[official] Blu-ray Rumors and Speculations

[shockz]

This thread was created to consolidate all the rumor and speculation threads regarding Blu-Ray into one area, and will help with organization by cutting down on the repetitive posts regarding this subject.

This will also help staff moderate any issues such as flaming and trolling.

So... if you see or hear about any rumors, speculation, or unofficial news about Blu-ray... then this is the place to post.

This thread will be strictly moderated... any rule breakage including flames and trolling will be dealt with warns and restrictions

Edited January 15, 2008 by shockz

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Wal-Mart will only sell Blu-Ray players in store according to CNN

CNN is now reporting that Walmart will only sell Blu ray players in stores. This is coming stright from CNN a site acclaimed for credible news. See the video for proof

Please move to 1:12 where Walmart's decision to abandon HD DVD sales have been revealed.

Source: http://n4g.com/tech/News-100740.aspx

[+StevoFC MVC]

That doesn't make much sense to me why a place like Walmart would only sell Blu Ray players. The average person who buys electronics in Walmart won't be buying $300+ players. But on the other hand, they would jump all over players in the $100-$150 range which just happens to be what HD DVD players go for...

[draklin]

That doesn't make much sense to me why a place like Walmart would only sell Blu Ray players. The average person who buys electronics in Walmart won't be buying $300+ players. But on the other hand, they would jump all over players in the $100-$150 range which just happens to be what HD DVD players go for...

Maybe Walmart didn't want to deal with the possibility of all of those people returning those players when they find out that all of the new movies they want to watch will not play in their new player.

[+StevoFC MVC]

Well that pertains to Blu Ray then also...neither format has every movie. You are missing the entire point.

[draklin]

Well that pertains to Blu Ray then also...neither format has every movie. You are missing the entire point.

No, my point is that now the majority of movies going forward are going to be blu-exclusive, unless other studios switch to HD DVD soon. Not every movie of course, but most the the new big movies. So I believe a good amount of people will end up returning their players when they see that most of the new big releases are in a format that they can't play. That was what I was trying to say.

Either that or Sony paid off WalMart to be blu-exclusive. :laugh:

[+StevoFC MVC]

Either that or Sony paid off WalMart to be blu-exclusive. :laugh:

Heh, yeah. Wouldn't surprise me.

But anyways, I know what you are saying but I just don't see returns as a problem. If you open the player and try to return it by saying "there aren't any movies i like" the store worker would laugh in your face. The return policies are in place for these types of things. We all know how dodgy Walmart is though with putting open items back on the shelf and trying to sell them new.

[giantpotato]

Heh, yeah. Wouldn't surprise me.

But anyways, I know what you are saying but I just don't see returns as a problem. If you open the player and try to return it by saying "there aren't any movies i like" the store worker would laugh in your face. The return policies are in place for these types of things. We all know how dodgy Walmart is though with putting open items back on the shelf and trying to sell them new.

Have you ever tried returning something to Wal-mart? They have a very lax return policy. Wal-mart relies on repeat customers so they would rather keep their customers happy even if it means losing a sale. My friend returned his Xbox 360 to wal-mart 9 months after purchase and they gave him a full refund with virtually no questions asked.

[+StevoFC MVC]

Have you ever tried returning something to Wal-mart? They have a very lax return policy. Wal-mart relies on repeat customers so they would rather keep their customers happy even if it means losing a sale. My friend returned his Xbox 360 to wal-mart 9 months after purchase and they gave him a full refund with virtually no questions asked.

No, sorry. I haven't. I don't buy electronics at Walmart. I didn't realize it was so easy. But if that's the case then why would they care if the players get returned? Regardless it still makes no sense.

Anyways, as Boz pointed out, this isn't even true about Walmart. So it doesn't matter.

[giantpotato]

No, sorry. I haven't. I don't buy electronics at Walmart. I didn't realize it was so easy. But if that's the case then why would they care if the players get returned? Regardless it still makes no sense.

Anyways, as Boz pointed out, this isn't even true about Walmart. So it doesn't matter.

I agree with Boz, the guy was probably talking about Target, but theoretically speaking Wal-Mart woudn't want a mass of HD DVD players to be returned because they'd take a huge loss. They wouldn't be able to do anything with the returned machines. I'm guessing Toshiba would not want to take them back and they couldn't resell them because very few people would buy a dying format.

[Lewism]

Great sales for Blu-ray last week:

That's 6 to 1

[TruckWEB]

Great sales for Blu-ray last week:

That's 6 to 1

I can only imagine that it's going to stay that way.... Look at this, this is the result after the Xmas sale blowout of HD-DVD player. They are all out and in milions of homes. And guess what, Blu still win.

With Warner, New Line, HBO on Blu-Ray (and ****ing HD-DVD owners by releasing HD-DVD 3 weeks after Blu...), no wonder why Blu is so popular. Even with cheap player, HD-DVD is not able to put a dent on Blu. This is crazy stuff. Customers seems to enjoy paying more for Blu (while, getting a PS3 I can only asume, why would you want to pay $499 for a stand alone player?). People don't seem to care about the Profile thing. Numbers speaks for themself.

[+StevoFC MVC]

I think that they don't know about the whole profile situation, not that they don't care about it.

[Boz]

I think that they don't know about the whole profile situation, not that they don't care about it.

And don't forget 4 times more titles on BOGOs and news of Warner (people were caught up in a bad spot, nobody wanted to buy a lot of HD DVD movies due to the uncertainty what would happne).. not so shocking to see skewed results one more time. But numbers should be getting more in normal now when Toshiba is gaining it's trust back and becomes clear that it's not over as much as Sony and the gang were hoping it would be.

[TruckWEB]

And don't forget 4 times more titles on BOGOs and news of Warner (people were caught up in a bad spot, nobody wanted to buy a lot of HD DVD movies due to the uncertainty what would happne).. not so shocking to see skewed results one more time. But numbers should be getting more in normal now when Toshiba is gaining it's trust back and becomes clear that it's not over as much as Sony and the gang were hoping it would be.

I don't have any problems with BOGO, in fact, it's only good for customers. And what good news (except for price cut) could turn things around for HD-DVD? I still think that the futur is uncertain for this format. Universal/Paramount can say that they still support HD-DVD, but they can change their mind in a flash if they wanted.

As for the Profile thing, I was reading somewhere else that the vast majority of Blu-Ray player sold where, PS3! So they will be able to update it to Profile 1.1 and (maybe?) to P2.0. Seems like stand-alone Blu player are not that popular (high price!!).

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Great sales for Blu-ray last week:

That's 6 to 1

Woah, destruction!

[Mathachew Veteran]

So overall, HD DVD has just over a third of the market? Hardly destruction. For that one week? Definitely, but as that clearly shows: HD DVD has 37% of the market. If they had 20 or below, then there would be virtually no hope, but they still have something to hold on to.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

So overall, HD DVD has just over a third of the market? Hardly destruction. For that one week? Definitely, but as that clearly shows: HD DVD has 37% of the market. If they had 20 or below, then there would be virtually no hope, but they still have something to hold on to.

2/3 is quite a majority to me, regardless if 1/3 = something to hold on to.

And as for destruction, I was referring to this week.

[Mathachew Veteran]

2/3 is quite a majority to me, regardless if 1/3 = something to hold on to.

And as for destruction, I was referring to this week.

If you're on the losing end, but have one third of the control, that's not as hopeless as a fourth or fifth. They can still gain ground, but it won't be easy. I think ultimately Blu-ray will win this thanks to the PS3, but the point was that the market share is split into thirds, not bigger such as HD DVD having a fourth, fifth, or sixth of the market. If or when they reach a fifth, then there's without a doubt no hope, right around 20-24%.

So overall, HD DVD has just over a third of the market? Hardly destruction. For that one week? Definitely, but as that clearly shows: HD DVD has 37% of the market. If they had 20 or below, then there would be virtually no hope, but they still have something to hold on to.

:ermm:

[Boz]

2/3 is quite a majority to me, regardless if 1/3 = something to hold on to.

And as for destruction, I was referring to this week.

Again, the ratio changed for several reasons, not because magically Blu-Ray is a winner.

First of all HD DVD owners did abstain from purchasing to see the response from the HD DVD group. If they would fold, HD DVD owners would much more stop buying movies. I know I did. This is not the case anymore at this moment and my purchasing habits are back to normal, not only that but I actually bought 2 more HD DVD players for the crazy prices they are now.

Second, 4 times more titles on BOGOs would definitely make shift in numbers. The combination of 2 creates results like this.. which is again nothing really on the grand scale of things, but amazingly effective marketing tool to distort reality of things and that's less then 2% of DVD sales are both HD DVD and Blu-Ray combined. When 98% still needs to jump onboard, I hardly think that less then 2% of early adopters gives any objective results in sales, especially when they are highly skewed by half off sales and similiar. But that's just me.

[DrCheese]

less then 2% of DVD sales are both HD DVD and Blu-Ray combined. When 98% still needs to jump onboard

Well erm yeah... But it will grow. Like any new format it takes time and now the war is pretty much over consumers can start jumping onto BD with no worries and the BDA can start to focus it efforts on DVD rather than HD-DVD

I wish HD-DVD supporters would stop crying about BOGO's. Its unfair to proclaim it cheating or "Fiddling the numbers" when there was nothing stopping Toshiba or the HD-DVD group in general from doing the same. But they dropped the ball on it and so many other aspects of HD-DVD marketing.

[Coldgunner]

First of all HD DVD owners did abstain from purchasing to see the response from the HD DVD group.

If they did then they were doing it for a year

Edited January 20, 2008 by Coldgunner

[+StevoFC MVC]

I fthey did then they were doing it for a year

Actually no, that's where most people are wrong. In terms of stand alone player sales HD DVD and Blu Ray are about 1:1. Take into consideration the ps3 and it's about 6:1 in favor of Blu. Never have the sales been that in favor of Blu in terms of software until this past week. If anything, people with Blu Ray are in fact the ones buying less.

[Coldgunner]

Actually no, that's where most people are wrong. In terms of stand alone player sales HD DVD and Blu Ray are about 1:1. Take into consideration the ps3 and it's about 6:1 in favor of Blu. Never have the sales been that in favor of Blu in terms of software until this past week. If anything, people with Blu Ray are in fact the ones buying less.

sales of blu have still been higher, albeit not in those ratios. I don't wanna dig out the graphs as they've been posted a bazillion times. there were occasional sales spike for hddvd, but lo and behold those were a lot of bogos and firesales.

[Boz]

Well erm yeah... But it will grow. Like any new format it takes time and now the war is pretty much over consumers can start jumping onto BD with no worries and the BDA can start to focus it efforts on DVD rather than HD-DVD

I wish HD-DVD supporters would stop crying about BOGO's. Its unfair to proclaim it cheating or "Fiddling the numbers" when there was nothing stopping Toshiba or the HD-DVD group in general from doing the same. But they dropped the ball on it and so many other aspects of HD-DVD marketing.

First of all nobody is crying. It's pointing out simple fact. Why is it unfair? It is "fiddling with numbers". Nobody says it's cheating, all that is being said is that Blu-Ray sales numbers are not for what they are. They are artificially created. What's disingenuous about this is proclaiming how after these sales somehow "consumer chose". That's an ethical problem. You are purposely lying in order to prove superiority.

As I said, I'm not discussing what was better for the owner at that point, I'm just pointing out a simple fact. If you're giving away movies, of course people will take it. I took a bunch too, but it simply doesn't support the argument that Blu-Ray sold better. Again, if you give something away for free, no matter how you type it at the register, it's not a sale, it's a giveaway.

HD DVD didn't do BOGOs that much, correct and that's too bad, but I think that it's more important to make hardware dirt cheap even by subsidizing so the mainstream consumer can afford watching those movies, then waiting 2 more years for prices to drop the buying movies. BOGOs encourage existing owners to pick up more movies, they don't create new audience, this is what cheap hardware is supposed to do.

Edited January 20, 2008 by Boz