The gadget-sale tracking NPD says Blu-ray sales were up 72% from a year before, while dollars earned were up just 14% (players are getting cheaper)—yet most people still don’t really know what Blu-ray is.
It’s kinda funny to compare Q1 ’09 (upside lots of Blu-ray players, downside recession) to Q1 ’08 (more cash in the market, but Blu-ray spec was a mess), but the trends that emerged made sense: 400,000 standalone (i.e. not PS3) units sold this past quarter, up from the low 200,000s way back in early 2008. But the average selling price had dropped substantially, from nearly $US400 to $US261 now, and headed towards $US214. Meanwhile, as most of our readers know, the spec has been ironed out and most players sold nowadays have Ethernet for interactive features. So they’re getting cheaper and better.
What’s sad is that the people who bought caved and bought Blu-ray players anytime before now were getting the shaft, as the best—or at least the coolest—ones are just coming out, players with Wi-Fi and all kinds of video-on-demand options. (Hopefully, people at least bought upgradeable players like so many are these days.)
Does this mean Blu-ray is going to crack some skulls come Christmas 2009? Not entirely sure there. Fifty-eight percent of people still aren’t “very familiar” with Blu-ray. Besides, with all those great VOD apps, who needs actual discs? [NPD via Engadget]
Kaden101
May 7, 2009 at 3:41 PM
Discs, DVD or Blu-Ray aren’t going anywhere for a long time yet. I don’t know about anywhere else, but in the UK, not all broadband is fast enough or stable enough for High Def streaming. A lot depends on how far you are from the local exchange, download caps & fair useage policies.
Report PermalinkHigh def downloads are not of the same quality as Blu-Ray anyway, the resolution might be there, but it’s not the same quality, you get artifacts, & there’s a lot more compression on downloads. I know we live in the youtube generation where quality isn’t always an issue, but surely the only reason you purchase Blu-Ray is if you want that quality.
Oh, & I like to have a collection of films on disc. It’s more satisfying to browse through shiny shiny boxes than sit & look at a list on my computer, or have to wait for something to buffer up before I can start watching it (on my internet connection that could take a while for hi-def).
matt
May 8, 2009 at 10:53 AM
“Besides, with all those great porn sites, who needs an actual partner?”
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