To tell you the truth, I did.

I never agreed with the thought that the format war was keeping either format from taking off. I always thought that there was a small amount of people on the fence, and the rest didn't give much thought to either format.

My thought is the timing was horrible for both formats... they can be considered 10 years too late or 5-10 years too early.

Did we have much reason to think that they would improve much more than what BR and HD-DVD were combining for before the pull-out?

I imagined they'd get the HD sales, plus maybe another % point per six months or so.

Keep in mind, Gizmo misquoted the article's title. The flop cited wasn't Blu-ray in general, but a specific Sony Blu-ray player.

To defend Blu-ray a bit more I would point out two of the other flops Spore and Vista haven't exactly lost their respective companies any money. Spore sold millions of copies and Vista continues to ship on millions of PCs.

Aren't sales of most items sluggish, given our current economic situation?

Yes, I did believe that they would be in similar numbers (though I would not characterize them as sluggish, because they are simply not). I certainly did not expect the summer to provide a sharp spike in sales as it is traditionally the slowest period for the industry. I also did not expect for Blu-ray to magically begin selling as it was the end of the summer when all of the majors began releasing on it. This being said, The beginning of Q4 which is typically the period when media and hardware sales begin to grow has been nothing short of optimistic given the economy (also addressed by Mr, Kornbalu). We are on course to have two million $ sellers and the market has kept a percentage share above 10% for Blu-ray since the introduction of Iron Man.

I am unsure based on what past indicators you might have had different expectations about Blu-ray's post HDDVD performance.

Pro-B

Please tell us how you believe the 4 percent number is incorrect.

The point is not to prove the existence of a number. The point of the argument is to prove that what is stated as a fact it backed by factual data. BD sales this year have consistently been over 4% and even though these numbers refer to the top sellers in both categories, DVD and BR, they are indeed representative. The only argument one could bring up to claim that they are not is the lack of hard numbers...which automatically dismisses the blogger's claim to begin with.

Pro-B

I have no problem arguing the merits of Blu-ray or the lack of perceived sales but what I find hilarious are the few people that never participate in the HD Forum except whenever the new "Blu-ray is in trouble" thread pops up.

I see, when other people post statments without facts, you yell at them to prove them with facts. Yet you do not hold yourself to said standard. The simple fact is you can't disprove the 4% market share number, because the number may be indeed true, or close to true.

My opinion on software sales is the BDA has dropped the ball by not staying as aggressive with pricing and BOGO's since the war ended. I've always believed people will buy a player if there's plenty of reasonably priced content that interests them. That's why I thought HD DVD's strategy of cheap players with next to no significant disc promotions was ill-advised.

On the comment about BD+ and BD-J, if I had to guess I'd say it's the BD-J stuff causing problems. Q1 2007 seems like the first period when studios started to get a little more adventurous with this stuff. And I agree the format needs to stabilize. If I buy an S350 today, IMO it's new enough that I should never have to do a firmware update. Unfortunately, the whole "fix it after release" mentality is pervasive throughout many areas these days.

You should reread what is written in my previous post as it directly addresses facts vs. speculations. When the foundation for the said claim isn't based on factual data that could be sourced yet it provides a definitive factual statement it isn't necessary to to prove the existence of a secondary source disproving its validity. If you believe that it is then yours and a number of other posters' words on this forum are in harsh disagreement with your past posting history where the weekly sales percentages were dismissed based upon the same principle.

You cannot have it both ways and flip it to constantly support your stance. You either agree with or disagree with it.

Pro-B

No, actually my problem with percentages has mostly about posting "percentage increases" as misleading signs of healthiness of Blu Ray.

You sell 1 tomato this week and 2 tomatoes next week that is a 100% increase. Lets say you sell 10 fruits overall. The 2 tomatoes are still just 20% of the total fruit sold.
The first percentage - the 100% - have been consistently used by trade pubs to give misleading impressions about Blu Ray. If the trade pubs, said Blu Ray has 10% of the disc sale market, I wouldn't object to that use of that percentage.

Given that relatively few hard numbers are out there, the 4% of disc market is a significant fact. It is not about percentage increases, or percentages based on one movie versus another, or a percentage based against a non-existent DVD.

This ZDNET blogger posted a fact - 4% of disc market is Blu Ray. That is a straight percentage, not a percentage increase, or a percentage comparision. That is a big dfiference.

I don't know if 4% is accurate for total market share (90K titles vs. ~1K), but for the top 20, which most people seem to be tracking since earlier this year, the number has been 10% or higher for the last 3 weeks (Source: Home Media Magazine). So the top 20 number has been very solid in the 4th quarter which is the biggest quarter of the year as far as sales.

Which is only accurate for stores that the Nielsens track. They do not track Wal-Mart (one of the biggest DVD retailers in America) nor other places that sell DVDs (Grocery stores, gas stations, mom and pop stores etc).

Now Yahoo! has an article up on its home page called "Is Blu-ray the New Laserdisc?" Whatever the actual success of the format is, a slew of negative articles from several disparate sources is not what the BDA needs going in to this holiday season.

Which makes me wonder - where is Paramount touting Iron Man BD selling 1 Million copies (or very close to it)? They need some good PR right now and have numerous way to push it (cheap BD players, Iron Man, Inc Hulk etc) yet they are not doing anything. Last year we couldn't go a few days without something from the BDA.

The writer mentions something that has already been mentioned here. All the major problems were being pointed at the hardware.

Personally, I'm getting sick of hearing the picture is a "little" better. I wouldn't bother going back to dvd if Blu-Ray died* out.

*Blu-Ray is going no where.

The timing is strange. BD has its best month for sales (Oct. '08) and a flood of doom and gloom articles start popping up.

Again, why is their even a discussion about the demise of a format whose sales are increasing and player pricing is dropping. We're barely through the important Q4.

Yahoo! should be the one to talk.

Really You wouldn't watch movies just because they are not on Blu Ray? That seems kinda harsh. I thought that it was enjoying a movie. I

I hope you mean perhaps you wouldn't buy more DVDs??

Yep, I meant I wouldn't go back to buying dvds. No point in moving backwards. I certainly wouldn't stop watching movies though.

Bluray achieves the greatest software sales yet in the month of October.

EAT IT, bluray doubters!!

I agree, I don't get it either. All I know is that I'm now enjoying James Bond, one of the cornerstones in my collection, in high def and will shortly be enjoying my favorite, Band of Brothers, in high def. After months of releases that didn't have much interest to me, the 4th quarter is and will be fantastic for my tastes in movies.

Got it. So basically you are always right and when you are wrong refer back to rule one. I have a real problem with you spinning stuff to fit your stance, but clobbering anyone that tries to work things out the same way if it doesn't. I disagree with you I better post 10 sources backing it up. You disagree with me you can rationalize it anyway you want.

The only fact is none of us know. It could be 4%, it could be higher or lower. I agree it looks like sales are on the upswing looking at the Nielsen's, but we really aren't sure how accurate those are. We had numbers all over the place on Iron Man.

I definitely agree with the fact that Blu-ray couldn't be in worse shape than Yahoo as posted later in the thread so maybe that is something to be positive about. I want BD to succeed so hopefully it finishes its third Christmas moving up. The Hulk number is encouraging, but are catalog things like Young Frankenstein or Casino fairing better? That is where I really want to see BD expand so I'm curious if the older films are still selling in the hundreds instead of thousands. I would have much rather bought the Complete Abbott and Costello Collection on BD, but there doesn't seem to be a place on the format for older niche films.