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Somebody Keeps Buying HD DVD Titles
February 7, 2008
Looking at Nielsen Video Scan weekly research through the week of Feb. 3, HD DVD is definitely losing ground to BD sales. But according to some pro-HD DVD sources, they're just jazzed to see that the category is still moving at all in the weeks following Warner's exclu-Blu decision.
Between Nov. 25 and Jan. 6, HD DVD units comprised 35%, and BD units comprised 65%, of high-def software units sold. As we're getting farther into 2008, and more consumers catch wind of Warner's move, it's been more of a 19% HD DVD 81% BD split, when averaging the weeks ending Jan. 13, Jan. 20, Jan. 27 and Feb. 3. Yet, for whatever reason, the most recent Feb. 3 week represented somewhat of a surge for HD DVD and dip for Blu-ray over the prior Jan. 27 frame. HD DVD jumped 33% to generate 51,878 in unit sales. BD fell about 17% to 147,180 units sold.
It's not clear to me why there was that shift. But 'll guess that at least on the BD side, the Jan. 29 new releases included in the Feb. 3 Nielsen week, were lower profile than
Saw IV which streeted on BD within Nielsen's prior Jan. 27 frame. It's hard to tell with HD DVD, because in general it hasn't had a big theatrical release in awhile.
But overall, this is a small victory for HD DVD. It's pretty glaring that the format still is signficantly trailing BD in software sales. But I'll bet the HD DVD backers will take their wins where they can get them. They aren't going to be picky about it.
It has to becoming more and more apparent to consumers that Warner is making BD its priority. Before it completely cuts off the format after May, Warner is following a serious HD DVD lag strategy. For example just announced
I Am Legend streets on BD day and date with the standard defintion on March 18. And then several weeks later, in a marginalized position, comes the HD DVD-DVD combo version on April 8.
Posted by Susanne Ault on February 7, 2008 | Comments (11)
