Does HD need the gimmicks?
 

Some DVD releases get some great exclusives. There was the Spartan Helmet with 300 at Best Buy. BB also had an exclusive steelbook for The Departed. No doubt that these help increase sales because, well, they wouldn't do it if it didn't.

Isn't quite obvious that exclusive bonus freebies would help drive sales for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD? Why aren't the studios giving away free crap exclusively with the HD version of a movie? Are the studios simply too afraid to focus their efforts on HD while DVD still makes bank?

Almost all of those were available through a specific retailer, which says to me that it's the retailer choosing to pay for some kind of extra pack-in. I doubt they'd want to spend extra money on HD discs when they amount for a very small amount of sales.

Besides, where HD should be focusing is on exclusive HD features. Look at how many cool features are on the Heroes HD DVD set that aren't on the DVD set. That to me would be a much better selling point than a little figurine.

Well buy a Toshiba HD DVD player and you'll get several FREE HD DVDs. There's an exclusive :D

You mean like the same thing that Sony is offering right now?

Both Formats have free discs with a purchase of their product. I think right now people should support both formats if they really wanna see a true winner.

HD FORMAT IN GENERAL

I think once they lower prices enough so people browsing the HD section at Best Buy won't have sticker shock ("$34.99 for a Jennifer Aniston movie?") we'll see some improvement.

Because its not. Those freebies only help to drive buyers to a specific STORE, not a title or format. The people buying the titles would have most likely bought them regardless of a freebie.

PT, the most obvious sales driver of HD and BD is price, plain and simple.

Ah, good point Josh, i agree with you... The "freebies" just drive people to the particular stores...