....Can they do that without our consent? (well, you're consent at least)

Stole these from Grubert over at the Blu site...

A 75% drop in 1 week. The April 27th numbers are just plain bad. A new release like The Orphanage selling less then 6,000 copies on its release week? Damn.

It's public communication, so as long as everything's correctly cited and not misrepresented, I don't think there'd be any legal hiccups.

That's not bad for a Spanish language movie that barely broke 700 screens on these shores. Heck, it has less star power than Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and moved more copies than that did in its first week. It's always disappointing to see things I like not sell well, of course.

8100 copies for Predator is not too bad IMO.

I was hoping it would move more copies because its an awesome movie. Kudos to those not buying crap like One Missed Call.

Solid second week numbers as well, although I believe it was $19.99 during that week.

Yep. $19.99 at Target and Amazon and was offered in a deal if buying AVP at Best Buy. The numbers for that are not too surprising.

Sales are still coming from only 5 studios. I think Universal and Paramount will start to give a boost to the numbers, once they've gotten a few titles released, especially Paramount.

No doubt. May 20th will be nuts. We have something like 50 new releases (and re-releases) But even with all 7 studios on board I don't think the numbers are going to jump from 30-35k for an average new release up to 80k. There will always be a big hot title (I Am Legend for example) selling in high numbers though. Every month there are 200-300k PS3s sold and (guessing and being generous) 30-40k Blu-ray players sold yet the numbers are not moving up that much. All speculation of course.

Hot crackers -- we're FAMOUS!!

The first I heard of this movie was when the reviews starting popping up. I don't think anyone expects a movie like that to sell very well.

True, especially when you factor in how awful it is.

Even on the April 20th chart, the Top 10 list is once again populated with titles that barely moved a few thousand units.

That may be your opinion, and you're welcome to it, but I guarantee you that no one at the studio is jumping for joy that the disc they just released only sold 8k copies.

C'mon dude, was that really necessary?

Oh, I noticed that. I'm worried we may have a studio or two pull out in the next year if the numbers don't increase several times over. Not to be all gloom and doom because its Blu-ray, but I would be saying the same thing if Blu-ray died and it was just HD DVD.

Predator is by far a better film then AVP2 which has probably now sold 70-80k copies.

I don't believe I said the studios would be happy, nor is it a huge number. I'm saying that based on its price, lack of features and such, IMO that's better than expected.

Can anyone even GET to their site? Jesus, I hate all this Flash crap. Just give me a fuckin' basic HTML page with a little php, thanks. Appreciate it. I don't really care if you've managed to get a doctorate in the Creative Website Arts. If I want to see creativity and stand in line for hours to look at something, I'll go to a museum.

And yes, the numbers are kinda sucky. However, I think we have HD DVD users still buying HD DVDs at the moment, diverting their cash still to HD DVD media, so I'd wager it will only be around late summer when we see Blu-ray sales start to climb.

Personally, I haven't bought anything Blu yet. I'm waiting until this winter or Q1 2009 to get a Blu-ray player. I might get some titles Q4 2008, but not sure. Hell, I just spent around $200 on SD DVD releases, if that gives anyone an idea. I'm kinda burned out on HD at the moment, and I'm sure others are as well, and thus, the low figures.

That's fair. Frankly, for what they're offering with the product, I'm surprised they sold more than a couple hundred copies.

The two of us will be criticized for being all "doom and gloom", but this is a very real concern that every Blu-ray fan should take seriously. If the studios can't make a profit on the format, there's only so long they'll continue to throw money at it. What is in it for a studio to put the resources into transferring, authoring, manufacturing, distributing, and promoting a product that will only sell a few thousand copies? And that's for titles that make the Top 10 list! How many copies did the #100, 200, or 2,000 Blu-ray titles sell that week? I would guess that after a few hundred positions, the rest of the Blu-ray catalog probably didn't move a single copy in that time frame.

Even if they don't pull out entirely, I fear we'll see a greatly reduced slate of catalog titles being released, with all emphasis only on new day-and-date titles from every studio.

It's been two years and there's no more format war boogeyman to use as a skapegoat any longer. These numbers are profoundly disheartening, to say the least.

The studios only have themselves to blame.

DVD became the success it was for these two main reasons:

- cheaper than VHS
- more convenient than VHS

Better quality was certainly a factor, but not as much as the two reasons above.

Blu-ray is certainly better quality, but it is more expensive, and slightly less convenient due to the equipment necessary to get the most from the format. If they drastically slash their prices, they might have a shot, otherwise...

Businesses rarely give up on growth opportunites. DVD is no longer in a growth model. Blu-ray is, because so few people have it yet. Businesses love opportunities to market new products. Same concept when McDonalds & Wendy's create nasty new burgers, to get people interested again in new products...

Yes, but if McDonalds makes a new Spam and Relish Burger and it does not sell, they pull it, right?

yah, but then they'll have a Pork Belly and horseradish chicken sandwich ready to go right behind it. for good or bad, blu-ray has more riding on it, so its got a longer leash - and more marketting...