TOP HD DVD TITLES FOR WEEK ENDED 3/4/2007
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RANK TITLE (LABEL/DISTRIBUTOR, SRP)
1 THE DEPARTED (WB, $39.99)
2 BABEL (PAR, $39.99)
3 BATMAN BEGINS (WB, $28.99)
4 GOODFELLAS (WB, $28.99)
5 SERENITY (UNI, $29.98)
6 FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (UNI, $29.98)
7 TROY (WB, $28.99)
8 CASINO (UNI, $29.98)
9 THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (UNI, $34.99)
10 HOLLYWOODLAND (UNI, $39.99)


TOP Blu-Ray TITLES FOR WEEK ENDED 3/4/2007
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RANK TITLE (LABEL/DISTRIBUTOR, SRP)
1 THE DEPARTED (WB, $34.99)
2 BABEL (PAR, $39.99)
3 THE PRESTIGE (BV, $34.99)
4 SUPERMAN RETURNS (WB, $34.99)
5 STRANGER THAN FICTION (SONY, $38.96)
6 THE FIFTH ELEMENT (SONY, $28.95)
7 TERMINATOR 2 (LG, $29.99)
8 BLACK HAWK DOWN (SONY, $28.95)
9 CRANK (LG, $39.99)
10 X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (FOX, $39.98)

Babel is selling better than I thought it would.

I can't believe The 5th Element is still selling, given the poor quality everyone says it has.

Why do HD DVD owners hate Superman Returns?

I love it! I just bought a copy last week.

Interesting that both charts are 70% exclusive titles (unless Troy is in Blu-Ray). Some of HD DVD's exclusives are scheduled to appear on Blu-Ray this year, however.

It's a combo?

It's consistently been one of the top-selling titles. So my guess is most people with HD-DVD players already have it.

It seems to sell high on the list on BD, but I rarely see it on HD DVD top ten lists.

It's also a high priced combo disc.

So is The Departed, but it's been #1 for a few weeks now.

Because it's newer and because of the Oscar buzz.

Superman came out in November. A lot of people have it already, or those with both formats probably go with the cheaper Blu Ray version.

I wonder how close in numbers these sales are, too. Not format compared to format, mind you, but in regards to a title's respective position. Can anybody say, for instance, if there's more than 10 sold units separating position number one and position number ten? I realize it's probably a bit unlikely that ol' Supes is at number 11 after selling only 2 units fewer than Hollywoodland, but I think knowing the actual numbers could provide a bit of illumination. That might also help explain why "Fifth Element" seems to be doing so well in spite of it having been so poorly received by disc reviewers. Might be that there's just a really big gap in sales between position number five and position number six . . .

The PS3 is probably driving those Superman sales as well. It's probably one of the more attractive discs to pick up when you're buying the system, for example. People who probably won't use the PS3 as a Blu Ray player full time probably still get something like Superman just to see what the fuss is about.

Totally. Especially in the absence of "Batman Begins".

Very cool to see Goodfellas & Casino in the top 10 for HD.

Superman Returns also is one of the titles that are in the rebate booklets with some PS3s, maybe just the earlier units though.

what's the source for the charts?

Rentrak, according to the original posts.

not heard of them before - they seem to be fairly new on the scene.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...Comparison/514

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6422898.html

Blu-ray sales bigger in February
Fatter release slate pushes the format over rival HD DVD
By Jennifer Netherby 3/9/2007
MARCH 9 | Blu-ray Disc movies continued to outsell rival HD DVD through the month of February by a two-to-one margin, industry sources said as the first final numbers for the month began to trickle in.

Consumers bought around 250,000 units of Blu-ray movies during the month, compared to the estimated 125,000 units of HD DVD movies, according to industry sources.

Warner Home Video’s The Departed and Superman Returns were top-sellers on both formats. The Departed debuted Feb. 13 and had one of the highest first-week sales totals for either format, surpassing 20,000 units on Blu-ray and 13,000 on HD DVD, sources said.

Blu-ray sales also outpaced HD DVD by a two-to-one margin in January.

But the top January releases sold less than half of what February releases did. Lionsgate’s Crank sold 7,500 units on Blu-ray in January, compared to HD DVD’s top seller for the period, Warner’s Batman Begins, which sold through 4,100 units, according to studio sources.

“Every week it grows,” said Rich Marty, VP of new business development at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, a Blu-ray backer. “It’s growing faster than DVD did. Each month it just looks more and more promising.”

Blu-ray’s lead has been attributed to sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3, which is in more than 1 million homes. Sales of set-top Blu-ray and HD DVD players were about equal in February, studio sources said.

Marty predicted the gap over HD DVD would continue to widen helped by a big-budget movie slate headed to Blu-ray, including next week’s Casino Royale from Sony.

However, execs at other studios said the numbers are still very small and either format could win over consumers.

“When they start talking about numbers, two-to-one, that’s really about the release schedule,” said Ken Graffeo, executive VP of marketing and head of high definition at Universal Studios Home Entertainment, the only major studio to exclusively support HD DVD.

Studios released about twice as many movies on Blu-ray during January and February, Graffeo and others noted. HD DVD studios will be releasing more movies in coming months, about equal to the number their Blu-ray counterparts are putting out.

During the first half of the year, Blu-ray studios are planning to release 265 movies on the format, while HD DVD studios have 257 movies planned for release.

“You can’t look at the last two months as a trend or as what the consumer wants to do in this format,” Graffeo said. “It’s really an artificial, short time period.”

Graffeo said Blu-ray numbers also are getting a boost from two-for-one specials offered by retailers and Blu-ray studios and noted that Amazon has halved the price of Blu-ray movies.

Total disc sales since the debut of both formats remains close. About 650,000 HD DVD discs have been sold since the format’s April debut compared to more than 675,000 Blu-ray discs sold, according to one studio source.

Wow, finally some real numbers. So out of 1 million PS3 owners they sold 20,000 copies of the Departed. Bond will have a higher attach rate, but numbers like these worry me. HD DVD owners still have the much higher movie buying rate. Universal's comments tick me off. If you realize the problem is releases then release more movies already.

I think the release slate they've announced for the year is pretty damn solid. They just didn't release a lot in January and February because those are typically the slowest retail months of the year.

I think that this is the important number. The past several weeks, it has seemed like Blu-Ray has three or even five times as many titles as HD DVD, so a 2:1 ratio in buying is not impressive at all. The numbers for The Departed show Blu-Ray as being in the lead, but that's one of those titles that people will pick up for the hell of it (because it was a day and date release and the DVD special edition was close in price). If the number of titles is going to be this close in the first half, I'll be very interested in seeing if the sales ratio gets much closer to 1:1.

One other idea is that Blu-Ray has been pretty front-loaded with its exclusives, releasing a lot of blockbusters and big-ticket action movies. Assuming even a quarter of Blu-Ray sales arrive from incidental purchases from PS3 owners who bought the system for games, not movies, films like Crank, Fantastic Four, and xXx will run dry pretty quickly, so the numbers should be interesting when (if) something like On the Waterfront gets released.

The biggest problem I could see is the HD DVD side pricing themselves out of the battle with combo discs. Going higher than Blu-Ray would be a horrible mistake whether they want to include the DVD version or not. I think that could account for maybe 3-7% of those The Departed sales.

What's more, if we take that much quoted "standalone player sales are about equal" stat at face value, and we assume The Departed is equally attractive to standalone owners of both formats (meaning a roughly equal percentage of Blu-Ray standalone owners bought The Departed as HD DVD standalone owners, and with equal numbers of owners, the sales numbers are equal), that means about 7,000 of those "trojan-horsed" PS3 owners sprung for The Departed. Even if we attempt to account for dual-format owners -- and with Blu-Ray perceived as being in the lead right now, I don't think it's unreasonable to figure more dual-formatters bought The Departed on Blu-Ray than HD DVD -- that brings that PS3 number even lower.

Yes, I know there are a lot of assumptions and "let's figure"s in there, but any way you slice it, that ratio of PS3s to actual sales differential is pretty paltry.