Nielsen/VideoScan sales ratios and Top 5 - Page 3  

As an Englishman, I find it rather strange that you would quote Churchill in relation to this incredibly unimportant (yet very entertaining) part of life. Churchill quotes are best left for times when people/nations are in real dire straits IMO.

Interesting.

Harkens back to the ol' HD DVD axiom; "follow the money."

Importance is relative. The core issue is what Churchill stood for

"Never, never, never, never give up."
~ Winston Churchill

This is a mantra that needs to be applied in everything we do as people. It is the mantra of champions. Thank you for your concern however.

I don't think they will or need to. DVD only sold something like 1 million DVD players in their 2nd year. I believe that the HD DVD groups estimate of $600 million in software is way high, but if they did hit it I think they would be in very good shape for at least a tie.

I hear things about the HD DVD add-on selling well and the PS3 selling poorly, but the Amazon numbers for the dedicated remote for the PS3 and the add-on don't look good for HD DVD to me. They have both pretty much been in stock over the last 2-3 weeks, with the PS3 remote generally ranked in the top 20 under video games (even outselling the $399 XBOX360 a lot of the time) while the add-on has been around the 70s. I just checked and the PS3 remote is #17, while the add-on is #101.

--Darin

Unless you fork for Fox, there is no reason to want to pay more for a disk than you should. At least with the combo disk, one actually gets more.

No wonder you support Blu-ray and I support HD DVD.

Also why I believe HD DVD will win the war. While a good chunk of Americans think if something costs more, it must be better, the vast majority appreciate "value".

I agree with that. Some of you guys are really jumping the gun with your analysis. A one month surge due to the PS3 launch does not automatically translate into a long term trend. The PS3 is new and BD is new. They are like a new toy. Once the initial fascination wears off, things will slow down with the PS3 crowd. It's just like when people got their first DVD player. They went out and bought a bunch of DVD's, but most did not continue that for the long term. It is also not clear exactly what these Nielson numbers include. Do they include non-US purchases and internet purchases? Either way, it's way too early to come to any conclusions about the format war. Of course, that won't stop anyone around here from doing that.

Data from article.. see attached..

b2b

Well, it's extremely frustrating to see studios sit on the sidelines when they have hd-dvd releases in the can.

Pent up frustration is evident when you see the first decent new release in months shoot to the top 100 of the Amazon charts and best the position of the #1 BR release.

The real concern that I have is that studios are intentionally starving HD-DVD content over the next several months to see if they can kill HD-DVD off that way.

I'd love to see what Amir has to say about this, backed by some facts, not the same "just hang in there" we've been hearing for weeks now.

I am afraid, the add on isn't selling well at all. xbox owners have lots of new games plus xbox live with HD downloads to keep them entertained!

To me it appears a PS3 owner cares a lot more about BD movies than an xbox owner cares about watching HD DVD movies. In fact I can go so far as to say a majority of PS3 owners probably care more about the movie aspect of the player than the gaming...

Now, the only part that HD DVD can take solace in is that the PS3 is highly subsidized, and if you think back to the cold war, there was a period when it seemed the Soviets were ahead. But the economics in long term wasn't on their side....

Caveat Emptor...Nielsen Videoscan's data is, of course, from a sample of outlets (largely brick-and-mortar...big box, some specialty retailers, etc.) They do poll a few internet sites (maybe DVD Empire?), but they don't get figures from Amazon and some other prominent outlets. It's sort of like Nielsen TV ratings. They use 415 families that are metered...they sample other folks around the country via phone, etc. Then they use statistical algorithms to extrapolate the ratings for the entire populace.

We still don't have hard and comprehensive sales data on any of this stuff. Naturally HD format sales will be driven by new releases. A big movie will skew numbers...


Eric

Agreed. I'd like to know a bit more info about what's taking so long. Is it the Combo issue or are there plans for more interactivity or the enabling of network features. I see many of us here just throwing our hands up and going neutral. I don't blame them honestly. None of us wanted this war.

Ahh communism; plaz, as you well know the economic principles behind communism are fatally flawed, the question is, is Sony's outlook flawed, IMO it is not.

Granted. Obviously Toshibas are still being produced as well as HD DVD discs. They may be all year. But there comes a point where a winner in a race becomes predictible. Other than NBC's call in 2000, scores of presidential races have been correctly called LONG before the counting is done.

One could say it was Fox that had it wrong .

Are you seriously using this comparison? It's not even close to relavent here.

As an American, I was thinking the same thing.

"THIS... is our finest hour!"

Yup, I'm just another 360 owner who didn't buy the add-on (would have if it weren't crippled) but love HD movies and have been watching blu-ray movies. Gaming on the PS3 and 360 is also a blast, just need more content (just like HD movies)

Actually there are pretty good indications that the Xbox 360 add-on has been selling quite well. It seemed to be supply constrained up until just the last couple of weeks when they now seem to be in pretty good supply at most places. I believe it was in the top 20 gaming products at Amazon and a few other sites for quite a few weeks.

I personally know several people who have bought the add on and raved about the PQ of King Kong, but they are also very frustrated right now by the slim pickings of HD-DVD titles. Even 20 releases each by Warner, Universal and Paramount could help turn the tide, but for some reason unknown by us mere mortals they have chosen to sit on their thumbs and leave us hanging.

There's definitely something going on beyond the BS "the compressionists are all coming back from holiday vacation" or "we are waiting for BDJ to get fixed" going on. If you think you can ship 100K discs and make $2M you do it, you don't "hold off" unless you have a damn good reason for doing so.

Maybe they are all waiting to see how THD goes for Warner.

There is much to be disagreed with in this post. I'm not sure how many add-on sells you predicted, so I guess you can claim it's not selling well without any supporting data, by claiming you thought it would sell better. But the figures I've seen suggest it sold better than any HD DVD player, and better than any BD player except the PS3.

Further, I don't think you can defend the statement, " a majority of PS3 owners probably care more about the movie aspect of the player than the gaming..." While there are certainly some using it as a player, (which due to the lack of compelling gaming titles is a good thing), I think you've gone a bit overboard in your hyperbole. Most PS3 owners are gamers, and I would be shocked if the movie content is selling nearly as well as the gaming content for it. In fact, RFOM probably sold more than the top 5 BD titles combined.

??????

I believe Neilson includes around 65% of DVD sales outlet. I believe Amazon and Walmart are not included. But it is much more representative than any single source.

Studios can only tell you how many they shipped to their channels. Not how many actually sold.

Are the numbers really that surprising?

HD-DVD released very little, week end Jan 7 and Jan 14. Let's be honest, the people buying HD are probably buying BOTH at this stage because they are movie geeks and don't want to miss any movies on either format.

Yeah, I was kind of surprised to hear this one out of plaz.

Obviously the PS3 is a trojan horse. Normally consoles aren't money makers, the software is. In this case there are 2, major types of software that Sony has a huge hand in.

I would say their long term outlook is pretty rosy.

I'd venture to say that the HD-DVD add-on has never been a key financial motivation for Microsoft.

When they announced their HD-DVD support, the Xbox 360 was already being manufactured. And the add-on plug-in 12 months later looks like a compromise to give some leverage to Toshiba, and at the same time without changing the form factor of the X360 and possibly alienating the early adopters.

As Amir has stated, VC-1 and downloadable content for XBL are the two key areas that Microsoft is targeting for long-term growth. I may be wrong, but I think that the add-on doesn't really fit in the Xbox 360 business plan, and it was released only because they had to.

On a side note, I think that all those Uni announcements last week weren't that innocent. They were certainly aware of these figures and they basically did some damage control.

Then if you go back to the same Home Media Magazine you'll see that none of the top 5 games sold were PS3 games. The top 4 were xbox 360.

I do apologize. I did not mean, the HD Drive isn't selling well. I should have clarified that I meant it wasn't selling as well the PS3 (which isn't a surprise). Also, it isn't a negative for the xbox, since it IS sold primarily as a game console and only a very small minority have bought the add on drive.

Also, it does appear that many people have indeed bought the PS3 for movies. Look at the sales rank of the remote control. It outsells the wireless controller and most games. At this is just a few months after launch. So, to infer that the PS3 is being viewed and seen as a serious BD video device is not a hyperbole at all! Even Sound and Vision in their latest edition has the PS3 on the cover as the best BD player!!!

Overall, I guess I still stand by my assertion that the xbox add on drive cannot match the impact of the PS3 in the format battle. At least not yet.

I am not making a judgment on Sonys' business model either. That's another topic

I don't remember where it was last year other than I think it shot way up as soon as it became available. I've been following it on Amazon since a few days into January. It has pretty much been in stock (I don't recall if it went out of stock one time I checked or not) and I don't recall seeing it above #50 at any time this month. In the Seattle area it seemed like it was selling extremely well when I was checking around at stores before Christmas, but I haven't looked as much since then (although I've seen them in stock at Fred Meyers and Walmart).

As far as how the PS3 and XBOX360 add-on would affect software sales, I thought this old prediction by rdjam from last October was interesting:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8682019

It looks like the original that was referenced was removed though (probably when DrDon cleaned the thread up).

--Darin

I'm unable to tell you where I read it, but I did read that Nielsen extrapolates Wal-mart and Amazon results, and these figures are added to their data. And given Nielsen's longstanding reputation, they shouldn't be far off from the truth.

When the remote control sells more than most games and game related controllers, that would be one inference, no?

I think saying things like this should be reserved for people who actually work for Sony or Toshiba. Don't you think?

We don't. We are just movie lovers and most of us just want the war to be over quickly. And most of us actually have a life I would assume, and when we are eating dinner with our father or seeing our niece walk for the first time or giving a hug to our fiance, we all realize that allegiance to a brand of "high definition movie disc" is meaningless. The reason I always supported Blu-ray is because I always thought it had the easiest chance of winning (just Universal going neutral) so the war would be over and we could get on with discussing movies and off this ridiculous talk of "allegiances" and phrases like "hang in there." I mean that's the kind of thing you tell someone when they find out their mother has breast cancer. Wouldn't you agree the word "defeatist" should not apply to someone who no longer cares about supporting only one brand of something at any cost? I don't get why someone would be "giving up" if they went brand neutral and just decided to buy more movies.

This goes not just for you but for all of us. The arguments were fun, but I think we ALL need some healthy perspective.

It's hard to extrapolate when there isn't enough history or data to do so. JMHO. But still, the overall reliability of Videoscan is undiminished. I believe them when they said 250M Americans watched the Super Bowl after sampling a few thousand households