For those that don't know or are new to the forum, www.hollywoodinhidef.com is a Blu-ray propaganda website that is run by and supported by the Blu-ray studios. One of their big contributors is Bill Hunt. I would take ANYTHING on that website with a giant bowl full of salt. I personally would never trust numbers from them. If this was from HomeMediaMagazine, Videobuisness, or Nielsen it would be accurate. Last I heard Sony was also hiring David Manning to write some articles

But...lets go with those BDA numbers for a minute.

If No Country sold 68k as the BDA is claiming, that means (rounding numbers here) ID4, a pretty damn big catalog title, sold a whopping 7,300 copies. I, Robot sold about 5,600, and for a dead format, both American Gangster and Beowulf sold 4,800.

With sales numbers that low for a big title like ID4, I can't see how they will continue to bring out big catalog titles to what is almost sure to be low sales, especially if Universal and Paramount come out releasing an additional 150-200 titles this year like many here are predicting. I can only imagine (and have pretty much been told this because so many people are reporting stores sold out of players) there have been many new Blu-ray owners in the past few weeks because of HD DVDs demise, so why are these titles not selling?

If people are buying PS3s more then the 360, like what was posted a few days ago, and SA players are sold out....why are people not buying movies? I personally though ID4 would move at least 15k copies.

that does seem low, but No Country didn't do very well at the box office either, so i'm not too surprised that the overall home video sales would be paltry. it is interesting that it sold decently on blu-ray. despite its contemplative ending, the narrative is very male-centric and violent, which i suspect plays well with the current Blu-ray demographic of 18-35 year old men.

Regarding Independence Day, do you think the price and lack of extras could have something to do with it?

Then again, maybe there are more people like me who just don't think it's a good movie, and won't buy it on any format.

I wonder if some of this is lack of marketing. I don't think I've ever seen a TV commercial for an HDM catalog title, at least not for anything that wasn't accompanied by a new DVD release.

i think you're on the mark with all of those things. ID4 is more of a guilty-pleasure catalog title than a universally-loved catalog title. the BD is the theatrical cut only and offers less extras than the existing DVD. additionally, it is priced very high, like the other newly released fox catalog titles. i'm not surprised that it's not blowing the roof off the sales charts. (see what i did there? )

The Wal-mart in my area has eliminated HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. I was surprised, but the only reason they started carrying them was that a new Target opened up across the street and that store has a large HD section (with BD gradually taking over HD DVD space, as one would expect). I presume that HD titles didn't sell well at the Wal-mart (which, contrary to stereotypes, is a clean, neat, well-lit, Supercenter).

I suppose that BD will return to Wal-mart when it becomes more popular, whenever that happens.

Not at all. I am merely agreeing with Namja's point about overall sales being so low that discs from a dead format can still crack the Top 10.

And by the way, few retailers included American Gangster or Beowulf in their clearance prices.

I think you're missing the point. Yes, Independence Day has all of those factors working against it. Nonetheless, with an estimated 7,300 copies sold it was the #5 best-selling title of the week.

7,300 copies. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt and assume that Gizmo's math is off, and the number is closer to 10,000. That even 10k copies could make the #5 position is not a good sign.

No, I'm not saying that HD DVD could have done any better if it had "won" the war. I'm just pointing out the obvious, that Blu-ray has a long way to go before achieving any sort of profitability for the studios involved. And if the studios decide that it's not profitable for them to release catalog titles, even marquee titles like Independence Day, they're likely to scale back their output to focus only on new releases, which will be a really bad thing for the true movie fans out there.

But the biggest one, Best Buy, certainly did, selling them for $20 each.

Best Buy, at least the 3-4 I've been in, had 30% off all titles. Target has also had price cuts of $19.99 on American Gangster.

Anyways, what is your view on the dvd sales numbers I posted for No Country?

HD sales have not been great and that point has been mentioned often. But DVD has a user base consisting of 100+ million players, yet No Country can't sell a million units in week 1. Doesn't that appear worse than the BD selling 68,000 copies to a base of 4 million?

Some stores randomly ship HDM around. No real reason even if they are selling well. My local Wal-Mart has had a big HDM section, then small, them big, then small for the past 2 years. Very odd.

Fox's list price of $39.99 could have something to do with that. On release day last week and a couple of days later, I visited 3 Best Buys, 2 Targets, and 1 Walmart, and between them, they had received 4 copies of I, Robot and about 4-5 of ID4. For a city the size of Raleigh, that sure isn't many copies to go around. I wonder how plentiful these titles were last week.

As mentioned already, Best Buy had discounted both American Gangster and Beowulf to $20.99. Compare that to $34.99 pricing for the Fox catalogs, and it's not too hard to see why they're also in the top 10.

I have read that during Walmart's next setup, they are supposed to add another 4' to their existing 4' setup. With HD DVD being completely gone by June, I think most Walmarts will then really focus efforts on BD. At least I hope so.

Little competition. A DVD has anywhere from 10 to 60 new releases each week including the already released movies from the past 10 years. Blu-ray typically has 2-5 releases each week with a back catalog of 400 movies. Not much of a choice. Couple that with the $10 off coupon as well that was floating around making it the same or even less then the DVD version.

Both HD DVD releases are 3-4 weeks old and sell for $20.99 at Best Buy and $19.99 at Target. Still fairly impressive for a dead format and month old titles.
Its not anyones fault but Fox that they choose to release these titles with high prices and slim extras. Had they been $20 I would already own both movies.

Good! Their pricing is on par if not better then Amazon.

actually i agree with that and wasn't really attempting to refute that idea. i was simply pointing out that Gizmo's expectation of 15,000 for ID4 was high, due to a number of factors (the dismal overall sales volume of HDM being among them).

I think the presence of any HD DVD titles in the top ten is certaily an interesting topic of discussion. I agree that the fact that a title that sold around 4000 copies on a dead format is able to crack into the top ten selling titles is likely a little shocking.

I think that it certainly does show that price point is an important factor, but that in general even the "budget" prices are too high for the masses.

I'm very eager to find out the sales figures for I Am Legend this weekend. That's the first true blockbuster to debut on BD this year. Enchanted should sell prett well also.

Walmart is certainly the best when it comes to B&M pricing. However, I hate the fact that my local Walmart now has the movies locked up in a case. I know it's to prevent theft, but I've worked in retail before and what a locked case tells the customer is "we think you're going to steal from us." Not a good message.

I don't think this is a national policy either. I think it is store specific. Yet I don't feel the need to support a store that may or may not see me as a potential criminal.

I Am Legend should sell around 100k for its debut. However I think we would have heard from Warner already if it had. Though we have not had any of those types of press releases in a while.

My Wal-Mart uses the spider wrap security device.

I grabbed these numbers from a thread on blu-ray.com discussing the topic regarding the 3 million BDs sold this year. I believe he got these from Videoscan, so I'll assume they're legit. I'm too lazy to go research.

Total sales for 1997 (1st year of DVD-launched April 1997) = 1.5 million
Total sales for 1998 (2nd year of DVD) = 9.3 million
Total sales for 1999 (3rd year of DVD) = 19.75 million

BD achieved sales of about 6 million for '06-'07. 3 million so far this year. They are forcasting 15 million by year's end.

Doesn't this represent a fairly close adoption rate to what DVD started out with? And this will be the first year with no rival format.

At least you're able to browse the titles and look them over without someone hovering over you. In certain stores, I think Best Buy is beginning to place their BDs in the plastic cases that the games come in. I won't be surprised if that turns into a national policy.

One of my Best Buys is doing that. Pain to tell if you have a floater disc now.

Unless they've changed things in the last couple of days, the Wal Marts here in Boise just have them sitting out on regular shelves like all the DVDs. So, just like so many other things with them I'd suggest that the security case is YMMV -- whatever the jack frick that means.