TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp. has slashed its sales target for high definition DVD players and recorders after disappointing sales in the U.S., putting a damper on prospects for one of its growth businesses.

"Sales in the U.S. have been slower than expected, and we are going to have to lower our U.S. sales forecast," said Yoshihide Fujii, head of Toshiba's digital consumer business.

The electronics group now expects to sell 1 million next-generation optical disc players in North America by the end of calendar 2007, down 44 percent from its previous estimate of 1.8 million unit sales, a Toshiba executive said on Tuesday.

"Obviously, we are going to have to lower our previous global estimate (too)," said Fujii, but declined to give a new forecast.

Toshiba's HD DVD technology competes with Blu-ray, promoted by Sony Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in a high-stakes DVD format war that has split the electronics industry and made consumers hesitant about buying DVD players.

Fujii had previously said he expected Toshiba to sell 3 million HD DVD players and recorders worldwide by the end of the business year to March 2008, led by U.S. consumers' appetite for movies at home.

Sony equips its PlayStation 3 game consoles with Blu-ray drives, and Toshiba said last week it aimed to put disk drives for high-definition DVDs on all its laptop computers next year, but neither side has been able to land a knock-out blow yet.

"Consumers who are buying Playstation 3 are buying it as a game console. They're simply not buying it for watching as many high-definition movies as Sony said they would," said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. He spoke at a news conference announcing the release of Toshiba's Vardia-brand HD DVD players in Japan.

Over 60 percent of all next-generation DVD players sold in North America were for the HD DVD format as of the end of May, not including game consoles, Fujii said.

The battle over next generation DVDs is reminiscent of the format war between VHS and Betamax. Both sides are trying to gain an edge as demand grows on falling prices of high-definition televisions and DVD players.

Ahead of Fujii's comments, shares in Toshiba closed up 0.5 percent at 948 yen, outperforming the Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index which slid 0.26 percent.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUST16250120070612

Seems that 1 million in the US is quite a number too. If Toshiba hots their target, everyone on the HD side will be happy and everyone on the BD will not as it will mean that the war is not over and a stalmate at best.

What is their strategy here?

Perhaps they don't know.

Maybe they're taking their cue from Sony,"We're going to sell a gajillion PS3s by Xmas...well, maybe not that many, but just you wait and see!". :D
Seriously, if they sell anywhere near 1 million players by the end of the year, I'll be impressed.
J

They probably took their most optimistic numbers and released those to create some hype, and now they've reached the inevitable point of re-stating the estimates. Frankly, I think one million seems high, but they won't have to worry about correcting that until after the holidays.

I think both sides in this format war have over estimated sales. I actually laugh when I see the Disney Home Media Magazine ad with the projected 8 million blu-ray player sales for this year. Riiiiiiiight.

Well...Tosh reports a 44% drop and Sony a 5% to 6% increase.... Looks like the more costly the player, the better!

One million seems high? That is an overstatement if I ever heard one!

6.5 months into 2007 and they have sold approx. 100,000 players since 1/1/07. So in the remaining 5.5 months they will sell 900,000?

Sure, if they price them at $99 or buy one at $199 and get one free.

And i am an avid HD DVD supporter . . .

And also a realist to boot!

Well...Tosh reports a 44% drop and Sony a 5% to 6% increase.... Looks like the more costly the player, the better!
Huh? They aren't reporting a drop, they are dropping expectations for the future, hardly the same.
J

As I mentioned in the other thread, I always thought their previous estimates were way too high. However, 1 million seems like a realistic target.

One million seems high? That is an overstatement if I ever heard one!

6.5 months into 2007 and they have sold approx. 100,000 players since 1/1/07. So in the remaining 5.5 months they will sell 900,000?

Sure, if they price them at $99 or buy one at $199 and get one free.

And i am an avid HD DVD supporter . . .

And also a realist to boot!


I've got to agree with you there. I thought 1.8 million was a pipe dream. 1 million sounds like the sky to me in June. Although, who knows what they plan for the holidays. We're at the end of the 2nd quarter and they're running the $100 promotion and selling a healthy lot.

Well...Tosh reports a 44% drop and Sony a 5% to 6% increase.... Looks like the more costly the player, the better!

Um, no. This is the most intellectually dishonest statement I've read on this site yet (and I've seen some doozies). Toshiba is PROJECTING a 1,667% increase over 2006. Which is just a LITTLE bit better than the 5 to 6% increase that Sony's projecting.

Or how about we use actual numbers instead of percentages? How does 1,000,000 compare to 106,000? Yeah, yeah, I know, you think 1 is more than 10.

And while we're playing with figures, how about we spin it back your way? The article you reference states that 100,000 BR players were shipped last year. BR launched in late June, so that's a ship rate of 16667 players/month. They further predict that the total shipped in 2007 will be 5 to 6% higher than 2006. So let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say 106,000. That gives us a ship rate of 8833 players/month. That's a drop of 47%!!!! :eek:

One million seems high? That is an overstatement if I ever heard one!

6.5 months into 2007 and they have sold approx. 100,000 players since 1/1/07. So in the remaining 5.5 months they will sell 900,000?

Sure, if they price them at $99 or buy one at $199 and get one free.

And i am an avid HD DVD supporter . . .

And also a realist to boot!

That one million number seems quite high to me too. Do you have a source or link to the 100,000 units sold in 2007? Wow, that's much lower than I was thinking.

If we step back and look at the big picture, any way people try to spin this, this is negative news for HD-DVD. When you are the "David" to Blu-ray's "Goliath" and have to lower your expectations by 44%, you are in serious trouble.

If Toshiba is lowering expectations by 44% on an already heavily subsidized hardware platform, what can they do to survive this format war? I do not think it is plausible for them to keep doing these "Buy an HD-DVD Player and get 7 Free HD-DVD Movies" promotions much longer. I mean it is obviously not helping them reach their own targets.

I would be surprised to see them reach 1 Million sold by the end of 2007. I think they may hit 700k max if they are lucky.

~Josh

Don't forget that when CE companies report sales of hardware it is nearly always sales-to-dealers with only a fraction of them selling through to consumers. I think a million sales to dealers is optimistic but it may be achievable.

Um, no. This is the most intellectually dishonest statement I've read on this site yet (and I've seen some doozies). Toshiba is PROJECTING a 1,667% increase over 2006. Which is just a LITTLE bit better than the 5 to 6% increase that Sony's projecting.

Or how about we use actual numbers instead of percentages? How does 1,000,000 compare to 106,000? Yeah, yeah, I know, you think 1 is more than 10.
Actually Sony is projecting 600,000 player only sales in 2007. Add in the PS3 and it's about 2.6 million to 1 million (and not one Blu-Ray player costs less than double the cheapest HD-DVD player.

If we step back and look at the big picture, any way people try to spin this, this is negative news for HD-DVD. When you are the "David" to Blu-ray's "Goliath" and have to lower your expectations by 44%, you are in serious trouble.

If Toshiba is lowering expectations by 44% on an already heavily subsidized hardware platform, what can they do to survive this format war? I do not think it is plausible for them to keep doing these "Buy an HD-DVD Player and get 7 Free HD-DVD Movies" promotions much longer. I mean it is obviously not helping them reach their own targets.

I would be surprised to see them reach 1 Million sold by the end of 2007. I think they may hit 700k max if they are lucky.

~Josh

So, you spin the spin?

At this point in time, BOTH formats are in a heap of trouble, with HDDVD as the spoiler. I dont even think both are going to be around in 5 years.

Well, a few things:

1. Three million seemed laughably high when I heard it originally (and I'm an HD-DVD supporter).

2. One million might be attainable. We'll have to see.

3. This isn't too surprising. The entire HD movement seems stalled at the moment. Blu-Ray is currently doing slightly better than HD-DVD, but they're both sucking pretty hard overall.

4. I think that this slowdown will result in dual-format players coming to the fore. People aren't buying in as long as there are two formats, and neither format is doing so well or so badly that the other is going away any time soon.

Thats my 2 cents, anyway.

Could you give an estimated breakout of player sales by month to reach the 1M?
No.

However, I will say that I expect player sales to spike (for both formats) in Q4.

If we step back and look at the big picture, any way people try to spin this, this is negative news for HD-DVD. When you are the "David" to Blu-ray's "Goliath" and have to lower your expectations by 44%, you are in serious trouble.

If Toshiba is lowering expectations by 44% on an already heavily subsidized hardware platform, what can they do to survive this format war? I do not think it is plausible for them to keep doing these "Buy an HD-DVD Player and get 7 Free HD-DVD Movies" promotions much longer. I mean it is obviously not helping them reach their own targets.

I would be surprised to see them reach 1 Million sold by the end of 2007. I think they may hit 700k max if they are lucky.

~Josh

Could you provide a link to exactly how much Toshiba is losing on each 2nd generation player please. When Sony lowers its price to $425 will it be subsidizing players too? Thanks.

Grant

I do not think 1 million is attainable unless the price in B&M stores is $199 by September. Most consumers do not care about HD optical media and we see this week after week with the poor sales numbers posted by BD and HD DVD.

For some reason on this forum we have the BD and HD DVD bashers excited about these announcements that go back and forth, but the sad truth is that HD optical media is not taking off with consumers.

I will say that I expect player sales to spike (for both formats) in Q4.
So do I. That's why I don't get concerned with the slow start many are complaining about. I think CE companies will find a way to bundle players in with their HDTVs to make the price of entry very low or maybe even free. And they will increase their promotion.

Actually Sony is projecting 600,000 player only sales in 2007. Add in the PS3 and it's about 2.6 million to 1 million (and not one Blu-Ray player costs less than double the cheapest HD-DVD player.

Sony is also in a major push with its next-generation disc format, Blu-ray Disc. It announced last week that it would slash an extra $100 off the price of its newest Blu-ray player. Standalone Blu-ray players have been off to a slow start. In 2006, only about 100,000 standalone Blu-ray players (not counting PlayStation 3 consoles) were shipped in the United States. Sony, though, is projecting 5 percent to 6 percent growth in those numbers for 2007.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6190298.html

And I'd be surprised if the PS3 hit 2M this year, considering they haven't hit 600k yet. Sales will likely continue to drop until the 4th quarter holiday buying season. But even assuming it does, and they continue to act like 20-22% of a standalone (though I expect that figure to drop now that there are cheaper standalones available), that's 400-440k standalone equivalents in the PS3. If we use your unsupported 600k actual standalone sales, then we have equivalent projections, assuming not a single addon was sold in all of 2007. If BR sales are in line with the numbers that Sony put forth in that article yesterday, then BR projections are half that of HD. If the PS3 doesn't hit 2 million, or its attach rate drops, or [gasp!] both....well you see where I'm going with this.

FWIW, I don't think 1M Toshiba standalone players is realistic for 2007 unless they have big surprises in store for us. Standalone + addon + chinese players sounds quite doable to me.

Could you provide a link to exactly how much Toshiba is losing on each 2nd generation player please. When Sony lowers its price to $425 will it be subsidizing players too? Thanks.

Grant

It is commonly know that Toshiba was losing around $200.00 for each HD-A1 sold at the MSRP of $500.00. That is before any of the free disc promotions were thrown in.

As far as G2 Toshiba HD-DVD players I do not have a link, but we can form a hypothysis. Since the HD-A2 cutout some of the higher-end chips and analog outputs of the HD-A1 I would assume this lowered production cost to the tune of around $100.00 for each HD-A2 vs. the HD-A1. However the MSRP of the HD-A2 has now dropped to $299.99 with the new pricing.

So my guess would be that Toshiba is losing anywhere from $100.00 to $200.00 on each of the G2 players as well since the MSRP has dropped as well and this is before the 5 Free movie promotion. I do not know what types of deals they have set-up with the studios for this promotion, but I highly doubt they get those movies for free from the studios, so you have to add that in to the cost as well.

Just my .02.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/23/toshiba-taking-200-loss-on-each-hd-a1-sez-isuppli/

~Josh

It is commonly know that Toshiba was losing around $200.00 for each HD-A1 sold at the MSRP of $500.00. That is before any of the free disc promotions were thrown in.

As far as G2 Toshiba HD-DVD players I do not have a link, but we can form a hypothysis. Since the HD-A2 cutout some of the higher-end chips and analog outputs of the HD-A1 I would assume this lowered production cost to the tune of around $100.00 for each HD-A2 vs. the HD-A1. However the MSRP of the HD-A2 has now dropped to $299.99 with the new pricing.

So my guess would be that Toshiba is losing anywhere from $100.00 to $200.00 on each of the G2 players as well since the MSRP has dropped as well and this is before the 5 Free movie promotion. I do not know what types of deals they have set-up with the studios for this promotion, but I highly doubt they get those movies for free from the studios, so you have to add that in to the cost as well.

Just my .02.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/23/toshiba-taking-200-loss-on-each-hd-a1-sez-isuppli/

~Josh


Oh Dear God, keep the spin coming beatboy77. No it was not "commonly known", Isuppli estimated one time what they might cost. You and 99.999999999999999% of anybody who reads this forum don't know at all what the cost is to Toshiba. So why are you commenting on something that you have no knowledge of?? and the famous question. Isn't sony subsidizing their biggest selling player????

I dont even think both are going to be around in 5 years.
Sony formats never die. They just find their niche. Look at SACD, UMD, Betamax, DAT, MD. In 5 years, I know for a fact Blu Ray will still be around. It might only be as a PS3 game media format, but it will be around.

No.

However, I will say that I expect player sales to spike (for both formats) in Q4.
Agreed. I remember when HDTVs took off just before Christmas a few years ago. I'm not sure it will be a big enough surge to make either or both mainstream, but I do expect a surge.

Isn't sony subsidizing their biggest selling player????
But it's a game console and home media center. Game consoles have been subsidized for years. For standalone media players, this is a first.

Sony is also in a major push with its next-generation disc format, Blu-ray Disc. It announced last week that it would slash an extra $100 off the price of its newest Blu-ray player. Standalone Blu-ray players have been off to a slow start. In 2006, only about 100,000 standalone Blu-ray players (not counting PlayStation 3 consoles) were shipped in the United States. Sony, though, is projecting 5 percent to 6 percent growth in those numbers for 2007.
This of course is an error. Sony is expecting 500 to 600 percent growth in its standalones for 2007. See This article. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aXdV46K714xI)

That would be 400 to 500% growth, but point taken. Definitely a realistic goal, especially since they specify shipped and not sold.

Could you give an estimated breakout of player sales by month to reach the 1M?

They'll probably sell 50-75% of their quota in Dec. Take whatever number sold from Jan until the end of Nov and then double or triple it.

They'll probably sell 50-75% of their quota in Dec. Take whatever number sold from Jan until the end of Nov and then double or triple it.

We don't know how many HD-DVD players Crutchfield sold with their price mistake of $199 but I suspect it was at least 1,000.

1,000 players sold at a single online retailer in under 12 hours.

1M players sold nationally at a $199 price point doesn't seem so impossible. Especially if Toshiba brings out the big guns by paying for promotion space in brick and mortar stores and has $199 HD-DVD players hooked up to 60" 1080p TVs with awesome demo loops running of movies like Matrix, HPGOF, 300, etc.

People are going to look at the $199 Toshiba player and the movies available and look over at the $399 BD player and decide BD is overpriced for delivering essentially the same performance.

Sony formats never die. They just find their niche. Look at SACD, UMD, Betamax, DAT, MD. In 5 years, I know for a fact Blu Ray will still be around. It might only be as a PS3 game media format, but it will be around.

They do die... slowly because of Sony's ability to use its strong muscles to keep choking anyone with anything... but they do die. First they go to a state of "absolute harmlessness" and then they die.

Beta is more than dead.
The Minidisc and the UMD are "absolutely harmless" they may die someday and nobody will notice it.
The DAT was adoped by the professional Industry but failed to be adopted as a home format (meaning it is harmless too).
The SACD is harmless too because a) nobody hears the difference, b) nobody has a stereo that makes you hear the difference, c) people won't pay the difference d) since the Ipod, nobody cares.

:)

Anyone who think that BD is going to die is fooling themselves. If nothing else, BD will survive as a niche product like LD, based on nothing other than the strong PS3 user base.

Not to get technical, but we are 5.5 months into 2007... not 6.5

Chris

To follow up on that further:

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/news/show/High-Def_Retailing/Toshiba/Toshiba_Lowers_2007_HD_DVD_Player_Sales_Projections/693

It's by MARCH 08 so that's almost a year from now.

Well ...Sigma Designs increased their own projection from 2 to 2.5 million standalone units for this year and Toshiba decreased their projection from 1.8 to 1 million units ...this is in the midst of a fire sale promotion. Are we seeing a trend yet? I know its hard news for HD DVD supporters but the writing is on the wall.

Well...Tosh reports a 44% drop and Sony a 5% to 6% increase.... Looks like the more costly the player, the better!


I would say given track history one side is telling the trueth (or close to it) and one sides is not ;)

Sony formats never die. They just find their niche. Look at SACD, UMD, Betamax, DAT, MD. In 5 years, I know for a fact Blu Ray will still be around. It might only be as a PS3 game media format, but it will be around.

I know a bunch of people that still use the Commodore 64. Ok, not dead, but always on life support.

I would say given track history one side is telling the trueth (or close to it) and one sides is not ;)

Yeah ...was Toshiba telling the truth when they projected 1.8 million units this year? Since they changed it, they are blameless?

Beta is more than dead.


I agree with most of the stuff you said, but you should qualify your Beta remark. It is still used widely in professional circles. As a home format it was a gigantic flop though.

Yeah ...was Toshiba telling the truth when they projected 1.8 million units this year? Since they changed it, they are blameless?

At least it was a "projection" they made, and had the guts to come forth and admit they didnt reach what they expected.

Yeah ...was Toshiba telling the truth when they projected 1.8 million units this year? Since they changed it, they are blameless?

I would say we don't want to get too harsh on predictions gone wrong. If we want to do that, why don't we bring up the ol' Fox software sales prediction from CES.

At least it was a "projection" they made, and had the guts to come forth and admit they didnt reach what they expected.

Sony changed their projections too ...can you spread the love to Sony too then? You have two standards ...one for Sony and another for the rest of the business world. At least have the courage and admit it.

I think it's amusing when Toshiba says that they are selling 60% of HD players...not including the PS3. That's like Toyata saying they're outselling Honda...not including the Accord...lol...

I think it's amusing when Toshiba says that they are selling 60% of HD players...not including the PS3. That's like Toyata saying they're outselling Honda...not including the Accord...lol...

Not quite. If the Accord was useful without using the car part of it, it may be a valid statistic.

there does seem to be a bit of a double standard. Sony down graded their predictions on the PS3 a couple of times, as well as delaying the launch, and if IIRC, they still didnt meet their NA projections.

And yet, there were very few negative words from the BD camp about this - it was simply spun in as good a light as possible.

I think it's amusing when Toshiba says that they are selling 60% of HD players...not including the PS3. That's like Toyata saying they're outselling Honda...not including the Accord...lol...

No, it's like putting a video game in the trunk of the Accord and wanting to count every Accord sold as also increasing the penetration of that Video Game.

Or putting a free copy of a movie in every box of Cheerios and then claiming that 50M people had watched your movie.

Toshiba doesn't count the free discs they give away as sales. Neither does Blu-ray, for that matter.

Does it count as part of the attach rate?

Are we sure that the attach rate is units sold / players sold ?

Has Toshiba officially stated that the attach rate figure they refer to is units sold / players sold?

There's six months for them to make 1 million. Their well under a quarter million at the half-way point. Won't happen. I'll say 1/2 of that which would still be respectable.

There's six months for them to make 1 million. Their well under a quarter million at the half-way point. Won't happen. I'll say 1/2 of that which would still be respectable.

I agree that them going from 150,000 to 5 or 6 hundred thousand in a little more than six months would be respectable. But only moving 1/2 of their own greatly reduced forecast would take away most impressions that they were doing well.

You guys are being far too hard on Toshiba with this. I don't know what the production numbers are for HD-DVD players but I suspect that a good sized factory can crank out 5K units a day or more.

It's not about whether or not they can sell the players it's really about whether or not they can produce that many in the amount of time left this year.

If they really cut prices, to say, $199 or $149 for a 3rd gen player based on the MS/Broadcom design, they could move a helluva lot of hardware this Xmas.

Sony changed their projections too ...can you spread the love to Sony too then? You have two standards ...one for Sony and another for the rest of the business world. At least have the courage and admit it.


I cant spread the love to Sony as much as the rest of the business world and yes I have two standards I admit it. Anyone how lies on a regular basis to me doesnt get as much trust/respect and needs to go above and beyond to redeem themselfs.

I agree that them going from 150,000 to 5 or 6 hundred thousand in a little more than six months would be respectable. But only moving 1/2 of their own greatly reduced forecast would take away most impressions that they were doing well.

Yes it certainly would impact on the content providers, stockholders etc. I always thought, since the January 2007 CES, that the HD DVD forum's projections were highly optimistic if not completely unrealistic. That's the thing about such projections, on the one hand you want to encourage other investors in the technology (other manufacturers and content providers - studios) but you risk a backlash if the projections are shown to be entirely unrealistic and have to be further projected downward.

All projections for these formats have been overblown so far. Doesn't everyone remember Warner Brothers scaling back its media projections last year? "...Warner is now predicting that $750 million will be spent on HD hardware in the fourth quarter [of 2006], down from the initial projections of $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion. Warner is now predicting that $150 million will be spent on software, down from the $225 million to $500 million originally estimated."

These low numbers were mainly attributed to the sluggish sales and late launch of the PS3, which, incidentally, has suffered major projection-problems of its own.

The reality is that both formats are struggling to gain a foothold in the entertainment media market. When a major DVD release like Cars can sell 5 million units in 2 days and it's taken Blu-Ray and HD-DVD nearly a year to eclipse one million units EACH, that puts the whole thing in perspective!

That said, either format reaching one million stand-alone players in NA will be a HUGE accomplishment, and HD-DVD is poised to breach this figure by year's end. If it does happen, studios WILL take notice. It shows steady growth, consumer confidence in the format, and a growing consciousness regarding HD.

*urp*

I'm getting nauseous from all of the spinning going on.

"Let's spin the analysis of the press release changing predicted projections."

Egads.

*urp*
I'm getting nauseous from all of the spinning going on.
"Let's spin the analysis of the press release changing predicted projections."
Egads.
Ya got that right.
But then again, it's the Hi-Def forum's stock-in-trade.
I wonder how CNN & the WSJ are getting along without all of the expert analysis available rayht hyere on AaaVeeSss.

Toshiba doesn't count the free discs they give away as sales. Neither does Blu-ray, for that matter.

Right, which is why Sony stopped the give aways and is concentrating on coupons, buy-one-get-one-free, and 50% off sales, where the BDs cross a point of sale.

If we step back and look at the big picture, any way people try to spin this, this is negative news for HD-DVD. When you are the "David" to Blu-ray's "Goliath" and have to lower your expectations by 44%, you are in serious trouble.

If Toshiba is lowering expectations by 44% on an already heavily subsidized hardware platform, what can they do to survive this format war? I do not think it is plausible for them to keep doing these "Buy an HD-DVD Player and get 7 Free HD-DVD Movies" promotions much longer. I mean it is obviously not helping them reach their own targets.

I would be surprised to see them reach 1 Million sold by the end of 2007. I think they may hit 700k max if they are lucky.

~Josh

Ah, that beatboy - never misses a step!

Or putting a free copy of a movie in every box of Cheerios and then claiming that 50M people had watched your movie.
I've never read anything suggesting it like that. Everything I have read mentioned consumer penetration with the some data to back it up. People with a PS3 have the option to watch a Blu Ray, and the surveys conducted suggested a majority had bought a Blu Ray to watch on their PS3. That data seems pretty clear and easy to gather.

I've never read anything suggesting it like that. Everything I have read mentioned consumer penetration with the some data to back it up. People with a PS3 have the option to watch a Blu Ray, and the surveys conducted suggested a majority had bought a Blu Ray to watch on their PS3. That data seems pretty clear and easy to gather.

A majority of PS3 owners have bought a Blu-Ray movie? Please cite the source for that info as the sales numbers for BD certainly don't back up that claim.

A majority of PS3 owners have bought a Blu-Ray movie? Please cite the source for that info as the sales numbers for BD certainly don't back up that claim.

I seem to remember some statement that the majority of PS3 owners had 'watched' a blu-ray movie on their PS3, but I don't think anyone has stated officially and correctly that the majority of PS3 owners have purchased a blu-ray movie.

Maybe that is what he was thinking of?

I seem to remember some statement that the majority of PS3 owners had 'watched' a blu-ray movie on their PS3, but I don't think anyone has stated officially and correctly that the majority of PS3 owners have purchased a blu-ray movie.

Maybe that is what he was thinking of?

I don't know what he was thinking but the information he provided is definitely not accurate.

The fact that every other comment from HD-DVD supporters is stalemate, dual format etc. surely tells you something, HD-DVD's hanging on for dear life!

Ya, 250K HD-DVD players have 40% of the software sales to the 60% marketshare that the 1.5M BD players have.

They are shaking in their boots in HD-DVD land. :rolleyes:

I don't understand the marketing technique here. Yesterday, they praise their sales. Today, they say they aren't good enough. What is their strategy here?
I think this is for different audiences. Touting better than BD sales is for format war; cutting forecast based on actual sales is material information and they have an obligation to inform shareholders.

Just thought I'd point out the 1M number doesn't refer to only standalone players, it refers to all players and recorders. That'll be including laptops with HD DVD drives as well.

A majority of PS3 owners have bought a Blu-Ray movie? Please cite the source for that info as the sales numbers for BD certainly don't back up that claim.
Let me see if I can post the study. It's on my PC at home. I'll also double check the exact number.

I seem to remember some statement that the majority of PS3 owners had 'watched' a blu-ray movie on their PS3, but I don't think anyone has stated officially and correctly that the majority of PS3 owners have purchased a blu-ray movie.

Maybe that is what he was thinking of?
I don't remember the exact language. I'll look when I get home in the morning. It was an interesting statistic, though.

Well ...Sigma Designs increased their own projection from 2 to 2.5 million standalone units for this year and Toshiba decreased their projection from 1.8 to 1 million units ...this is in the midst of a fire sale promotion. Are we seeing a trend yet? I know its hard news for HD DVD supporters but the writing is on the wall.

Realists don't see trends in projections. They draw trend lines off results.

Where the BDA is concerned, the only trend I see IS the projections. Charts and declarations of victory don't matter to me. All I know is the format I picked keeps putting out movies I want to see, and the players keep topping the charts at Amazon, in spite of how many times I've heard it's dead.

Am I happy to hear Toshiba's revised projections? No. Do I call it good news for HD DVD? No. But it's not uncommon for any company to revise projections downwards based on market conditions and performance-to-date. I have more faith in a company that puts out a disappointing yet realistic report than I do in a bunch of cheerleading thugs who proclaim that the war doesn't start until they say it does and then proclaim it over when it clearly isn't. It'll be interesting to see how Sigma revises THEIR projects over the next six months.

Well these numbers are far behind Toshiba's own previous optimistic projections of 500,000-600,000 shipped CE units by this past March. If Toshiba has only managed to push ~100K units this year with the extremely aggressive pricing then things are not good. If Toshiba actually shipped 500,000-600,000 total stand alone CE units by this past March I'm sure we would have heard about it via a glowing press release. This latest news shows that HD-DVD adoption is way behind the optimistic curve and with only a very small lead in stand alone player sales any hope of a quick marketplace victory is long gone. If the software sales gap between blu-ray and hd-dvd continues to grow pressure on Toshiba to cut prices even further grows. Of course such ultra aggressive pricing only pushes other CE companies intrested in a viable business (profit after R/D expenses please!) away.

I wonder what this stuff means for Europe and PAL regions where I read earlier that Sony says they have reached 1 million PS3s in those regions (the article says sold to consumers, but I always wonder about the sold to stores vs sold to consumers thing). If they had the 22% rate that the Paramount consultant used (I think for the US though) then it would take 220k HD DVD players to counter those, plus more to counter however many standalones the Blu-ray side can sell and the PS3s they sell from here on out.

--Darin

Assuming for a second that HD DVD ends 2007 with 1 million total players in the US or NA counting XBOX360 add-ons (a more realistic projection IMO) and doesn't add the region encoding that Disney requested, does anybody think that will be enough players to get Disney to go neutral by CES 2008? Would a million standalones plus another 500k add-ons be likely to get Disney to change their mind? I personally doubt it unless Blu-ray has real troubles selling players, especially if HD DVD doesn't look strong in comparison in the rest of the world.

And just to be clear, are we sure that this isn't just standalones from Toshiba and then there will be players from Chinese companies on top of this?

--Darin

I would say given track history one side is telling the trueth (or close to it) and one sides is not

fully agree, the HD DVDF side is full of sh!t in their PR.

Assuming for a second that HD DVD ends 2007 with 1 million total players in the US or NA counting XBOX360 add-ons (a more realistic projection IMO) and doesn't add the region encoding that Disney requested, does anybody think that will be enough players to get Disney to go neutral by CES 2008? Would a million standalones plus another 500k add-ons be likely to get Disney to change their mind? I personally doubt it unless Blu-ray has real troubles selling players, especially if HD DVD doesn't look strong in comparison in the rest of the world.

And just to be clear, are we sure that this isn't just standalones from Toshiba and then there will be players from Chinese companies on top of this?

--Darin
I don't know how stubborn Disney will be about the encoding but if the Wal-mart chinese thing happens by 4th qtr for HD DVD. There will be some debating going on at Disney over going neutral. I don't think they'll ignore it. I would be interested in how many Disney movies WM sells in a year.

I cant spread the love to Sony as much as the rest of the business world and yes I have two standards I admit it. Anyone how lies on a regular basis to me doesnt get as much trust/respect and needs to go above and beyond to redeem themselfs.

So Sony said 6M PS3s will ship by the end of their fiscaql year and ended up shipping 5.5M is a bigger liar then Toshiba that said 600k will be sold and then only 100k did :rolleyes:

I don't know how stubborn Disney will be about the encoding but if the Wal-mart chinese thing happens by 4th qtr for HD DVD. There will be some debating going on at Disney over going neutral. I don't think they'll ignore it. I would be interested in how many Disney movies WM sells in a year.

what are you serious? toshiba is trying to give away players at $199, and you're still waiting for chinese players to save the day? lol

I looked through my email, and I can't find the survey that said 60% of PS3 owners (in this particular survey) had purchased a Blu Ray movie. I took the survey, and was mailed the results, but it doesn't look like I kept the file. The only one I could find was here.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/8613.cfm

It's from Sony, so it should be taken with many grains of salt. Also, it uses the words "watched' and "plans to buy."

The company claims that 90% of respondents had watched a Blu-ray movie with their PS3 already, and 80% planned to buy more Blu-ray releases.

I don't know how stubborn Disney will be about the encoding but if the Wal-mart chinese thing happens by 4th qtr for HD DVD. There will be some debating going on at Disney over going neutral. I don't think they'll ignore it. I would be interested in how many Disney movies WM sells in a year.

Wal-Mart sells 40% of all DVD's bought. So when Disney said that they sold 5 million copies of Cars in 2 days. . . . Wal-Mart sold 2 million of them.

The article as I read it said Toshiba players. Not 360 AO's which is a MS product. Nor did it reference HD DVD drives in laptops that Toshiba just announced. It was a re-direct of their CES announcement back in January.

It just shows how wrong a company can be about market conditions and the demand for their product.

Sony is in the same boat with their PS3. And they too will probably have exaggerated their forcast as well because i seriously doubt the BDA CEM's have sold 100,000 players SID. Not at the prices they are charging.

You can't get a handle on sales because we the public are intentionally being withheld raw, hard numbers.

The CEA tracked DVD player sales starting from day one. It was published weekly/monthly. You could see the progress happening on a regular basis.

Not so with HDD players other than the PS3 because it is primarily a game console and numbers abound for that market.

First the President of Toshiba tells us they have sold 200,000 players in the USA compared to BDA's 30,000. Then 2 months later - big party - Toshiba has sold 100,000 players!

Too much dis-information floating around . . . .

Which leads me to believe that HDD is not doing well at all - for either format.

All this does is show that these formats aren't that a big a deal in the grand scheme of things and arguing over them like this is some major "war" is retarded.

So we don't have many hd-dvd players sold and projections lowered. Bluray stand alones are even worse and while there may be 96529356298569256985 PS3s in homes the disc sales prove that the % using it for bluray movie buying is DAMN LOW (so 10 times as many bluray capable players yet the sales are not that far off? Funny) so spouting off about alllllll the PS3s in homes is useless aside from some marketing crap.

I just hope studios stick with these and keep releasing movies on both so I can keep enjoying movies in HD glory.

I see the lowered for cast as simply Blu Ray bothering their numbers. Toshiba did not foresee Blu Ray's impact on their inexpensive players...despite the fire sale. iot's hard to spin a 44$ drop in projected sales but I am sure the diehard supporters will find the silver lining!!!

And just to be clear, are we sure that this isn't just standalones from Toshiba and then there will be players from Chinese companies on top of this?

This may seem a bit outlandish -- but the easiest way to determine exactly what Toshiba is talking about is to go back and examine the wording of both the original 1.8M projection and also the revised 1M projection.

Post after post in this thread is misinterpreting Toshiba's announcement, and given all the speculations and pronouncements built on top of those misinterpretations, this thread has a distinctly farcical quality to it.

Just a suggestion :)!

I see the lowered for cast as simply Blu Ray bothering their numbers. Toshiba did not foresee Blu Ray's impact on their inexpensive players...despite the fire sale. iot's hard to spin a 44$ drop in projected sales but I am sure the diehard supporters will find the silver lining!!!

The PS3 is the only thing driving BD adoption and it's a monumental failure, so how do you spin that?

Video game systems that are doing "well" and on the "upswing" sell 100K or more units a month, not 72K which is a huge drop from last month.

The PS3 is the only thing driving BD adoption and it's a monumental failure, so how do you spin that?

Video game systems that are doing "well" and on the "upswing" sell 100K or more units a month, not 72K which is a huge drop from last month.

If your statement proves correct 4 months from now, when there will actually be a decent selection of games out there, then I'd agree with you. However, as it stands, I feel that the ps3 will be very successful over it's life.

If your statement proves correct 4 months from now, when there will actually be a decent selection of games out there, then I'd agree with you. However, as it stands, I feel that the ps3 will be very successful over it's life.

Currently the PS3 is in danger of finishing the current console wars in 3rd place behind the Xbox 360 and the Wii.

3rd place is for losers.. not the kind of product that makes new media formats popular with the masses.

Whether it "makes money" in the long run (and that would have to be a VERY long run at the rate they are going) is irrelevant to whether or not it is successful enough to establish a new format.

The PS3 is the only thing driving BD adoption and it's a monumental failure, so how do you spin that?

I bet you pray every night before you go to bed that PS3 never gets successful.

I bet you pray every night before you go to bed that PS3 never gets successful.

I don't have to pray. Sony seriously hurt the PS3s chances by repeated delays and a massive price... both of which can be attributed directly to the inclusion of BD for the PS3.

Let me drop another little factoid out there to really cook your noodle.

1.6M PS3 owners + 100K BD standalone owners + the various other BD device owners (laptops, etc) could barely purchase 47K units of the Pirates movies the first week they were out. That's 2.7% adoption for the hottest movie franchise on the planet.

Meanwhile the "paltry" 300K HD-DVD owners managed to snatch up 13,000 copies of a 10 year old "dated" sci-fi movie that was only sold as an expensive box set. BTW, that's over 3% of HD-DVD owners.

Currently the PS3 is in danger of finishing the current console wars in 3rd place behind the Xbox 360 and the Wii.

3rd place is for losers.. not the kind of product that makes new media formats popular with the masses.

Whether it "makes money" in the long run (and that would have to be a VERY long run at the rate they are going) is irrelevant to whether or not it is successful enough to establish a new format.

By your reasoning Hd-dvd is already the loser because it's currently being outsold by 2:1 - 2.5:1 in disk sales.

Borrowed this from Dralt's signature.
http://archive.salon.com/tech/log/2000/10/27/playstation_rant/

People have been predicting the playstation's fall since the original & ps2 days. The thing is that the future is incredibly hard to predict. Back around the end of 2006, hd-dvd supporters were gloating and predicting how they would "smash" BR. Now in the first half of 2007, the tables have turned, and "the war will last longer than you think". Now BR supporters are gloating. Who knows, perhaps HD player sales will push HD to be the winning format, with the HD supporter cheering their fortune. The future is hard to predict.

I think people by nature are rather short sighted. Things change, and predicting an long term outcome solely by current events can lead you to a very wrong conclusion (or maybe a very right conclusion). See article above for example.

Anyways, your bias is evident, and there really is no point to reasoning with someone who will not even consider reasonable arguments.

What reasonable argument have you made?? Your "prediction" that the PS3 will be successful is no more likely to come true than my prediction that PS3 will fail to result in adoption of BD as the next gen optical disc standard. I could care less if the PS3 ever makes money or "succeeds" as a gaming platform, I'm concerned with whether or not it can single handedly decide the format war, and things aren't looking rosy in that department.

Yes, HD-DVD media sales are lagging that of BD, but consider these facts.

Sony and their BDA partners shipped 100K BD players as of recently and expect a 5-7% growth in standalone sales in 2007

On the other hand Toshiba has single handedly sold well over 100K HD-DVD players already and has recently reported that sales have gone up with their promotion as much as ten-fold. Additionally Toshiba recently revised their predictions and said they would only ship 1M players this year. Compare that to the 105-107K BD standalones that are expected to ship in 2007 PER SONY and you will see that Sony is still betting the farm on the Playstation 3.

And how's the playstation 3 doing? Terribly. Sales in April were down by over 8K from the month before which is very bad for such a new console. Xbox sold 50% more units and Wii sold more than 2X what Sony did in the same time period. If PS3 sales continue to constrict then what is Sony going to do? We already know that attach rates for the PS3 for BD media are fairly low. What's Sony got up its sleeve to deal with 1M+ new HD-DVD players this year plus all Toshiba laptops next year?

What reasonable argument have you made?? Your "prediction" that the PS3 will be successful is no more likely to come true than my prediction that PS3 will fail to result in adoption of BD as the next gen optical disc standard. I could care less if the PS3 ever makes money or "succeeds" as a gaming platform, I'm concerned with whether or not it can single handedly decide the format war, and things aren't looking rosy in that department.

Yes, HD-DVD media sales are lagging that of BD, but consider these facts.

Sony and their BDA partners shipped 100K BD players as of recently and expect a 5-7% growth in standalone sales in 2007

On the other hand Toshiba has single handedly sold well over 100K HD-DVD players already and has recently reported that sales have gone up with their promotion as much as ten-fold. Additionally Toshiba recently revised their predictions and said they would only ship 1M players this year. Compare that to the 105-107K BD standalones that are expected to ship in 2007 PER SONY and you will see that Sony is still betting the farm on the Playstation 3.

And how's the playstation 3 doing? Terribly. Sales in April were down by over 8K from the month before which is very bad for such a new console. Xbox sold 50% more units and Wii sold more than 2X what Sony did in the same time period. If PS3 sales continue to constrict then what is Sony going to do? We already know that attach rates for the PS3 for BD media are fairly low. What's Sony got up its sleeve to deal with 1M+ new HD-DVD players this year plus all Toshiba laptops next year?Yeah yeah, $199 add-on and $299 players are "single handedly" sold by Toshiba. Is it good?

Here are two points to consider
First here is a link re console sales for Last month
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14303
Howard and Ken must just love those numbers ;-(


Second Toshiba is revising the estimates for ITS player sales, not total HD DVD player sales, in anticipation of adding other brand players into the HD DVD space.

I wonder what this stuff means for Europe
--Darin
It's bad news. Speaking as a European, I want HD-DVD to win - or at least fight to a stalemate - simply because it's not region-coded.

I remember when DVD was just taking off in Europe, the initial players were all region locked and the software houses were trying their usual trick of charging more $$$ for software in Europe than they were in other regions. Then region-free players became widely available (I bought my first one in a supermarket) and people began importing discs from Australia and the USA. Funnily enough, software prices began to drop after that.

Going back to a region locked format would be a disaster for Europe, I think it would put adoption back a year or two.

If we use your unsupported 600k actual standalone sales...
A two second search on Google will reveal the following:

Sony May Increase U.S. Shipments of Blu-Ray by Sixfold in 2007[

By Ian King and Hiroshi Suzuki

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., the world's second- largest consumer electronics maker, said shipments of Blu-ray DVD players in the U.S. may jump sixfold this year as it expects movies exclusively available to the device will lure buyers.

Sony may ship as many as 600,000 Blu-ray players in the U.S. this year, from less than 100,000 units in 2006, said Randy Waynick, senior vice president of the U.S. home products division, at a meeting in San Francisco yesterday.

Sony, based in Tokyo, forecast last month that net income in the year ending March 31 will more than double, helped by its movie unit, increased sales of Bravia televisions and narrower losses at the PlayStation game unit. Sony's Blu-ray fights with Toshiba Corp.'s HD DVD in high-definition television.

``You'll see growth in multiples of five or six times'' for Blu-ray player shipments in the U.S. in 2007 from a year earlier, Waynick told reporters at a meeting. ``A lot of that will depend how competitive'' it becomes, he said.

The company manufactures its Blu-ray players at a factory in Kisarazu, Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo.

``The movies are very compelling,'' Waynick said, without disclosing any titles. Out of the top 20 blockbusters, ``there were 14 or 15 that were exclusive Blu-ray.''

SOURCE (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aXdV46K714xI&refer=us)

Can Toshiba cut the player price further?

A two second search on Google will reveal the following:

Sony May Increase U.S. Shipments of Blu-Ray by Sixfold in 2007

By Ian King and Hiroshi Suzuki

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., the world's second- largest consumer electronics maker, said shipments of Blu-ray DVD players in the U.S. may jump sixfold this year as it expects movies exclusively available to the device will lure buyers.

Sony may ship as many as 600,000 Blu-ray players in the U.S. this year, from less than 100,000 units in 2006, said Randy Waynick, senior vice president of the U.S. home products division, at a meeting in San Francisco yesterday.

Sony, based in Tokyo, forecast last month that net income in the year ending March 31 will more than double, helped by its movie unit, increased sales of Bravia televisions and narrower losses at the PlayStation game unit. Sony's Blu-ray fights with Toshiba Corp.'s HD DVD in high-definition television.

``You'll see growth in multiples of five or six times'' for Blu-ray player shipments in the U.S. in 2007 from a year earlier, Waynick told reporters at a meeting. ``A lot of that will depend how competitive'' it becomes, he said.

The company manufactures its Blu-ray players at a factory in Kisarazu, Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo.

``The movies are very compelling,'' Waynick said, without disclosing any titles. Out of the top 20 blockbusters, ``there were 14 or 15 that were exclusive Blu-ray.''

SOURCE (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aXdV46K714xI&refer=us)

(emphasis added)

Wow... talk about a self-serving release of nothing. Lots of "may"s in there. It has as much truthfulness as saying "We may ship up to 3 billion players this year." Then again they may not.

If the format war is really over as Sony has repeatedly pronounced, why are they having to resort to this noninformation?

If anything, the wording of the above press release seems like Sony is worried...

It's bad news. Speaking as a European, I want HD-DVD to win - or at least fight to a stalemate - simply because it's not region-coded.

I remember when DVD was just taking off in Europe, the initial players were all region locked and the software houses were trying their usual trick of charging more $$$ for software in Europe than they were in other regions. Then region-free players became widely available (I bought my first one in a supermarket) and people began importing discs from Australia and the USA. Funnily enough, software prices began to drop after that.

Going back to a region locked format would be a disaster for Europe, I think it would put adoption back a year or two.

Do you really believe there will NEVER be a region free blu-ray player? What kind of thinking is this? FYI, the samsung BDP-1000 with older firmware is 100% REGION FREE blu-ray player. Trust me, there will be more.

Again, Toshiba is saying that million number is at the end of March 08. That's 10 months to sell 800k units. I'm not saying that can do that, but if they are moving 40-50k in June, they can probably move triple digits in Nov and Dec...

(My assumption is we won't see prices go back up...)

Do you really believe there will NEVER be a region free blu-ray player?
Not a legit one.


FYI, the samsung BDP-1000 with older firmware is 100% REGION FREE blu-ray player.
Yes, but you need newer firmware to play all of the discs, and suposedly for a better picture. Sony and Disney have always backed some sort of region coding, If not, they wouldn't have put them in the BD specs.

Trust me, there will be more.
I doubt it.
J

I like all the misinformation...It keeps the banter lively. ;)

Folks enjoy commenting on these superfluous reports..

Again, Toshiba is saying that million number is at the end of March 08.


The Reuters piece says end of calendar 2007, not fiscal.

Shipped

Not sell - ship. There is a massive difference between the two words and their meanings.

They shipped 100,000 BD standalones in 2006 - and you can still buy a the 1st gen Sony BD player on a number of sites, so many are still on shelves and sitting in warehouses waiting for buyers. Same with the other CEM's BD players.

You can ship 100 million units, but if you only sell 1 million to end users???

A question waa posed, "can Toshiba lower the A2 pricing even further?"

Answer - yes. Probably to $199 and still amke money from their HD DVD effort. Keep in mind that Toshiba gets royalities from HD DVD movies that the studios sell along with ANY player that a CEM chooses to release.

Manufacturing costs are way down. Chip sets are being combined for lower cost.

All I hear about the war is that BD is outselling HD DVD in software. Jeeze Louise - with 20X the hardware installed base they better! But only 3 to 1? That's it? This is a joke right? That in my book isn't a win . . . it's a huge loss showing that BD owners aren't buying movies (they are playing games instead :D ).

Because of the sale Toshiba is having, by the end of it, there will be over 70,000 new HD DVD player owners. You think BD players are flying off the shelves at 2X and 3X the price? This is no chicken/egg thing. You HAVE to have a player to see HDD movies.

As the only number we have ever seen and all seem to accept is that 1 out of evry 5 PS3's is used for BD playback. So if the abismal sales numbers continue for June, BD will have added about 50,000 new BD players (April to June) while HD DVD will have added almost 100,000 (not taking into account sales of the 360 AO). We know the only reason to buy an HD DVD player is to see HD movies. the same cannot be said for the PS3. And we know that HD DVD owners buy movies and rent them. The same cannot be said for BD.

On the other hand Toshiba has single handedly sold well over 100K HD-DVD players already and has recently reported that sales have gone up with their promotion as much as ten-fold. Additionally Toshiba recently revised their predictions and said they would only ship 1M players this year.

THats odd, if their $100 off promotion was so successful and increased sales by as much as TEN FOLD.... why did toshiba have to lower their sales target by 44%?

This has been discussed many times before, but for manufacturers, shipped = sold. Once it leaves their hands, and they receive money for that item, they count it as sold.

They may count it as sold, but until it reaches an end user, it has no impact in the marketplace.

THats odd, if their $100 off promotion was so successful and increased sales by as much as TEN FOLD.... why did toshiba have to lower their sales target by 44%?

Whenver there is a price reduction on a demand item you will see the sales spike and then drop off as the market segment that is attracted at the new price is saturated.

I don't know what Toshiba's strategy is, but based on the market reaction to the $299 price I wouldn't be surprised if that is the new retail price.

what are you serious? toshiba is trying to give away players at $199, and you're still waiting for chinese players to save the day? lol
What the heck are you talking about?

Robert at VE says his already strong sales have exploded, and he has trouble keeping players in stock. Anyone whose order is not already in the pipeline will have to wait until he gets restocked later in the month! :cool:

I like all the misinformation...It keeps the banter lively. ;)

Folks enjoy commenting on these superfluous reports..
I agree...the "good old days" are back (the past six months)! :D

(emphasis added)

Wow... talk about a self-serving release of nothing. Lots of "may"s in there. It has as much truthfulness as saying "We may ship up to 3 billion players this year." Then again they may not.

If the format war is really over as Sony has repeatedly pronounced, why are they having to resort to this noninformation?

If anything, the wording of the above press release seems like Sony is worried...

Hehehe. Exactly my sentiments.

44% decline in projections? This early? I guess that's better than announcing that you're dropping HD-DVD altogether...

Shipped=sold....when it comes to the numbers we need to make our points..

Robert at VE says his already strong sales have exploded,

lol

What the heck are you talking about?

Robert at VE says his already strong sales have exploded, and he has trouble keeping players in stock. Anyone whose order is not already in the pipeline will have to wait until he gets restocked later in the month! :cool:


So now you think Robert is a good indicator of sales for a player he personally pushes on this forum as his defacto standard and biased flavor of the format war? Most people don't even know who he is. AVS does. Perhaps people in his local area.

But certainly not enough to make him the standard by which sales should be judged. He's a niche dealer. Even Amazon by itself isn't a good indicator of sales.

If Toshiba bothers to come out and admit, "Yeeeaaah, those estimates of 1.8 million... whoops, our sales aren't THAT great... maybe 1 mill if we're lucky..."

Considering it's the only player available (versus lots of competition in the BD field including the PS3 which is never counted except when talking about attach rate) on the Red Format and considering they're currently knocking $100 off a player that was only a few months ago going to be $500 to make it $300 with 5-10 free movies (depending on the store) with up to half those movies counting as "$0 sales" (and adding to the attach rate argument), one has to wonder after Toshiba is making noise about how well sales are going why they'd be reducing their estimates so soon.

Sales must be significantly lower than they wanted if they're doing it now and not waiting until closer to the holiday season. Hopefully, this is an element inside Toshiba beginning to realize the futility of this and how the end-result will only hurt the high def disc market. It would be good if Toshiba would stop looking at just their bottom-line and think about what the industry needs.

But I doubt Toshiba's capable of admitting they were wrong to drag this out and yield. Then again, if Toshiba were going to give up, they'd not admit it until right at the last second. Still, I think it'll be Universal that winds up ending this. While BD continues 2 to 1 over HD DVD despite the absence of Fox and MGM, Universal will be swayed eventually if only to do both markets.

And the other studios know that the second Universal gives into this impulse, they don't need to bother with HD DVD at all.

So now you think Robert is a good indicator of sales for a player he personally pushes on this forum as his defacto standard and biased flavor of the format war? Most people don't even know who he is. AVS does. Perhaps people in his local area.

Yes he is, so is amazon for recognizing the trend that is developing:
Lower pricing = more players sold.


But certainly not enough to make him the standard by which sales should be judged. He's a niche dealer. Even Amazon by itself isn't a good indicator of sales.

If Toshiba bothers to come out and admit, "Yeeeaaah, those estimates of 1.8 million... whoops, our sales aren't THAT great... maybe 1 mill if we're lucky..."


1.8 was just a prediction from a time that there was hardly any actual sales data available. (If at all)

Now Toshiba does have actual sales data points and can do a better sales prediction and they adjusted expectations accordingly.
That's just good business practise.
Why spin this into some sort of disaster ?


Considering it's the only player available (versus lots of competition in the BD field including the PS3 which is never counted except when talking about attach rate) on the Red Format and considering they're currently knocking $100 off a player that was only a few months ago going to be $500 to make it $300 with 5-10 free movies (depending on the store) with up to half those movies counting as "$0 sales" (and adding to the attach rate argument), one has to wonder after Toshiba is making noise about how well sales are going why they'd be reducing their estimates so soon.


so soon? Sony did adjust their expected sales for PS3 a lot sooner (twice) with a drop larger that 50%. But somehow Toshiba is doing something wrong?


Sales must be significantly lower than they wanted if they're doing it now and not waiting until closer to the holiday season. Hopefully, this is an element inside Toshiba beginning to realize the futility of this and how the end-result will only hurt the high def disc market. It would be good if Toshiba would stop looking at just their bottom-line and think about what the industry needs.

But I doubt Toshiba's capable of admitting they were wrong to drag this out and yield. Then again, if Toshiba were going to give up, they'd not admit it until right at the last second. Still, I think it'll be Universal that winds up ending this. While BD continues 2 to 1 over HD DVD despite the absence of Fox and MGM, Universal will be swayed eventually if only to do both markets.

And the other studios know that the second Universal gives into this impulse, they don't need to bother with HD DVD at all.

Last bit is typical blu ray fanclown nonsense.

Do you really believe there will NEVER be a region free blu-ray player? What kind of thinking is this? FYI, the samsung BDP-1000 with older firmware is 100% REGION FREE blu-ray player. Trust me, there will be more.
"Never" is a long time to wait, even 2 or 3 years would be a long time in this format war. I don't see any announcements from Sony or the other big Japanese CE houses that they will be releasing a region free player any time soon. Indeed, the impression I have of BD is that they are trying very hard to control the medium to defend their margins. For me it's a strong reason to avoid Blu-Ray.

"Never" is a long time to wait, even 2 or 3 years would be a long time in this format war. I don't see any announcements from Sony or the other big Japanese CE houses that they will be releasing a region free player any time soon. Indeed, the impression I have of BD is that they are trying very hard to control the medium to defend their margins. For me it's a strong reason to avoid Blu-Ray.
Perhaps what I should have said is that the region coding itself is not the critical factor, its the fact that the hardware and software vendors will use region coding to keep prices in Europe higher than they otherwise would be. If Blu-Ray SW & HW was available at competitive prices then it wouldn't be a problem.

Do you really believe there will NEVER be a region free blu-ray player? What kind of thinking is this? FYI, the samsung BDP-1000 with older firmware is 100% REGION FREE blu-ray player. Trust me, there will be more.

However, this 'region free' Samsung player will not play the region free POTC discs without a firmware upgrade...

It's seems that Catch 22 is another br 'exclusive' :p

The Panasonic is region free.

The Panasonic is region free.

It can be made region free for SD DVD

Not for br.

http://www.areadvd.de/images/2006/Panasonic_DMP-BD10_06.jpg

This has been discussed many times before, but for manufacturers, shipped = sold. Once it leaves their hands, and they receive money for that item, they count it as sold.

Not true. Most companies differentiate sell through and shipped. The only big diff. is shipped numbers can be very accurate to the last unit - sell through would be an estimate. SOX has specific rules on what to count as sales, IIRC.