Nearly 11 months ago to the day, Europe witnessed its
very first HD DVD release, and while the
battle over format supremacy has been heated and rarely slanted to one corner here in the US, apparently things are vastly different across the pond. According to the (biased?) information spat out by the
European HD DVD Promotional Group, "HD DVD players have outsold Blu-ray players by a three-to-one margin in Europe's main markets so far this year," and moreover, it claimed to hold a staggering "74-percent" of the market share in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland for standalone players. So, for those residing in the aforementioned lands, are things really this skewed, or does a certain lobbyist group have their numbers all fuzzed up?
posted Jul 12th 2007 5:51PM
This just in: The Blu-Ray Association cites statistics from multiple scientists clearly demonstrating that a baby penguin dies every time a HD-DVD is produced. Blu Ray Association spokesman Prop R. Ganda said, "Only terrorists support penguin baby killers."
And to think I bought March of the Penguins on HD-DVD...
I just.... HATE baby penguins soooo much!!!
*pops in an HD-DVD*
I have a PS3 and a load of Blu Ray discs,
but hey I guess I'm not a 'real' high def user and hence excluded from this 'Market Share Analysis' because the player is not standalone
So im gonna guess that they mean just standalone players and not counting the PS3.
Which is exactly why these [arbitrary] statistics are a load. PS3s most certainly cannibalize standalone Blu-ray players.
Yep, thank God, and it's nice to know at least Europeans might be smart enough to catch on before BD+ usage hits, even if we aren't.
that is what i've heard, no ps3's counted in this statistic.
And if the stats were 100% true (included the PS3), why would Microsoft and Toshiba have pressed the EU to investigate Sony on anti-trust practices concerning Blu-Ray and Sony Pictures?
That said, both sides skew results as much as they legally can. Until some third party -- that's not paid by either side -- shoots some stats, grains of salt will be in short supply.
-Pie
yeah... 600,000 PS3 units sold in the first weekend of the euro release. I love these "stand alone player" figures that they put out, desperate to hide from consumers that they are being blown away by the PS3.
"The figures were for stand-alone players only and did not include sales of games consoles such as Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, which contains a Blu-ray player."
Not quite a complete picture.
And talking about the Blu Ray group
"Its discs, which are outselling HD DVD discs, can store more information and special features but the technology is more expensive."
So, the stand alone players are down, but the actual disks are selling better. Doesn't sound like the battle is all over yet.
"The figures were for stand-alone players only and did not include sales of games consoles such as Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, which contains a Blu-ray player."
Not quite a complete picture.
And talking about the Blu Ray group
"Its discs, which are outselling HD DVD discs, can store more information and special features but the technology is more expensive."
So, the stand alone players are down, but the actual disks are selling better. Doesn't sound like the battle is all over yet.
(biased?) = BIASED
Well, since Europe is always ahead of practically every continent, maybe HD-DVD will win?
And yes, Europe is pretty much ahead of us all. That's why they're so sucessful, right?
Quite right, the EU collectively has the largest economy in the world, is the largest exporter, and is expected to become the driver of global economic growth this year.
Maybe we'll get some sort of strange, PAL vs. NTSC type of double standard going overseas. The US takes Blu-Ray, Europe takes HD-DVD...
...but I'm from Australia which Sony collectively groups in as Europe... we use PAL... and the HD-DVD has barely touched our backwards civilisation. All the big electronics chains have BRD players but nothing from HD-DVD.
lol
We outsell 3::1
We have 74% market share
For every Four Blu-Ray Players, there are 12 more HD-DVD players
sandimashighschoolfootball RULES!
something tells me their repetition is cardstacking just a little bit. As has been mentioned before, the PS3, a non-dedicated BR player, is not equated in.. Touting the same victory in two different ways sounds like they are desparate for attention/success, or are covering up a shortcoming elsewhere (media sales?)
To use these statistics to claim "74% market share" is beyond belief. First of all, they're excluding the PS3, which is the main Blu-ray player at the moment. Secondly, according to the site below (in French) total European sales through March of of HD movie players break down like this:
Blu-ray: 2665
HD DVD: 7432
Source: http://www.cinemotion.biz/informacion.php?iinfo=148
No, those aren't millions. That's 7,432 HD-DVD standalone players sold for all of Europe. I can't imagine that sales have picked up dramatically since then, so we're talking about a very VERY small number of players here. If you do include the PS3 for the same period, you'll see that the picture is quite different. According to the link below, the PS3 sold 800,000 units by mid-April. That's more than 100 times the number of stand-alone HD-DVD players sold!
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6169204.html
I'd be interested to know what the software (movie) sales look like.
Number of standalone high def players sold in France by the end of April:
HD DVD: 2,600
Blu-ray: 800
Number of high def players (including the PS3 and the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on) sold in France by the end of April:
HD DVD: 10,000
Blu-ray: 108,800
Yes, but the other half of the story is that most ps3 buyers didn't buy their ps3 for the BluRay capability. So there IS a reason to exclude them, at least count them with less weight. If the ps3 would come with a HDDVD player, all of these people would've had bought HDDVDs instead of BluRays.
I bought my ps3 pretty much JUST for the blu-ray player, and would buy the odd blockbuster game; gran turismo hd etc. I think ALOT of ppl did this too because at launch it was the cheapest blu-ray player available so it's only right ALL blu-ray and hd-dvd compatible players are included in these things.
btw... high-def isn't taking off at all in europe, and I don't think it will for a few years yet, at least until HD is the standard for everything including TV broadcasts.
I personally know about 10 people who purchased the PS3 just for the blue ray. On the flipside, nobody I know even has HD-DVD at all. Of course, I'm in the States.
I have a complaint about the post. It has got a map of Europe that is incorrect because it shows Catalonia, Leon, Aragon, Euskadi, Balearic Islands and Galicia as independet countries and they are part of Spain.
Therefore, the state limits among them are wrong, you can see a map of Europe in the Wikipedia, in the following url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe
Best wishes
I don't see where it says it's a map of countries... Looks more like a map of social/cultural regions, for example the channel islands are labeled separately as are the Orkney and Shetland Isles.
who will use physical media for anything in 15 years?
Anyone who wants to store 200GB or more for pennies a disc.
Is this the most depserate press release ever posted, by HD DVD camp? It's sounds like a "were are no dying really", kinda release...
However, just so people are not fooled, HD DVD is dying badly, at least in the UK...
Hmm, I think this photo says a thousand words... Content is king, and retailers have chosen Blu-Ray in Europe.
This one: (HMV, Trocadero, London)
http://img398.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2vv115txu9.jpg
Or this one (HMV, Oxford St, London)
http://img385.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2ivcgttte5.jpg
Or this one (Virgin Records, Picadilly, London)
http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image037qs3.jpg
I have seen shelves of HD DVDs as well I could show some pictures of these but unfortunately I dont keep such things to hand. Also Sony send Blu-ray discs with their PS3s to retailers just pointing this out.
At Best Buy where I live, the size of the sections are the same.
I marked an HD-DVD and a Blu-Ray (both Planet Earth) with a sharpie on the plastic, came back 3 weeks later.
The HD-DVD was still there, but the Blu-Ray version wasn't.
You live at Best Buy?
29 pounds for a movie? Holy crap. Note to HD disc producers: the first one to cut prices to slight markup over DVD will win.
In Swansea HMV and Bristol HMV it is a similar story Blu-Ray occupies 80% of the HD Disc section.
In Glasgow city store, there is 1 row og HD DVD discs, and 9 rows of Blu-Ray.
I have a photo on my camera phone, i'll try and upload it later.
Also noticed my local Blockbuster in Greenock only stocks Blu-Ray, no HD DVD in sight.
Britain isn't that far into this "High Def Revolution". "Heck" we are still trying to convince people to buy a £20 box to watch about 25 channels instead of the 5 analogue channels so I can get some damn Digital TV signal in my room!
It's more likely that 3 HD-DVD players were sold and 1 BR player was sold...
LOL. Bush/Cheney administration should hire the press release guys @ the HD-DVD camp cuz they are awesome at fudging the numbers.
HD-DVD: ALL UR BASE R BELONG TO US (as long as the PS3 doesn't count)
i call bs
I'm not in one of those lands, but I am able to provide my feedback: here, in PORTUGAL, blu-ray titles are already easily accessible, as well as players (including the PS3, 'course). All I've seen of HD-DVD was one title playing in an LCD.
So...
Are we saying the PS3 - a failure in games console terms - is suddenly going to entirely dominate the HD player market to the point that BD will win?
Nobody bought PS3's in europe. Remember the lack of queues in paris, the empty red carpets 2 minutes after midnight? That's what happened. Only a few PS3's have been sold in games console terms.
Until standalone sales pick up, it will stay that way. The PS3, unlike the PS2, is not going to be the driving force behind the adoption of BD. The PS2 had almost saturation - almost every kid I know has one. That is never going to happen with the PS3 simply because of the price.
How many of the people who bought PS3's have an HD TV in europe? Not many - a lot of people buy it for the games console part, and don't use it's HD functions.
How many of those people are going to then play BD on it? Few - people will buy what they know, and buy a format they can play throughout the house/take round to friends houses and know it will play.
The HMV in Edinburgh has a tiny booth dedicated to HD movies. They have about 4 shelves, each with perhaps 5 titles on them. And...There is equal numbers of HDDVD and BD disks. But in the end, they aren't selling. Weekly total sales for some blockbuster movies have been in the double figures for the whole of the UK. People simply aren't buying HD movies in enough volume to be able to draw and statistics or predictions.
The day the first cheap, DVD-player looking HD disk player (and by cheap I mean £100-£150) is available is the day that format wins.
I know for sure that I have a HD TV, but my dad (with the money) is not going to buy an HD disk player. Yes HD looks better, but for the same price as a TV again? People aren't used to paying that much for movie players - DVD and VCR's have never costed as much as a good TV.
Sales for the PS3 might have been slow, but it's still selling, and with the imminent price cut, will sell even more, especially when more games come out.
And even if Europeans do not have HDTVs yet, they'll have their PS3 sitting there, and when they finally get their HDTVs, do you think they'll pay more to buy another HD DVD player, or just use their PS3s to play Blu-ray discs?
Cheap players NOW doesn't quite matter because when HDTVs are sill expensive, only people who are rich can get into the HD setup, and these people will not necessarily want a cheap HD DVD player, but a cool player that they can flaunt to their friends. Price will be a big issue when HDTVs take over standard TVs and price conscious people start shopping for a Hi-Def player. But that will be a few more years to come, and by then BD players will be as cheap, if not cheaper than HD players, considering the manufacturing advantage with the shear numbers of PS3 and PC burners built.
So Leoedin, you need to look forward, and not be too myopic. All signs say that BD is going to win.
Much of what you just said is complete rubbish. First of all, the PS2 launched at £300. At the time, it was very expensive and it wasn't until it dropped to the magical £200 that it turned into the console that "every" kid owned. Further more, DVD never really had any true competition, nothing like what we have now with HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
Ultimately, the PS3 will, eventually, drop to a price that allows it to become more mainstream. Just because it's initially expensive doesn't mean it'll never regain traction.
I would also argue that the PS3 is a massive drive towards the growth of blu-ray. It wasn't long ago that Sony justified the price based on the fact that it had a blu-ray drive inside.
Myself, I believe that Blu-ray will come out on top. Sony has a massive hold over a large portion of the movie industry due to Sony Pictures. Coupled with the continuing price reductions of the PS3 and the introduction of the really big games later this year and next, I'd say we'll blu-ray uptake rise significantly over the next couple of years and put the final nail into HD-DVD's coffin.
That probably means some weirdey importer in London has one BluRay disk and three HDs. But the HDs only constitute 74% because one has a cover missing.
Hello fellow person from Edinburgh! I've not been in the Princes Street HMV for a while, but a few weeks ago the HMV in the St. James Centre has pretty much equal Blu-Ray and HD-DVD titles in their HD section (only 1 or two of each title, but I'd guesstimate around 100 titles in each). But, in the chart section they also have additional Blu-Ray discs alongside the corresponding DVDs (things like this are probably down to the manager of the individual store) and there's also another set of Blu-Ray discs next to the PS3 games. Overall it gave the impression that there were more Blu-Ray titles.
@ Micheal (wayyy up at the top)
If Europe is so ahead of us why didn't they come up with hd-dvd/blu-ray?
GASP!BABY PENGUINS ARE My favorite animal.
Good old PS3. And it costs less that a blu-ray or hd-dvd player ("stand alone")
zack, please get your facts straight before you talk any further.
Shuji Nakamura built the first blue laser prototype from the gallium nitride crystal developed by Unipress, which is in fact a Warsaw Center for High Pressure Research, part of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Last I checked Polish Academy of Sciences is in Poland (Europe, no it's not the 51st state) and Shuji Nakamura is not American, although admittedly he works at UCSB.
and btw, X-Box has an HD-DVD player as an option, I wonder how many of those circulate in Europe.
Cheers,
Matt
Leave it to a biased promotional group to skew the figures in their favor. For the record, HD-DVD is an inferior format and everyone knows it. (even if you only consider total storage capacity) I think people will be pretty ticked off if this format war ends up the way the VHS vs. Betamax war did back in the 70s & 80s. And by that I mean we lost out on the widespread adoption of a technically superior format.
While, in the meantime, HD-DVD players are in fact cheaper, this will change. People who are buying HD-DVD today are buying equipment which is already outmoded by blu-ray. Think of the long-term, people! Don't settle for a an inferior alternative because it's cheaper. Then again we are living in the wal-mart mentality consumerist era, and this wisdom will largely go unheeded. Microsoft knows this, exploits it, and is therefore evil.
Despite what many claim, there is no clear audio or video quality advantage to one format vs the other. Both have some stellar and some dud releases.
The 51GB HD DVD spec has been approved by the DVD Forum so there is no capacity advantage either way (no studio has asked for or needed this much capacity so far however).
I chose HD DVD because I liked the titles they were offering much more. I'd suggest that folks choose a format on that basis.
I seriously doubt that Blu-Ray will overcome the huge hardware price difference for a year at least. The Toshiba HD-A2 player was selling for $199 on both Amazon and Tiger Direct earlier today.
as a college student, i've bought into the apple digital-ripped-movies-for-cheap via ipod line-out-to-tv system for acceptable quality at a decent price....thus i'm pretty neutral on the blu-ray/HDDVD debate....
neutrality thus established, my opinion has always been that blu-ray will win simply because consumers don't care about slightly differing specs so much as overall "feel," and the name "blu-ray" is simply, flat out more appealing than "H-D-D-V-D." you say, "hey, i just got a new blu-ray player!" and it sounds way less dorky and yet more advanced than saying, "hey, i just got a new HDDVDQXY player!"
just my thought...
I disagree. I think joe sixpack still isn't sold on this newfangled Blu-ray tech-nol-ergy. "Well, I know what a DVD is. I know what HD is. I think i can figure out what a HD DVD is. What's a Blu-ray?" The only people buying either of these is people that read these sites and the AVS Forum.
That said, after picking up a PS3 two days ago, though HD DVD has more movies that I'm into, the Xbox is so damn loud that it makes me want to buy Blu-ray discs because I can actually hear the movie on the PS3. Note: I'm referring to the Xbox itself as loud, not the add-on.
Who ever came up with that picture of a jet engine with a 360 logo on it floating around the 'net is a genius.
well....naturally, i disa-disagree...haha. the semantic stuff matters, and any consumer thinking of hi-def already knows that HDDVD and blu-ray do the same thing with different 'tech-nol-ergy.'
from there, if there's no discernable difference, it comes down to a name, and a string of letters is just not attractive. "aetch-dee-dee-vee-dee" does not roll off the tongue at all, and doesn't connect on an emotional level...it also feels like a tired reiteration of the previous generation (think "enhanced cd"). a name based on a color, especially a (objectively, yes) pleasant one like "blue"....it just feels nicer, in an approachably-technological way.
"see-dee"
"dee-vee-dee"
"blue-ray"
"aetch-dee-dee-vee-dee" = not palatable in everyday consumer-speak word of mouth stuff.
"For the record, HD-DVD is an inferior format and everyone knows it. (even if you only consider total storage capacity)"
You mean 'ONLY if you consider total capacity'
HD-DVD has many more advantages over BD.
No BD+ encryption.
Backwards compatibility discs (yes they play at regular res in old dvd players).
Cheaper hardware is huge.
The Plastic coating is thicker, resisting scratches better.
The Visual/Aural definition on both formats is dictated ENTIRELY by encoding methods and the choice of codec used (which are the same choices on both); properly encoded movies in 1080p/7.1 are around the 8-10gb size using mpeg2. This size can drop and quality increase for VC-1 encodes. Special features hardly need to be several hours of 7.1 in full res. You know the movie companies won't bother putting effort into having the special features look as good as the feature because they don't have to. Why pay so much extra to get the format with lots of unused empty space on the discs?
So HDDVD, having a worse marketing name... plays with the same quality; in more players, cheaper, and likely to last longer. Do some research, you sound like you worked for alliwantforxmasisapsp.com
Seems to me you're the one that needs to do some research.
1) HDDVD's Volume identifier is equivalent to BD+
2) Backward compatibility isn't free, you'll pay for it whether you want it or not
3) Thicker plastic is of little protection. A scratch deep enough to get to the first layer of Blu-ray will still render your HDDVD useless since laser won't be able to read through it. Thicker plastic doesn't resist scratches, hard coating like Durabis does.
4) Hardware wise, HDDVD players that support 1080p output will be cheaper by around $100 than their Blu-ray counterparts. An advantage, but hardly a big one considering that it's a one time investment.
You mentioned encryption, no doubt to point out the ease of "backing up" HDDVD's. Well here’s something to think about - since most movies come on dual-layer HDDVD and single-layer Bly-rays it will cost you double to create a copy of HDDVD vs. Blu-ray in 99% of the cases.
You neglected to mention Toshiba has increased the HD DVD capacity to over 45g rendering this capacity argument moot. I'm pretty neutral regarding the formats but if I had to predict I would give the edge to the HD format.
Mentalsticks -- It's certainly true that all buyers of standalone players bought them to view movies, while some PS3 buyers might only be buying them for games and will never watch a single Blu-ray movie. However, it's pretty hard to argue that this even comes close to making up for the huge difference in numbers. Let's say that only 10% of PS3 owners use their machines heavily for movies. (I think that's a very low estimate, but just for the sake of argument, we'll use that.) Given the numbers I quoted above, that would still give Blu-ray more than 10 times the installed base in Europe. Plus, even the people who don't watch movies on their PS3s now might start once more popular movies are available. You simply can't ignore the PS3's effect in this.
> mentalsticks
bluray is the only reason i use my ps3, its not as if there are any games (beside motorstorm) that make it worth while (imho)
i did try to get on the hddvd bandwagon, preordered the xbox drive when it was first announced waited for release, a couple of discs turned up, cancelled my order in march(iirc) when the distributor said they had no idea when they were getting the drives, luckily they also refunded the money for the discs as well
if they had got the players and discs on the shelves quickly it could have been a whole different story
The reason Microsoft didn't put HD-DVD in the XBOX 360 is because they will corner the market on movie sales through digital distribution.
Who wants to buy the disc when you can get it for MUCH less through your cable box or xbox 360? XBOX Live! users have spent 125 million on movie downloads. That's an average of nearly $20 per person. There is a new Live! member every 8 seconds. People are voting with their wallets. (Alright, I'll give Peter Moore a rest)
Does the PS3 even have HD movie downloads?
I'll be damned if I end up buying another beta-max. Not happening. I'm waiting.
Do people think that 80% of the movie companies are just going to support HD-DVD?? I mean, look at the facts, ONLY universal studios is backing hd-dvd, everyone else is backing blu-ray.
Some are backing both, but that isnt enought, you need many solid backers, not just one. Blu-ray has already won in Japan and Every other place where people realize they want to watch movies on their hardware isntead of just save $100.
Despite Blu Ray having more studio support, the lack of releases from Fox and Disney have made it a lot more even. Apart from POTC Disney has released nothing of note, and Fox has released pretty much nothing since AACS got cracked.
IMO most people knowledgeable about HD are buying their HD disks from the states, as happened with laserdiscs and dvd in the early days. When you can get discs for £14-18 delivered compared to £22-29 from places like Virgin or HMV it makes a whole lot of sense.
Well, there are a few important differences between this and "beta max". Media shape, for one. Beta and VHS wouldn't sit in each others drives, but HDDVD and BluRay will. Eventually, reliable (and affordable) dual players will emerge.
So really, your only real risk is whatever you spend on a player right now, which is why I didn't find it all that painful to get the HDDVD add on for the 360.
This is very funny.
I went to the games forum and the XBox 360 fanboys all declared that most of the people bought the PS3 just to use it as a cheap Hi-Def movie player.
I came here and see all the HD DVD fanboys declaring that most of the people bought the PS3 as a games only machine.
And to answer Leoedin, yes, PS3 is ALREADY the one major factor in driving up the BD adaption, whether you like it or not.
I think the PS3 Blu-Ray is an arguament used by PS3 fanboys to try and 'sell up ' the value of the £400 PS3 but that they themselves probably don't actua;;y buy any media.
What truly worries me and what has stopped me thus far buying a PS3 is that the DVD on the PS2 sucked the big one and so my fear is that the Blu-ray will be similarly crippled and be a second rate blu-ray experience when compared to a dedicated standalone blu-ray or HD player.
Furthermore ;
Will people who own a PS3 actually buy blu-ray media ?
The PS3 demographic is
60% 20 years or younger
30% 20-30 years old
10% over 30 years old
I don't think under 20 year olds buy a lot of 'media'....
Personally I think blu-ray has a bigger installed base because of the PS3 but I don't think that automatically means it will win - though I'd be perfectly fine about it if it did. I think over 30's are still way to burnt by the VHS/BETA fiasco to get behind this.
Let that be a warning to all - the public is slow to forgive and forget when they get screwed by big corporations!!!...
HAHA
You are in for a shock. The Blu-Ray capability are the best of any player (HD DVD or Blu-Ray), bar none. It's Blu-Ray performance and DVD upscaling has been given reference quality status by several AV magazines.
Please don't use the DVD playback capabilities of the PS2 as a comparision, as they are simply world apart.
Ever wonder why Engadget keeps sucking the HD-DVD cock? If anyone's biased, it would be Engadget in their reporting.
Most shops in the UK only sell Blu-ray. Blockbuster, HMV, Tesco and many more. They may sell HD-DVD online, but most people still buy their discs in a store. Also I bet the 360 add-on is classed as stand-alone, because it is seperate from the 360s case.
HD-DVD is dying a death in the UK. I went into Comet the other day, I couldn't find an HD-DVD player, but I found 3 different Blu-ray players and a PS3, they didn't even stock the HD-DVD 360 add-on, but that could just be the store I went to.
I am holding off buying a PS3 until the UK pricing is final, it isn't too dear, but if the price is going down in a few months, 80gb, I might as well wait.
Well I think they should include all 10 PS3s that have been sold in Britain.
Seriously though, I do not know anyone with either a PS3 or a standalone BR player but I do know people with a HD-DVD 360 Add-on and HD-DVD Standalone players. The biggest problem in Britain though is the price of the HD Displays, they are around twice the price of the ones in the US! Until they sort this out then Uptake will be slow. (unfortunately there was also a huge push by the electronics companies to get people to buy the last generation of non-highdef plasmas etc into which the High Def sets were then launched, end result is that loads of people bought new very expensive non-hd screens just before HD was released!).
Personally I will be going for HD-DVD as I have seen no difference in the picture quality for Blueray (not that impressed by anything HD apart from nature programs to be honest) and I also do not Want BD+ anywhere near my home!
@ Clix
Some nice points, but
"3) Thicker plastic is of little protection. A scratch deep enough to get to the first layer of Blu-ray will still render your HDDVD useless since laser won't be able to read through it. Thicker plastic doesn't resist scratches, hard coating like Durabis does."
What's beneficial about the thicker plastic is that it causes the laser to defocus more over the surface, and so it can read over larger scratches and particles... I think the same size scratch on a single layer BD is more likely to cause a read problem than an single layer HDDVD. Of course, this defocus is also how BDs store more data per "layer" (less defocus, more accurate at reading tightly crammed data on the other side of the plastic). This is part of why a 3-layer HDDVD still stores 5GB less than a 2-layer BD. The reason HDDVD camp used the thicker plastic was probably to save on initial manufacturing costs since it kept the basic disc construction the same as with DVDs.
The HD DVD Promotional Group discounts PS3 as part of the Blu-Ray market because it is not solely used for BD movies. That's a funny one! I have a funny one too; The HD DVD Promotional Group will be out of business in less than a year!
Let's go over the problems with HD DVD:
Problem #1. HD-DVD single layer Disc capacity is 15 gigs compared to Blu-ray's 25 gigs.
Problem #2. HD-DVD's maximum capacity per Disc is 30 gigs compared to the Blu-ray max of 200 gigs per disc.
Problem #3. Microsoft unofficially jumped ship after closer evaluation of the direction the format war was headed, basically leaving Toshiba & Universal to fend for themselves with the dying format.
Problem #4. The success of the HD-DVD format was basically left in the hands of Microsoft; a company that has accomplished nothing in the gaming industry except losing billions of dollars.
Problem #5. Horrible Marketing campaign. HORRIBLE!
I live in the Netherlands (Europe) and you can hardly find a hd-dvd player or disc in any store but even the toy stores here sell blu-ray discs.
Most people do not even know of hd-dvd they only just heard about blu-ray.
Got a ps3 mysellf only use it as a blu-ray player and so do most people here.
35 blu-ray discs and counting
Calm down PS3 Fans!!! Wow.. you're so angry because they didn't throw in PS3 as a stand alone player.. Because its NOT.. haha define it! Anyway it would only hurt the blue ray market by adding in the consoles, don't forget who's outselling PS3... oops thats xbox360 don't they have a HD-DVD player? But guess what guys its not a Stand Alone player.. Calm down and think about what you say folks