Superchargedgtp

kcmurphy88

maxcalvino

j_beppoy

...Okay, so I'll just state the obvious:

If you work for Toshiba, you're probably buying your HD-DVD player internally with some sort of company discount, which means that your purchase isn't going to show up as a "consumer sale".

Apart from that, I don't think anybody's job was at stake for not buying an HD-DVD player. That is, unless Toshiba mandates that all employees go out and buy an HD-DVD player or be fired, and employees are subject to weekly sales receipt and home inspections to see if they have purchased the "other" HD player (a crime that would also be punishable by termination... and possibly death). Apparently this seems pretty likely to you.

Sadly, I doubt even a Toshiba employee would buy an HD-DVD player out of fear.

Big World

I will and can put money on this scenario-

Microsoft will unveil a payer, very similiar to their HD-DVD player, but guess what?

It will be either combo in a last effort to save HD-DVD, or just plain Blu-Ray... Either way I'm buying to hack firmware and play it on my laptop so, thanks, Microsoft for giving us a device with an uber easy to crack firmware...

Miccheckin4life

the stats do seem a bit skewed so i'd like to see how things are next month..

sadly, i've stuck it out w/sony for so long and endured now 3 seperate Memory stick format factors (MS, Duo, M2) and the whole nasty UMD fiasco that i deserve to be on the winning team for once! hehe..

as for everyone who's talking about DL being the next war, yes.. i agree but that prob won't be for a while imo or atleast in the USA. our broadband speeds are so behind every other country due to our 'competition' scheme..

somedays, a unified format is just a better way to do it.. *cough* stupid 2 diff types of cell networks in the usa (gsm vs cdma), another area we are SO behind in..

how long would it take to downlad highdef movie thats about 20-40gb? yes, it is only a time thing but still.. plus, what about hdd failures and that type of thing..

seamonkey420

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

superjap

As soon as the writing was on the wall about the death of LDs, I ran out and bought two players in addition to the Sony 333 I already had. My system currently has just two players. (The Sony failed years ago.) Of those two, only one is hooked up. I'll bring the last one into use only when the current one fails.

There was just no way I was going to abandon a porn and Criterion disc collection that I worked that hard to put together.

Now, lemme tell ya about my collection of about 25,000 LPs and a couple of thousand 78s!

:-)

benenglish

mrgingis

imTheKing

Given past studies, no one would have guessed that the swing would have, ah, swung this far and this quickly. But apparently, even when buyers lack the in-depth and intimate knowledge of the product being purchased, there are factors that affect the purchase behavior in a very strong manner.

MaxRC

1fella

JustAnotherJoeBlow

Just excited about his purchases cant blame him. I remember when I bought my Sanyo Z3 projector I was running around my house with the Sanyo box on my head screaming GO SANYO!!! Take a chill pill my good man.

ichiban1081

y2julio

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

coverofnight

y2julio

92.53% of nothing is: ???

Yes, HD DVD is done (if for no other reason than the fact that we keep saying it is), but it is months before that starts to result in sales that could even begin to be compared to DVD players.

Monty

PS3s and hd-dvd 360 add ons are not included in the above. Secondly, if you look at the numbers, there have been more hd-dvd stand alone players sold to date than there have been Blu ray stand alone players. So, when you do factor in the PS3 it is obvious that a lot of PS3 owners are using it for movies. Why else would blu ray have better sales figures than hd-dvd?

The funny thing is, now that Warner has jumped ship and gone to blu ray, there are more blu ray stand alone players being sold than hd-dvd players at a wide margin, even though blu ray players are a lot more expensive. But shhh, don't tell that to the hd-dvd crowd because they believe nobody can afford blu ray players. ha.

dalejrfanfreak

Secondly, at my latest trip to best buy I saw a gentleman bringing back a bag full of hd-dvds. I wonder why! Perhaps he found out that 70% of the movies aren't going to be available for him to purchase?

It doesn't matter what price you are at or how many features you have when you don't have Disney, Lionsgate, Warner, Sony, MGM, Fox, etc.

dalejrfanfreak

Seiven

theespacepope

I think the problem ultimately rotates back around to the whole "Blogging vs Journalism" argument, or at least that's how I see it.
I don't think there's anything sinister happening, I think it's more a matter of passing along information as it's gleaned. (Though I would perhaps question the sources in that case.)

strider_mt2k

And, Chen, what that 7.47% was thinking is that they weren't sheeple. Who really cares which format wins beyond exclusive titles? This is like the video game console industry trying to force sales, and even they've found that exclusives aren't enough to lock up 100% of the sales. Assuming HD-DVD is dead is kind of like assuming the console battle is between the 360 and PS3, as though the Wii not doing HD at all makes it insignificant.

If Gizmodo is not in the same pockets as the NPD group, then you need to show it by applying at least the smallest bit of critical thinking when it comes to interpreting statistics. I still yet to see you feature a story that gives raw numbers and puts them in the context of regular DVD sales. I have yet to see you even report the average number of titles owned per HD player (hint: owners of Blu-ray players buy far fewer movies). If you'd actually show that kind of journalistic integrity you'd actually give people a reason to come here; we can find cheerleading by industry shills anywhere.

Computer_Chef

strider_mt2k

youknowme22685

I'm not claiming that HD-DVD is still in the fight (because honestly I can't see how they can be) but if you want proof that the war is over, this isn't it.

@PSN: KINGPSYZ: Some mainstream media may well have carried the story, but that doesn't mean normal people paid any attention to it. Apart from people I work with (a technical dept. in a media company, so not exactly 'average joe') I could ask ANY of my friends and they wouldn't have a clue about any of the recent news. Also, I didn't see it on any TV news here in the UK.

scuba_steve

Muahahahahahaaaaaa Blu-Ray Won!!! So that's why the 360 didn't come with the HD-DVD player built in. They new it was gonna fail all along!

valekeyes46

Come on people, wake up and smell the coffee before Sony comes up with a coffee maker that only works with Sony beans and Sony filters!!!

JustAnotherJoeBlow

ItsDon

The only people buying Next Gen consoles to play movies are: people who read about the demise of HD DVD in these kinds of forums.

99.9 % (not scientific by any stretch of the imagination), are happy as a clam with good ol' DVDs. If it ain't broke...

Jsembower

TNTBW

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Mike918

grkdotnot

npa189

EaGle1337

Hello_Newman

ffmusicdj

ffmusicdj

Sony technically won the battle over Phillips and Panasonic between MD vs. DCC as far as next generation recordable formats to replace cassettes went. of course MD never had anywhere close to the market penetration that cassettes enjoyed. (similar to DVD?) as everyone merely waited for what they *actually* wanted (CD-R ... followed by MP3 shortly after) vs. what Sony said they wanted. CD-R and MP3 also lacked the ridiculous DRM that MD promoted as well. sounds familiar eh? winner of a loser battle... still a loser.

basically the exact same story as MD vs. DCC can be applied to SACD vs. DVD-A... Sony is technically winning that "battle" as well. weeee...

you could also say they beat Panasonic in the Betacam SP vs. MII battle. but that was hardly a battle in the *consumer* electronics arena. i literally have never met a person who used MII gear... i actually don't even know anyone who has *seen* MII gear in person. though it was marketed as a competitor to Betacam SP.

Sony also won the battle between their 3.5" floppy discs vs. all the other random crap (those weird 2.8" QuickDisks come to mind as well as killing off 5.25" disks) that existed at the time.

those are the only examples i can think of. needless to say... "Microsoft" isn't the only possible answer. nor really correct anyway.

x23

Did you honestly think you were the only one hip to the recent BD/HD-DVD rumblings?

Every mainstream media outlet was covering the switch by Warner Home Video to BD. It was on Reuters, Yahoo News, Google News tickers, CNN, MSNBC, ect.

Joe Consumer wouldn't have to try hard and hear that BD was "winning" the format war and make their buying decision.

Keep in mind, January sees a lot of people cashing in gift cards, making exchanges, spending early tax returns, ect.

Couple that with mainstream news outlets running stories about how 75% of the content will be in BD and it's hard to imagine somone with money burning a hole in their pocket to buy HD-DVD.

PSN: kingpsyz

The next format war will be DL content more than likely. But the holders of the services will surely try and trot out their own "multi media packages" bundled with contracted cable, broadband, phone, life insurrance, and pool cleaning.

Then we'll look back fondly when we didn't need a credit check to watch a new release movie...

PSN: kingpsyz

jsmjr816

tobedetermined

Which begs the question: Why didn't someone do this a year ago?

otaking241

Charles

Akmed

powerball

I hope that's all right with everyone.

blank

secretasianmang

From the NPD? They are a non-bias third party just reporting data.

Also, NPD data doesn't include PS3 sales.

Scaramanga

However, you are willing to:
(d) pay as much to rent Apple's video as you would to get a TRUE BD rental

And:
(e) How does Netflix help you to watch high-quality, high-def movies when you don't have a BD player?

goglen

@scuba_steve: Your argument holds some ground now, but once Warner stops making HD-DVD discs, it will be blatantly obvious to the average consumer that 75% of the movies available in HD will be on Blu-Ray. Then a spike in Blu-Ray sales would make a lot of sense. As it stands now, I would call this week a fluke. We'll see a better average upwards (for Blu-Ray) in the months to come.

eleazar

Average-Dudes

Neither AppleTV nor Netflix offer real, high-quality HD yet. There was just an article on here about how even supposed 1080i HD downloads were compressed so bad it was hard to call them HD. If you want to enjoy true HD quality in the near future, you'll have to pick a format.

CruJones

Riddle me this: who is the only company ever to lose a format war to Sony?

A: Microsoft. lol. (Toshiba, Schmoscheeba--it was MS's data format)

storm

(1) I read that the PS3 was the only currently available player that would support Gen 2 discs, so I wen to go buy a PS3, then....

(2) Steve Jobs announced that the AppleTV 2.0 upgrade was free.

Between my AppleTV and NetFlix, I really see no reason at all to get either.

storm

Oh well. Let the dust settle. Once someone comes out with a usuable video card/audio solution that handles Dolby TrueHD with a HDMI 1.3 port, I will throw a Blu-Ray ROM in my HTPC. Looking forward to the Vista Media Center update and some of the hardware vendors to get up to speed.

getz76

yellow73

nocar

xxenclavexx

jkl567

Either it's a fluke and isn't indicative of any trend, or the only people buying HD-DVD/BD players are the same people reading these blogs (not exactly the film-watching masses).

scuba_steve

jsmjr816

MrSmoofy

MagnoliaBoy

jarque

92BuickLeSabre