turns out to be true I have also heard that IT IS NOT bad news for  HD DVD. Warner has repeatedly said in the past that they will look very closely at STAND ALONE player sales and not the PS3. If that is indeed the case then you have much more to worry about than I do. Even if you do include the PS3 within the installaed base for BD, where does that get you? Hmm?

Let's talk about that 2-1 sales advantage. First of all with nearly 10 times (appx) the available players on the market (including PS3) anything less than a I'd say a minimum 5-1 sales advantage is hardly a win. Think about. Let's say an exclusive title sells 300,000 thousand copies first week. I'll use Spiderman 3 as an example. That would be an amazingly good week on either format for a single title. The problem with those really good numbers for BD is this; it's what, 10% of the installed base that actually then made that purchase. That same number on the HD side is going to result in somewhere around 25 to 33% of HD DVD owners making the purchase. The point is this, the installed HD DVD base is actually purchasing more titles per player than Blu-ray does. You and all the other Blu-ballers can talk about this year-round lead all you want, it's nothing to be proud of because even though as a total sales number BD looks to be winning, it isn't. HD DVD is proving time and time again (all year long) that a much larger percentage of its installed base is actually purchasing software. As the hardware sales continue to grow, that 2-1 advantage is going to erode quickly.

Warner might be changing its strategy.
That could be the beginning of the end...

Kmart HD-DVD-Exclusive

From Wired:

Quote:
Wal-Mart already has the $200 PC, and now it has a HD-DVD player at the same price tag. Furthermore, other stores are matching it's price, with Kmart announcing it will exclusively sell Toshiba's HD-A2 HD-DVD player. Let's hammer that point home: There will be no Blu-Ray for you at Kmart, unless you want a PlayStation 3.

Quote:
"Toshiba spokesperson Jodi Sally said Kmart, which is owned by Sears, would exclusively stock Toshiba HD DVD players in retail stores due to their lower price. A clerk at the retail chain's Anaheim location confirmed the store only carried Toshiba players."

How can Blu-Ray fight a $200 price tag at America's largest retailer, a complete lock-out at the No. 2 shop, and everyone else following the leader?

Well ppl...Warner has stated that they will be following STAND ALONE player sales very closely and will go from there. Of course logic dictates that if HD (or BD for that matter) has a big holiday season the odds are very good that those same people will then buy the software to play on the players. As I already mentioned HD owners seem to actually purchase more software than BD owners...I find it hard to believe that WB would turn a blind eye to that.

Quoting twojayz:

Quote:
Well ppl...Warner has stated that they will be following STAND ALONE player sales very closely and will go from there. Of course logic dictates that if HD (or BD for that matter) has a big holiday season the odds are very good that those same people will then buy the software to play on the players. As I already mentioned HD owners seem to actually purchase more software than BD owners...I find it hard to believe that WB would turn a blind eye to that.

Then how does Blu outsell Red 2 to 1?

Please explain.

Quoting pplchamp:

Quote:
Then how does Blu outsell Red 2 to 1?

Please explain.

See twojayz second paragraph in his first post on this page.

ppl...What I was saying was this...Warner seems to be concerned with stand alone sales moreso than with the PS3 effect. That's a Warner comment, not mine...With that in mind I argue this:

I am including the PS3 to show the overall trend in software purchases. Yes, I agree that BD owners are buying more discs overall, but that shouldn't surprise anyone since the "potential" for player use is significantly higher at the moment when you factor the installed base of the PS3. If you were to take PlayStation owners out of the equation it would seem that HD would be slapping BD around quite nicely. However it's nearly impossible to distinguish who is buying what on the BD front, so I am forced to include the PS3.

In other words, if BD has 4 million players (including PS3) on the market and HD has lets say 1 million (including the add-on), a 2-1 sales lead isn't significant enough for anyone to get excited about. So, in theory HD owners are actually purchasing more titles than BD owners. If that were not the case then BD would be outselling HD by a considerably higher margin.

If you take the total number of PS3 owners and then factor out (by percentage) total software sales to come to per player software title-to-player ownership ratio...Got that? It's confusing me as I type but I know what I'm trying to say. Anyway, if one were to do that I can't help but imagine that HD is outselling Blu-ray by a rather large margin.

I think, when it comes down to it, that is what Warner is going to be watching. We KNOW with certainty that people with stand alone or add-on players have them for only one reason so that's the important number to watch. That's where the install base vs. software adoption rate becomes important.

So, if the hardware sales continue to rise it goes without saying that the software side will grow as well. Yes, this is also true for PS3 owners but there is no real way to quantify how many software sales are attributed to them, as opposed to stand alone owners. So, if HD owners are buying more titles (not numbers) than BD owners then it's really a hollow "victory" for Blu-ray.

I hope that clears it up. Again, I'm trying to simplify a somewhat confusing concept here and I hope I've done so with at least a small amount of clarity.

Quoting pplchamp:

Quote:
I just get tired of the "You can't count PS3 sales in HD player sales, so HD DVD has sold more players", then come back in the same breath and state "Well, Blu's attach rate is really low when you count the PS3 as a player"....

That's what this whole format war is all about.  The red side takes selected data and twists it to make things look good for their side.  And the blue side does the exact same thing.

Just look at the Nielsen stats from last week (Transformers week).  Blu-ray won 51-49.  Yet I've seen both sides using that same figure to point out how impressive it was for their side.

It's pretty rare to see hard data reported without any bias.