From another forum:

Interesting and more telling than the 11:1 (or whatever its quoted as now) sales difference for the format overall. Especially when a studio would be looking to support the other format.

Ouch, combined sales 0.1% of the dvd. I wonder if the 2.5:1 HD DVD vs Blu-ray sales are just because of the fact that combo's aren't selling or if Blu-ray is actually catching up?

I don't see how it is "more telling" however, people in general seem to hate combos. I would much rather see a day/date comparison of a non combo title (like MI:3).

Is someone SERIOUSLY comparing sales of the fucking Lake House???

One word: despiration.

Its a movie. People bought it. Not sure what the issue is?

Yea the blu-ray is cheaper, but this is a terrible title to compare sales of. Very little consumer interest regarding of format.

Revised subject since the "vs."es make it sound like more of an assessment of quality.

My apologies.

Unless someone can show that Keanu Reaves fans are more likely to buy a Blu-Ray player than a HD DVD player, I'm not sure I understand what the specific title matters. Percentages are percentages.

Well i don't consider that a very valuable piece of information. Reasons being:

1. The HD/Br versions are not available everywhere like DVD is.
2. The price difference between the DVD and the HD/BR is at least $5 which will immediately scare some people away.
3. Neither HD/BR has anywhere near enough penetration in the market yet to make a massive difference.
4. The majority of HD/BR owners are not really the target crowd for the Lake House i think, i could be wrong.

Oh, I didn't mean it in an admonishing way. I was just explaining why I made the change in case there was any question.

1. Not going to change in the next year.
2. Not going to change in the next year.
3. Not going to change in the next year.
4. You would think, but you never know (not me, I swear).

And I didn't say that sarcastically. Just apologizing for the mistake.

Don't you love text chatting? You never can tell what the person is really saying.

I have to agree with others in this thread and say this is a joke! To use this as any sort of measurment in anything except sales of a crappy movie is pointless. It was a crappy movie and one they put on a Combo disc so it ended up being a really expensive crappy movie. This could be the most rediculous item anyone could pick from both sides to actually try and make any sort of sales assesment from. Try doing a comparison of MI3 when that comes out to get a 100 times better view of the market.

PS..

1. Going to improve dramatically over the next year, Both formats have already purchased prime retail space at alot of the major retailers nationwide including Best Buy. Notice how they moved the HD-DVD's right into the prime DVD sales section? HDDVD's actually have the very best sales space for the entire movie section at my Best Buy. That costs money and the formats are anted up

2. Absolutly will change over the next year. we have already seen a price drop in WB line which are now 19.99 for standard releases. By next christmas I am 100% confident that Combos will be 24.99ish and regular titles will be able to be had for 16.99ish. Time will tell.

3. With the amount of people that are buying HDTV's and the amount of people that could be buying PS3's we could see a huge increase in penetration over the next year. Just depends on wether or not the formats can convince the people to jump in. I personally expect 2007 to be huge years fr both HD-DVD and maybe the same for BD.

4. I think its safe to assume that the majority of early adopters will pass on the 35.99 Lake House when so many other titles are available for much less. While its unprovable, its also pretty common knowledge that people hate Combos right now or at least the Combo price tag.

PS..

I'll point out that Mr. Chris Beveridge is a die hard BD supporter at AVS. I guess he's digging up anything he can find.

My collection, comparing HD DVD and BD, is 100% HD DVD. That's a percentage.

Let's not be asinine about this. If the Lake House HD DVD sold 100-to-1 better in that format compared to BD, I'm sure some BD supporters would find faults with using only that title.

Either way, in the next few months we will start to see some dust settle. It won't be a victory either way, but we'll have better data than we do today.

I'd be interested to see a percentage on Superman Returns:

1. A big title
2. A title that probably appeals to the average early adopter
3. coming out day-and-date on all 3 formats
4. coming out post-PS3/360add-on and during holiday shopping season

*That's* the one I'd look to for more realistic stats... not that I don't expect the %s to be equally pathetic for overall adoption. I'd be shocked if 1% of sales were in HD formats at this stage...

That's probably true. I honestly have no problem with that. LD treated me well.

It was the first D/D title on all formats, what else COULD they compare?

Yeah, we really need an actual title people want to judge sales by. The .01% doesn't surprise me at all. It will be a long road for both of these formats.

The sad thing is that I initially put in a request to review The Lake House for DVD Talk because I thought for sure that it'd be a slasher flick based on its title. Oh well. Moot point 'cause we never got a copy.

Actually, from the ads, it did look like some sort of remake of Ghost, so in that sense, at least, it's got supernatural elements in it.

The sales ratio quote above has been (somewhat) confirmed by the HD DVD Promo Group. While they didn't confirm that The Lake House sold 2.5 times better on HD DVD, they did confirm that HD DVD on a whole sold 3 times better than Blu-Ray. That's pretty close, especially when compared to other numbers that have been thrown around.

Pretty close to what? The Lake House estimates?

No, the HD DVD promo group only addressed sales during August. Seeing as how the Lake House came out in October, they didn't use any of its sales data.

Somewhat interesting, but have to agree with others: its a combo and it is a movie most early adopters don't give a shit about. If I had both players and I wanted this movie I would get the BD since it is Warner (VC1) and the BD is cheaper. That will skew the numbers to BD a little and HD-DVD still more than doubled the sales.