UPDATE: Adding details concerning PlayStation 3 bundling and Blu-ray money-back vouchers.
Sales of movies on Blu-ray discs have surpassed sales of motion pictures on HD DVDs in the USA, a market study by a market tracking agency claims. But that is not a surprise: Sony and/or its partners have bundled PlayStation 3 game machines with several $10 or $15 worth money-back vouchers for Blu-ray disc movies, essentially selling thousands of Blu-ray movies with massive discounts.
A recent market research report from Nielsen VideoScan claims that the numbers for the week ending January 7th demonstrate that for every 47.14 HD DVD movies sold, there are 100 Blu-ray movies sold, but on the following week, ending January 14th the amount of HD DVDs sold would be 38.36, for every 100 Blu-ray discs sold, PSX Extreme web-site claims.
This is not the first time when a research indicates about Blu-ray outpacing HD DVD sales. According to 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, a studio that exclusively supports Blu-ray format, Blu-ray discs started to outsell HD DVDs in late December and by early January there were 3.5 BDs sold on every single HD DVD movie.
HD DVD manufacturers – primarily Toshiba and Thompson – said they shipped about 175 thousands of HD DVD players in 2006. But while the Blu-ray camp led by Sony Corp. did not indicate how many players were sold, it is known that Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. shipped one million PlayStation 3 gaming machines in late-2006 – early-2007.
The first 500 thousand of the PlayStation 3 game consoles included Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby movie on a Blu-ray disc and Sony's partners among movie studios indluded a number of $10- or $15-worth mail-in rebate vouchers to purchase Blu-ray movies, meaning that there were several hundred of thousands of Blu-ray movies purchased for either for virtually free, or with a massive discount, during the period. According to BetaNews, Nielsen VideoScan tracks point-of-sale data where the customer makes the exclusive decision to purchase discs. So the firm's data excludes bundle deals, but "might include" separate purchases of Blu-ray movies made using $10 or $15 coupons "redeemable toward the purchase of one Blu-ray movie". Therefore, the data also does not include King Kong movies bundled with external HD DVD drive for Xbox 360 sold by Microsoft.
Blu-ray disc fiercely competes with HD DVD format to replace conventional DVD in future. While Blu-ray offers larger storage space for content, HD DVD drives and discs are easier and cheaper to produce.
Comments currently:
20
Discussion started: 02/02/07 10:24:49 AM
Latest comment: 02/14/07 01:12:40 PM
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[1-16]
1.
Is this article a joke!? I own a PS3 and I did get a free Blu-ray disc but no voucher for another Blu-ray disc. Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on were also giving a free disc. This sounds like a bias article to me...
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Posted by: Mark
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Date: 02/02/07 10:24:49 AM]
+ expand thread (2 answers)
- collapse thread
It's very possible that there's a bias there. It's also very possible that whoever reported that was some hack that simply didn't take the time to compare apples to apples. Welcome to the world of modern journalism - where your headlines are so much more important than actually being correct.
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Posted by: Psimitry
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Date: 02/02/07 11:52:08 AM]
It is not the 1st day for XBit Labs to have report that having a bias of "against Sony".
They didn't mentioned that in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where these 2 markets also had PS3 lanuched at late Nov, BluRay Moives had absolutely dominated the sales even in largest HMVs!
No one use crappie HD-DVD in Asia-Pacific area!
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Posted by: Poor quality article from XBit labs
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Date: 02/03/07 04:28:57 AM]
2.
What's you point, Toshiba gives away 3 free movies with any HD-DVD player sold and the 360 add-on comes with King-Kong. why is that not mentioned in the article?
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Posted by: Phil
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Date: 02/02/07 11:52:24 AM]
3.
So which one has actually *sold* the most? Not counting vouchers and other free stuff?
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Posted by: Jalf
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Date: 02/02/07 11:54:57 AM]
4.
So....
HD dvd sales didn't include King Kong being bundled with the 360 add on unit ?
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Posted by: Being Fair ????
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Date: 02/02/07 01:41:31 PM]
5.
Only 400-500 thousand PS3's came with the free movie, which ended early December. And the voucher wasnt a free movie... it was a $10 off. Blu-Ray took the lead in January, well after the end of the free movie.
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Posted by: Mark G
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Date: 02/02/07 02:07:37 PM]
6.
them giving away free BR movies means nothing. that was only at launch and has no effects on BR ouselling hd-dvd the past month. especially by such a large margain so soon.
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Posted by: bob
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Date: 02/02/07 02:32:01 PM]
7.
Universial has had a slow down in movie releases since they were 2 months ahead of the BR camp in release of HD-DVD.
so the last couple of months BR has dumped alot of movies into the shops... Uni is going to be releaseing 100 movies over the next few months and then the sales will look like HD-DVD are winning... winning what is what i want to know.
with MS onboard, HD-DVD is here to stay, this sint gonna be a VHS vs BETA war, these formats are used on more things this time, not just a big clunking VHS recorder.
like 99.9% of the population gives a flying fuck anyway...
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Posted by: too much bs...
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Date: 02/02/07 08:20:57 PM]
8.
dude... this really wont be like the VHS/BTA war as we're not in the 70'/80' anymore, the economy is FAR from being the same and HD-DVD is sold as add-on, and might become main component later on as they release HD games, for one console and BR is sold as another console main component.
as far I can look at the situation, we'll see a format war but both are here to stay. only one will die faster than the other due to its limited size, unless they tweak it up.
and this article is sure messed up and that new has been on the net for a few days already. gotta love "viral marketing".
the other day, we had "xbox360 outsells all other consoles and they compared the number of consoles shipped/sold to store against consoles sold to people... it wasn't any better =/
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Posted by: tof
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Date: 02/03/07 01:03:02 AM]
9.
Voucher?
I feel ripped off now. I did not get a voucher for a BR disc. Just the mediocre Ricky Bobby (not a good showcase of BR).
MS was a lot smarter bundling KK with their HD DVD add-on - that video is a benchmark for next gen video. It has everything.
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Posted by: lewdvig
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Date: 02/03/07 09:59:29 AM]
10.
Nielsen VideoScan numbers are based on Point-of-sale data only.
Free discs and pack-ins are not counted by the partnership. Their methodology is well-known throughout the industry.
X-bit labs' reporter is clueless, and apparently too lazy to do the tiny amount of research required to do his job.
X-Bit Labs should be careful not engage in speculation. In this case the writer's speculation is wholly false, and could open up X-Bit Labs to accusations of accepting bribes from Toshiba to spread misinformation, which is unfortunate.
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Posted by: Ruth
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Date: 02/04/07 02:38:34 AM]
11.
Fact: Only the first 400,000 PS3's sold in the US come with Talladega Nights.
Fact: HD-DVD add-on from Microsoft comes with HD-DVD movie of King Kong. Why did you not mention this? You either don't know or have an agenda.
Fact: PS3 includes $10 mail-in rebate (1 per movie studio) for purchasing a movie in Blu-ray disk. I did not see a voucher for a free Blu--ray based movie.
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Posted by: Ron
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Date: 02/04/07 01:27:44 PM]
12.
This "story" is such a sham; nice way to spin the otherwise great news for the Blu-ray Disc camp. Pack-ins aren't counted by Nielsen, and the vouchers weren't for a free movie.
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Posted by: dx
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Date: 02/04/07 05:35:58 PM]
13.
This article really shows how much of a joke X-Bit has become. Why do they even write articles like this, there's no real information here. Just some poorly thought out analysis that I could have gotten at any online forum, provided by a bunch of twelve year olds.
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Posted by: Norske
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Date: 02/05/07 12:50:23 PM]
14.
There never was a voucher for a free Blu-ray movie in the PS3 Box. I've double-checked this. There are only a few $10 mail-in-rebate coupons in the box, which wouldn't get you a free Blu-ray movie anywhere on the planet.
This reporter simply didn't fact-check at all.
This site is a joke for getting news. The reporters don't report the truth, and apparently don't read the comments from their readers either.
On top of that, there doesn't seem to be any kind of editing process at work to correct obvious errors like the ones in this story.
I think this site is made up of two people just printing gossip and rumors and press releases, not professional journalists. There's certainly no professionalism on display in this story, or it would have been retracted by now.
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Posted by: Truth
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Date: 02/05/07 09:57:31 PM]
15.
I am afraid Xbits Labs made a clearly misleading report here:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5965
Within the article, which also quoted the same data from Nielsen VideoScan as XbitLabs did, clearly stated that the sales data are based on one-point-one sales, which didn't account for any promotional gift discs!
See below:
It’s important to note that the figures presented by Nielsen VideoScan are based on point-of-sale data, leaving out movies sold as part of bundle deals. That means that the numbers of Blu-ray and HD DVD movies sold do not count the copies of Talladega Nights and King Kong bundled with PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, respectively.
I sincerely ask Xbit Labs to conduct a neccesary apologize to Sony Crop.
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Posted by: Poor quality article from XBit Labs
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Date: 02/06/07 04:57:56 AM]
16.
>>>So the firm's data excludes bundle deals, but "might include" separate purchases of Blu-ray movies made using $10 or $15 coupons "redeemable toward the purchase of one Blu-ray movie". Therefore, the data also does not include King Kong movies bundled with external HD DVD drive for Xbox 360 sold by Microsoft.
>>>Sony Gives Blu-Ray Discs for Virtually Free: Blu-Ray Outsells HD DVD
It seems that Xbit Labs still use unconfirmed data to attack Sony. I sincerely request Xbit Labs stop this kind of bias containing irresponsible action
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Posted by: Poor quality Xbit Labs Article
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Date: 02/07/07 10:33:54 AM]
+ expand thread (1 answer)
- collapse thread
I agree, the edited article does nothing more than attack Sony. How is a $10 mail in coupon "virtually free" on a $25 or $30 dollar movie ? Especially when you are only allowed to pick ONE from ONLY 3 listed titles from a particular studio.
It's also funny that the PS3 and blu ray players are seperated yet no mention if the 360 addon is included in the total HD DVD players. Isn't it manufactured by Toshiba ?
Just a note to the editor
Becarefull what you wish for.......
How's Vista working out ?
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Posted by: Rolls Eyes
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Date: 02/14/07 01:12:40 PM]
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Sony Gives Blu-Ray Discs for Virtually Free: Blu-Ray Outsells HD DVD [UPDATED].
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