DVDEmpire compares Blu-ray, HD DVD sales

Online retailer reports on percentages, number of format releases

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 1/17/2007

JAN. 17 | DVDEmpire.com is chronicling the high-definition format battle by offering one of the first public comparisons of Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD sales.

Launched this month, the “HD Wars” tracker tells site visitors what percentage of the site’s high-def title sales are BD or HD DVD on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis. Also, the tracker counts up the number of BD and HD DVD releases studios have streeted thus far.

HD Wars can be found at either the BD or HD DVD sections of DVDEmpire.com.

“We just thought it was something interesting to add,” said Shannon Nutt, DVDEmpire.com editorial director. “People are interested in seeing how the two formats are doing against each other. Obviously, we keep track of this in-house. But it’s also something that our customers will be interested in for awhile.”

For some time, www.eProductWars.com (formerly known as www.thedvdwars.com) has been comparing BD and HD DVD sales rankings at Amazon.com.

However, DVDEmpire.com appears to be the first retailer to report clearly to its shoppers how the two formats are stacking up.

For the week including Tuesday, Jan. 16, DVDEmpire.com noted that 57.7% of its high-def sales were BD and 42.3% were HD DVD. But for 2006, HD DVD led at 59.16% to BD at 40.84%.

Through Jan. 16, DVDEmpire.com counted 190 HD DVD releases and 203 BD releases.

At this point, DVDEmpire.com is vowing to treat the two sides evenly.

If one format appears to be consistently in the lead, “we will not give more weight to one or the other … as far as promotion,” said Nutt.

He believes the recent roll-out of PlayStation 3 is giving Blu-ray an edge currently.

DVDEmpire.com isn’t making predictions for future movement between the two formats.