HD Format Wars: Is the End Near?


It looks like the end is near for the long-running battle between HD and Blu-ray. As Warner jumps ship and boards the Blu-ray bandwagon, the same could be said of consumers as the latest NDP report showed the huge difference between HD media player sales the week before and after the announcement. From a better-than-average 60 percent to a dominating 93 percent, Blu-ray seems to be headed towards the finish line, lording it over its rival HD DVD format.

Everyone's hopping on the Blu-ray bandwagon

While admittedly it’s still too early to make predictions, the overwhelming figures are hard not to notice. However, the data shows only sales within a period of one week. Putting things into perspective, comparing sales from a month ago, Blu-ray is nearly 70 percent which is nonetheless pretty still impressive.

70 percent is not that bad

So, in essence, if Blu-ray players continue to increase in sales and dominate the market, then it would be profitable for companies to produce content in the Blu-ray format.

Personally, I wish this whole fiasco is done and over with so I can finally buy a media player that will have a standard format for HD content because quite honestly, this whole rift in the HD format wars is actually holding me back from making any purchases for now due to the fact that my chosen format might not be supported in the future anymore. With the way things are going, I’ll probably have to wait a couple of months more before I decide and for now, the choice is pretty obvious.

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January 25th, 2008
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Phil Miller
Posted on:
1/25/2008 at 2:03 pm

You are behind on things here pal.

http://www.dailygame.net/news/archives/007137.php

NPD is NOT standing behind those numbers.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
betaman
Posted on:
1/26/2008 at 12:37 am

The NPD numbers are being interpreted out of context. As NPD itself has stayed, a weeks result is not indicative of a trend. More so, during the week in question a there were giving away a free Blu-ray player with the purchase of a 1080p TV. In addition Toshiba had ended their price reduction promotion.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
kasjun
Posted on:
1/26/2008 at 3:28 am

i wouldn’t read too much into the pie charts just after warner bros. dropped their bombshell. that whole week was filled with rumors on this and that. now that the smoke has cleared a bit we should be able to get a better idea of what is going on. i would think that someone who reports this stuff could figure that out.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
kilawinguwak
Posted on:
1/27/2008 at 6:22 pm

I’m sticking it out with blu-ray. I’ve made a rush comparison of the pros and cons of hd and blu-ray, and the former just comes up short in more than two points. I like the extra mile Sony is taking with their new media storage technology, never mind that Sony is the king when it comes to formatting stupidity (the UMD is a prime example of this).

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Allan David Reyes
Posted on:
1/28/2008 at 9:38 am

Actually, I agree with NPD which is why I said that it’s really too early to any predictions at this point based on the weekly numbers.

However, taking into consideration the monthly data, an almost 10% jump in sales plus the switching of formats of large studios can’t simply be overlooked.

If this trend continues, and only if it does, then we will most likely see the death of HD DVD. For now, nothing’s really certain, but the edge does go to Blu-ray at the moment.