Sony Gives Blu-Ray Discs for Virtually Free: Blu-Ray Outsells HD DVD [UPDATED]

by Anton Shilov
02/02/2007 | 09:02 AM

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 <%BANNER[article]%>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 7^th demonstrate that for every 47.14 HD DVD movies sold, there are 100 Blu-ray movies sold, but on the following week, ending January 14^th  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 20^th 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.