1 GRIDIRON GANG (SONY, $38.96)
2 CRANK (LG, $39.99)
3 EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH (LG, $39.99)
4 UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION (SONY, $38.95)
5 RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE (SONY, $28.95)
6 SUPERMAN RETURNS (WB, $34.99)
7 BLACK HAWK DOWN (SONY, $28.95)
8 GOODFELLAS (WB, $28.99)
9 THE FIFTH ELEMENT (SONY, $28.95)
10 TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (LG, $29.99)
Source: Rentrak’s Retail Essentials ™.

Wow, the Top 3 BD movies are new-to-video. Regardless of how bad/good they did ('Employee of the Month' and 'Crank' tanked at the box office while 'Gridiron Gang' was a hit) this is an advantage for BD over the coming months: day-and-date releases rule! :)

1 GRIDIRON GANG (SONY, $38.96)
2 CRANK (LG, $39.99)
3 EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH (LG, $39.99)
4 UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION (SONY, $38.95)
5 RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE (SONY, $28.95)
6 SUPERMAN RETURNS (WB, $34.99)
7 BLACK HAWK DOWN (SONY, $28.95)
8 GOODFELLAS (WB, $28.99)
9 THE FIFTH ELEMENT (SONY, $28.95)
10 TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (LG, $29.99)
Source: Rentrak’s Retail Essentials ™.I don't know about previous weeks, but I think this list might give us some indication that people in stores are buying day-and-date releases regardless of whether they are considered good titles, more than buyers on Amazon are. From the 14 day charts on http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx I don't see "Gridiron Gang" getting above a ranking of about #1000 for a day and I don't see "Employee of the Month" getting above about #2500 for a day. Yet they were #1 and #3 here. If the HD discs ever get put next to the regular DVDs on the day titles come out on both (day-and-date released) then I could see this being an even bigger factor just based on DVDs tending to get a prominent position in stores on the day they are introduced.

--Darin

It also makes one think about the "granularity" of the Amazon sales rank data. Over what period of time does that sales "snapshot" cover? 10 minutes? 60 minutes? 10 hours? I have no idea.

Lots of folks around here are putting all kinds of stock in these graphs they are generating from Amazon Web Services and other sources, but we really don't have any hard data.

The Rentrak sales stats actually gives us a B&M store ranking of sales over a set period of time, so we know the relative sales within a format from those sources. But we still don't know how many items that represents.

Eric

The list of BD movies is still short. This is why people buy indiscriminately. When PotC and Cars and Casino Royale are released, that's when the fence sitters are likely to be convinced that this thing is going to succeed.

Right now, there is no true indication that either BD or HDDVD will be around 2 years from now, though recent events tend to favor BD more than HDDVD.

But BD could still die off after HDDVD does. There's no guarantee either will be around in a year.

The list of BD movies is still short. This is why people buy indiscriminately. When PotC and Cars and Casino Royale are released, that's when the fence sitters are likely to be convinced that this thing is going to succeed.

Right now, there is no true indication that either BD or HDDVD will be around 2 years from now, though recent events tend to favor BD more than HDDVD.

But BD could still die off after HDDVD does. There's no guarantee either will be around in a year.

I dont think there is anyway they will both die. It will be one or the other or they will coexist. Everyone knows this is much better than SD and studios know they make more money sold per disc so they are gonna keep trying to make that money.

Rented Gridiron Gang from Netflix. Very nice movie and great PQ. This is on my wishlist now.

The list of BD movies is still short. This is why people buy indiscriminately. When PotC and Cars and Casino Royale are released, that's when the fence sitters are likely to be convinced that this thing is going to succeed.

I know I am buying those titles before I buy a Blu-Ray player. :)

I took a shot and went with The Guardian over Gridiron Gang as a blind buy. Hope I didn't make a mistake, though I have a feeling I may have :)

The list of BD movies is still short. This is why people buy indiscriminately. When PotC and Cars and Casino Royale are released, that's when the fence sitters are likely to be convinced that this thing is going to succeed.

Right now, there is no true indication that either BD or HDDVD will be around 2 years from now, though recent events tend to favor BD more than HDDVD.

But BD could still die off after HDDVD does. There's no guarantee either will be around in a year.

The PS3 userbase is just going to keep growing, and this alone will ensure that BD will not die off.

It's not the same as UMDs on the PSP because with UMD they were charging a higher price for an inferior product that could only be viewed on the PSP and not on a TV set, and there are STILL UMD movies coming out.

The list of BD movies is still short. This is why people buy indiscriminately. When PotC and Cars and Casino Royale are released, that's when the fence sitters are likely to be convinced that this thing is going to succeed.

Right now, there is no true indication that either BD or HDDVD will be around 2 years from now, though recent events tend to favor BD more than HDDVD.

But BD could still die off after HDDVD does. There's no guarantee either will be around in a year.
BD could die after HDDVD? And what, everyone throws their HD TV's out, and replace them with good ol korean SD's?

Note new catch-all BD sales thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=793744