The EMA has released a report that predicts, among other things, that Blu-ray sales will surpass standard DVD in 2012 and be about $9.5 billion.
The report found that sales of almost 9 million high-definition discs in 2007 generated over$260 million in revenue.
Of course we have already read that studio home entertainment heads are predicting around the $1B for 2008.
Via Engadget
Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the release of the initial slate of Blu-ray titles from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The initial slate included 50 First Dates, Hitch and XXX. This first wave of discs were all single layer BD25 discs with MPEG2 video encoding and PCM lossless audio.
A lot has happened since 2006, including the remastering and replacement of one of the launch titles The Fifth Element - with the new version being much more representative of current releases, featuring AVC video on a BD50 disc with Dolby True HD Lossless audio.
The latest Home Media Magazine is reporting a new milestone today for Blu-ray - for the first time reported, the market share of the top 20 Blu-ray titles was 10% of the market share when combined with the top 20 DVD titles. Overall the week was down for both formats, however Blu-ray revenues remained just over $10M, still an improvement over single digit millions for most of May.
In the top 20 chart, Rambo easily came out on top, followed by last week’s winner National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. The next titles trailed somewhat, though the Rambo 1-3 Boxset had good sales considering the price with close to a quarter of Rambo sales to take third place. The top 5 was rounded out by 300 and National Treasure in its second week - we suspect sale prices contributed greatly to 300’s numbers, though it is interesting to see that this effect is less prevalent than in the past as overall volumes increase. The other Rambo titles, Rambo - First Blood Part II and Rambo III made the top 15, otherwise there were no real surprises.
A few interesting numbers in the ‘per title’ market share versus DVD. Rambo was a strong contender on Blu-ray, selling 12.8% of its units on Blu-ray Disc. The Trilogy did very well, selling over 69% of its units on Blu-ray, while the individual titles didn’t do so well at between 23 and 27 percent, implying that many chose the way of the box set to fill out their Rambo collection. Other hot selling catalog titles in the 60% range included recent releases V for Vendetta and Twister as well as older releases Blood Diamond and Blade Runner. Full Metal Jacket gets honorable mention at 56%. It is interesting to see titles get ’second life’ on Blu-ray, though I am sure sale pricing has helped boost Blu-ray sales in some cases.
All in all an interesting week with encouraging double figure marker share for the first time that we know of. It will be interesting to see how things go moving forward.
If you were one of the no doubt many people who emailed Universal Home Entertainment over the last couple of years asking them to release their titles on Blu-ray, you might have received an email from Universal announcing the upcoming release of Doomsday.
The email is worded as follows:
Dear Consumer,
Universal Studios Home Entertainment has announced that beginning in late July of this year, select Universal theatrical films and TV series will be released on Blu-ray to coincide with their standard DVD release dates.
The first Blu-ray release will be “Doomsday,” scheduled for July 29. For announcements of other upcoming Blu-ray releases, please visit our website from time to time at http://universalstudios.com.
We appreciate your interest and hope that you will continue to enjoy our releases.
Sincerely,
Consumer Relations
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Oddly from other announcements we believe that the Mummy releases will be prior to the Doomsday release, however it is great to see that Universal kept the contact list from all the people who contacted them.
We read over at CEPro that according to a new survey sixty percent of U.S. consumers are aware of Blu-ray discs, though hardware penetration for the format sits at 9 percent.
Research firm Interpret, LLC has found that Blu-ray and HD DVD owners continue to buy standard-def DVDs at a rate of 7.7 to 8.7 for high-def titles during the past six months, but more available Blu-ray titles are needed to grow that difference. Interpret also suggests that low HDTV penetration rates are hindering Blu-ray’s adoption in the U.S. and worldwide.
The survey asked 600 adults ages 18-54 in the U.S. during January, right after Warner Bros. announced their decision to support Blu-ray only, which started a chain of events that eventually led to HD DVD’s demise.
Via Gizmodo
Hollywood Reporter has a new article with more accurate statistics demonstrating the rise in Blu-ray sales relative to the DVD counterparts of recent titles.
According to Nielsen First Alert data, No Country for Old Men sold 9.8% of its total sales from Blu-ray Disc its first five days in stores. Fox’s Hitman, also released March 11 generated 12.6% of its total unit sales from Blu-ray.
By comparison, while the format war was raging, unit sales of high-definition discs, either Blu-ray or HD DVD, generally accounted for no more than 2%-3% of a title’s sales.
Fox’s The Simpsons Movie generated just 2.8% of its total sales from Blu-ray, while the Blu-ray version of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, from Walt Disney Studios, accounted for 3.7% of total sales.
With the format uncertainty over, Michael Clayton generated 5.5% of its total first-week sales from Blu-ray. Sony’s 30 Days of Night, released Feb. 26, gained 8.9% of its total unit sales from the Blu-ray version.
Studios are keen to derive a greater chunk of their sales from Blu-ray because of the price differential - on average a Blu-ray Disc sells for $10 more than the DVD counterpart.
Blu-ray Disc hardware penetration will reach 29.4 million homes worldwide this year, according to a report by the Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices Services.
For an total estimated of 18.8 million Blu-ray units, Strategy Analytics projects 4 million stand-alone set-tops, 13 million PlayStation 3 consoles and 2 million PC-based Blu-ray drives will sell globally this year.
“HD DVD’s withdrawal leaves the way open for Blu-ray to become a major revenue earner for technology vendors and content owners alike,” said David Mercer, principal analyst at Strategy Analytics. “The 265 million homes that will own an HDTV by 2012, and Hollywood’s need for a new growth engine, represent huge incentives for the industry to coordinate marketing activities and demonstrate unified support for the successor to DVD.”
By 2012, Strategy Analytics estimates that more than 132 million homes worldwide will have at least one Blu-ray device.
Scott Hettrick is reporting on his Hollywood in Hi-def Blog that Blu-ray has reached 9 Million units sold since inception according to HMR research.
Perhaps even more iinteresting is that 3 Million of those were sold in this year, putting the format on pace to easily hit at least 15 million units for 2008.
The average weekly sales have been ranging from 200,000 - 300,000 the past two months or so, but recently spiked up to 319,000 units, driven by Disney’s release of No Country For Old Men, which sold 68,000 in its first week of release.
Prior weekly top-sellers this year were ranging from 10,000 - 30,000 units.
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced that the next system software update for PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(TM)) computer entertainment system, slated for release in late March, will add Blu-ray Disc(TM) (BD) Profile 2.0 or BD-LIVE, enabling PS3 owners to experience interactive features, such as downloadable video content, ringtones, games, and more.”
With Blu-ray established as the high-definition optical disc standard, more consumers are ready to jump in and take advantage of everything the format offers,” said Scott A. Steinberg, vice president, product marketing, SCEA. “Whether you want to download movie extras, send ringtones to your phone, or play interactive games, BD-LIVE will offer exciting new ways to enjoy a Blu-ray movie. With these regular firmware updates and future-proofed technology, SCEA is making the 10-year lifecycle of PS3 possible.”
In conjunction with the PS3 firmware update, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) is pleased to announce two BD-LIVE enabled titles to be released on April 8 - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and The 6th Day. Both titles will include exclusive downloadable content that goes beyond what is available on the actual Blu-ray discs.
Over at TWICE we see a report on the Sony Electronics’ semi-annual press roundtable with president Stan Glasgow, with a couple of topics touched upon that are of interest to us.
Blu-ray player prices should hit $299 by the end of the year and probably $200 by 2009. Glasgow estimated that there will be 5 million standalone players sold this year worldwide with 75 to 80 percent sold in the United States. And as for HD broadband downloads, “it will happen, but it won’t derail a packaged format for a decade.”
While the Blu-ray format war may be over “the battle really begins now to move people away from DVD to Blu-ray,” Glasgow said. “We have a lot of work to do now, so we are not gloating. Upscale DVD players have gotten better and better. We need to explain the additional feature sets, PIP, BD live and other features.” He added that Sony “will build as many Blu-ray decks as we can.”
It is interesting that he touts the features that HD DVD has had all along and not readily available on Blu-ray right now as the features that differentiate Blu-ray from upconverting DVD players!
