Aussie retailers backing Blu-Ray + misc. thoughts
 

This is sad news as JB Hi-Fi is one of the best and cheapest places to buy DVDs here. It's probably comparative to Best Buy for you guys. It looks like HD-DVD may be D.O.A here considering the alternative would be paying retail at places like HMV.

That said, I wonder what sort of wider-reaching effect this may have? Will that force the companies that were planning HD releases here into releasing on BD instead? Will other companies overseas start to follow this example? Considering the PS3 doesn't have a European launch until March, will that create a consumer demand for the released HD-DVD titles to come out on BD?

What are your thoughts?

Even Best Buy here in the US is anti HD DVD they just do this in a subtle way. For The Departed they only shipped 3 copies of the HD DVD to each of the San Antonio stores compared to 15 copies of the Blu-ray. The Magnolia stores here have 3-4 Blu-ray players set up with no XA2 anywhere to be seen. The A2 is the only player they carry and even if you ask about it directly they will try and talk you into buying a Blu-ray player instead.

Not sure how much money Sony is jamming in retailers pockets but it is definitely hurting HD DVD. It definitely looks dark for HD DVD early in 2007.

I noticed that about BB as well with all of their blu-ray set ups. I was listening in on an employee there about week ago and a customer asked them if a HD-DVD will play on a regular player. They told him no but he should get a Blu-Ray player because it plays everything, standard dvd, HD-DVD and blu-ray. They even told him that a HD-DVD player will only play HD-DVD and not a standard dvd.

Yeah BB stinks, they didn't have a single copy of Hollywood Land or The Departed HD on release day.

Pretty stupid.

It's their choice to lose money. No reason that retailers should be taking sides AT ALL.

I agree. Local Best Buys sold out of The Departed within an hour or two of opening. The could have easily sold more if they had just bothered to stock as many as the Blu-ray version. There is no excuse to only stock 1/5 of the Blu-ray version other than stupidity or incentives from the Blu-ray side to show a preference for their format.

Consumers should always be allowed to have a choice. What's next - Australia stores decide to ban Coke and Nike and force people to purchase Pepsi and Reebok?

They do have a choice; they can choose not to shop at those stores.

I don't agree with the practice, but these are electronics retailers. They can sell whatever they want. It's not like they are providing some integral public service that demands objectivity.

I think it's deplorable that Sony have bought out all of these Australian retailers - and one can be pretty sure that that's exactly what they HAVE done.

They have paid them off to keep out the competition, because they have seen what has happened to their supposed automatic victory in the US.

Does this mean that we should expect the BD people to try to buy off all the UK distribution also? Or is the UK not as "cheap" as the aus stores?

i thought at first you said Aussie's were backing sting-rays and I thought this was a thread on Steve Irwin.

Not really. It severely limits our choices and cripples the potential of HD-DVD to reach a sizable audience. Even in the US if you were to remove HD from 20 of your top chains, I'm sure it would pretty much guarantee a nail in the coffin for the format.

So what are we talking about here?

HD is going in the direction of the US' support of George W?

Just alittle .02$, I like the setup and feature of HD so much better. Not to mention I dont like the unbreakable attitude that Sony has for this format. Its a format created by Sony - I mean does anyone rememeber DivX and Circuit City?

Is Sony throwing more incentives towards etailers or retailers for purchasing and studios for developing with thier stuff?

I mean I dont wanna be a$$ out offa player if everything goes BR. I dont wanna bad mouth one for the other - But I've invested! lol

I'm wondering how much Sony is fixing to make off of all this?

It's the same reason Toshiba is pushing so hard for HD-DVD, they want to keep all the profits this time around like they did for DVD.

People need to keep in mind that retailers only have so much shelf space. They can only stock so many copies of a movie and don't have room for all the new releases. Especially with 3 movie formats to support, there has to be cutbacks somewhere. DVD is still outselling Blu-Ray or HD-DVD by a huge margin, so they aren't going to cutback the DVD shelf space. BR is starting to outsell HD-DVD, so retailers are going to lean that direction.

The format war is terrible for retailers, and they would love nothing more than to have a quick end to it, so it's understandable for them to start pushing one format over the other. I guarantee, no one in the retail world wants to see a repeat of the hi-def audio wars. I don't think anyone should be surprised if the big box electronics stores decide this war instead of consumers.

With that being said.

All I've gotta say is, 'Come on, WALMART!' lol

HD-DVD forever (now six months from now I'm sure someone will be using this quote if HD goes bust lmao)

I think it's terrible for consumers also. Everyone is screaming and yelling at each other about which format is better. There's no mass adoption like there was with DVDs.

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE !!


The 'hype' that JB is supporting Blu-ray is just that at the moment = HYPE !!

Blu-ray disc 'stands' (those wobbly blue cardboard ones) have been visible in some JB stores for the past month or so - however these discs have more or less been now been 'hidden' in some corner of the JB HiFi DVD sections - gaining little to no support from customers (IMO - they might as well stock them near the 'soon to be' extinct PSP UMDs !!).


Sure - there's the nice SONY Full HD Bravias just on show in some JB stores (and Myer, etc) - BUT the prices of these aren't attracting the sales (who's got a spare $9000 for the 52in model ??). Nice to look at - but definitely keeping the money in the wallet like the majority of customers !! (But I must say i prefer Plasma over the SONY LCD). Aussies - and i'm sure that the rest of the world all know that SONY's stuff is expensive ... no .. more overpriced !!

Toshiba has the HD-E1 and HD-XE1 out here - albiet in HIGH END specialists HiFi stores - where average Joe doesn't shop.

Then there's the PS3 coming - March 23 - with a price of $A999 - who's got the money to 'blow' that much on a game console ????? (gotta be clear here - as that's what the PS3 is being sold as - mainly for games !!). The SAMSUNG Blu-ray player is being 'hyped' at $A1500 - just for a DVD player... opps... a Blu-ray player. Again - these players AREN'T selling much at all in any JB stores !! (The Panasonice Blu-ray players don't appear to be in any stores that I visit). Australian's are ONLY now just getting into HDD DVD recorders - and we have little HD broadcasting (hey - we're much more comfortable with our SD Digital boxes - not that many people are bothering with that either ! Ask an aussie if they have a Digital TV box in their home - and you'll find that less than 1 out of 10 has one !)

The 'games' market Down Under has the PS2, the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 to currently contend with. It's not overly competitive - and prices for games are quite high still. The PS3 is just another 'box' - which will be seen as far too expensive for the average Joe. The hype of the PS3 will come and go quite quickly - just at the new Xbox did last year (hey - in some deals here - if you sign up for a Mobile Phone deal (cell for guys in the US) - we'll thrown in a Xbox for FREE !!!).


HD-DVDs and Blu-rays ARE AVAILABLE in Australia - as seen recently 'hidden' in the Sydney city HMV store (now relegated to some little seen spot in the store). Again - these aren't selling and HMV has moved them away from any exposure instore.


You only have to look at the current SD DVD market in Australia - and see how 'cheap' titles are - and how quickly prices fall. Who would want to pay $A40 for a Blu-ray version of HITCH when you can get it on sale on SD DVD for about $A12 ?? Added that within JB stores there is a FLOOD of cheap dvd stands - who wants to pay fullprice for anything these days ????


The HD 'war' has not started in Australia - and wont be going anywhere fast in the near future (The Wiggles in HiDef isn't that appealing to your average person either !!).

Reports of Blu-ray Discs getting more shelf space by Xmas is extremely wishful thinking. If you believe that - you'll believe in Santa as well.



NB : MMMM = the 'sponsor' following the ORIGINAL posting is for HD-DVD. Ironic almost.

Uh, tonyjg, maybe you should reread my original post.

Australians type just as bad as the speak. WTF was that?

Bit harsh, Gizmo. I'm an Aussie.

Yeah, it was actually. Still, I'm !?!?!? having a hard (time !!!) trying to figure out what he !!!was trying to say. ZOINKS!

And the point of your posting was ??????


If you have 'zero' to contribute to the discussion on Blu-ray and Australia - then why did you bother ??

The POINT is that both HD and Blu-ray aren't taking off here in Sydney Australia.

Maybe you should check your grammer as well :)

your original post :

I'm not sure how this is 'sad news' - are you saying that JB's decision to go with SONY and Blu-ray will mean that we will never see HD-DVDs in their stores ?? The way that SONY is marketing Blu-ray, NEITHER product - Blu-ray or HD will ever get the sales to support these products. SONY does not have the best reputation when it comes to 'marketing' its products - baring the Walkman. See the MiniDisc - see PSP - see.... Betamax (my best VCR sadly)

With respect to HD-DVD being DOA in Australia - we simply do not have the market to support two different formats.


NO.

Universal will still somewhat support HD - when it gets around to doing it here - or - more simpler - it wont release any HiDef products here. I fail to see how even an aussie company like Roadshow will get into HD or Blu-ray with its mixtures of companies that it releases titles from.


My point is that whilst its 'interesting' watching how this plays out in the US, I wouldnt be holding my breathe waiting for Blu-ray or HDDVD in Australia. Whilst we were great adopters of SD DVD, we simply do not have the population to support either of the HiDef models at this point in time.


Here's a good question to ask SONY - will their Aussie version of their Blu-ray player be 'region free' ???

Whichever side Village Roadshow chooses here will end the war before it even starts. The fact that major retail chains have already chosen their side will have to force them to be, at the very least, leaning heavily towards Blu-Ray. HD-DVD doesn't have the earlier launch advantage here that the U.S. did and the PS3 is going to be cheapest hi-def player on the market, even beating out the Toshiba machines. I'm a thorough HD-DVD supporter (that digi is a persuasive guy!) but if I was a distributor in our market, I can only see benefit for releasing on BD.

That's exactly what the article I posted said. I even bolded the section that states they will not stock HD-DVD products.

Which is my entire argument for it arriving DOA. Don't get me wrong, I would like nothing more than for HD-DVD to take off here but the evidence is starting to lean too heavily in favour of BD.

Now that I would be interested in finding out.

BTW, I just received my copy of Rambo II & III from an Austrailian e-tailer just because I didn't want the spine backwards (French release) and wanted the cover in English. Only took a week. That's pretty impressive if you ask me.