Apr 17, 2007 08:56 PM
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This morning, we wrote about a stat that Europe's HD-DVD title sales had spiked and surpassed Blu-ray sales. That's wrong. That writer actually used US data, so we updated our post. But what about that US spike? It didn't have anything to do, actually, with the fact that HD-DVD has over 100k non-Xbox players in the field. That would have revealed itself with a more gradual climb in the charts.
Apparently, the spike occurs the same day that HD-DVD fanboys at AVSForum, the AV enthusiast site, had organized an mass buy of HD-DVD titles. For an immature format, even a few individuals can make a difference, if only on a day.
This post lays down their gameplan for the buy on April 15th, the one year anniversary of HD-DVD's launch:
The idea is to show support for HD DVD by buying movies on a specific day. There is no better way to show support for HD DVD than by backing it financially. If there is a strong demand for HD DVD software, then hopefully Blu-ray only studios will at least go neutral.
A month later, over 350 members were signed up on AVSForums, but not alone. Countless other HD DVD fanboys on other sites joined in. And on that day, many people grabbed anywhere from 2 to a dozen discs, sometimes more — Likely not more than 10,000 copies, by my guess. But that's a significant amount on a single day for a format that has less that a million titles sold in total. They'd even managed to get the random, but beautiful BBC documentary Planet Earth box set up into the top 5 sales for movies on Amazon, which members talked about as a first for any HD disc. (Casino Royale on Blu-ray only reached #6).
And as you can see, HD-DVD's sales rank broke out of its second tier title sales rank on Amazon, if only for a day.
Funny enough, on the other side of the fence, on AVSforum's Blu-ray Fanboys, as well as those on PS3 forums are planning a retaliatory synchronized buy soon.
One thing's for sure in the format war. HD-DVD's fanboys are far more original and spirited.
April 15th - Buy HD DVDs from Amazon Day! [AVS Forums, thanks Keith!]
Data [HDGameDb]
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