HD DVD casualty report: over 1m players, recorders, and drives lost to the format war
By Ryan Block 
posted Feb 19th 2008 4:03AM
posted Feb 19th 2008 4:03AM
At all curious to find out just how rare that HD DVD player of yours really is? Well, we hate to tell you, but it's probably not rare enough to fetch anything special on eBay in a couple of years -- but still every bit rare (read: discontinued) enough to justify taking up space in your home theater. The numbers, according to Nishida-san, at this morning's press conference:- Xbox 360 drives (worldwide) - 300k
- PCs with HD DVD (worldwide) - 300k
- US - 600k units
- Europe - 100k units
- Japan - 30,000 units
Add to that my HD DVD copies of:
Serenity
Superman II: Richard Donner's Cut
Batman Begins
Oh, well...
http://i26.tinypic.com/21jc7pf.gif
So, I guess this redefines "EPIC FAIL."
better get your math straight.
830k
You do, too...
According to Nishida-san, president of Toshiba, it's 730,000 units worldwide. Engadget (conveniently?) forgot to mention that the 300,000 Xbox add-ons were specifically grouped under the 600,000 players in the US, according to Nishida-san.
US 600k + EU 100k + JP 30k = 730k worldwide
Actually, keep those handy, sooner or later, those chinese may bring their bootleg china high def disc to the West. I heard the format is similar to HD-DVD
My math was right. Engadget had posted some numbers and made a typo. I was just pointing it out, but Engadget changed their numbers again, making my post irrelevant.
No biggie, but that's why my above post seems out of place now.
1.3 million souls lost, including my $99 Toshiba HD-A2 from Wal-Mart with 5 free movies. EPIC PHAIL!
LONG LIVE MY LAUNCH DAY PS3!
830,000?
You knew the risks.
The risks? Just think about how much Toshiba risked. How many millions of dollars spent on R&D, marketing, manufacturing, distribution, etc, just to sell one million players. That's not even counting the machines used to stamp the new HD-DVD disks, or the machines used to produce the blank media.
I know they can recoup some money from the sale of movies, even then, most of them were given away for free. 5 movies for every machine sold is 5 million HD-DVD movies given away.
I wonder if anyone has done an analysis for how much Toshiba has actually lost from this war?
@KC
QQ
So Ryan, are you going to take Thomas Ricker's insensitive picture of the Enola Gay on the other post or what?
"take" as in "remove"...
Sorry, it stays. (FYI: I made it, so blame me if you must.)
Aww, too soon AJ?
I think its funny.
Not everything needs to bee 100% politically correct. It's all in good fun as a joke.
Keep it.
Figures. It was Ryan Block who made the incredibly bad taste picture.
I want to bring life into the woman's head by kissing it.
Get over yourself. Insensitive picture, have you any Kleneex for those tears?
Give me a break. I am half Japanese and I lived in Japan, and my Mom is from Kyushu which I believe is pretty close to ground zero for one of the cities that were hit.
Get over WWII. Japan WAS the aggressor in WWII. Japan raped ALL of SE Asia starting in 1933. Japan attacked Pearl. And Japan showed just how fanantical and bloody the invasion of the homeland would be when the US invaded Iwo Jima.
Dropping Little Boy and Fat Man SAVED countless millions of US and JAPANESE lives.
Now Japan and the US are close Allies and Japan owns our living rooms.
A big WAH goes out to you sir.
What a douche.
Everyone should just be glad they threw in the towel now, instead of fighting a losing battle. Though what exactly did they get for that $2.7 million Super Bowl ad?
It bears saying again: the PS3 having Blu-ray playback, while Xbox 360 required a separate add-on for HD DVD, was just killer. And when the HD DVD camp had a chance to make noise (Paramount/DreamWorks) they barely made a whimper.
One question still has to be answered: what are all the BD and HD fanboys going to do with their free time, now that the war is over?
> One question still has to be answered: what are all the BD and HD fanboys going to do with their free time, now that the war is over?
Hopefully sack all those extra PR staff and reduce costs so we can all enjoy cheaper movies and actually move on. As much as two formats was hindering the HD battle, high costs are going to do it even more when people dont see the benefit of upgrading the DVD's yet.
If you think Sony will let the price drop, you're dreaming. They've been trying to get one of their junky, proprietary formats to succeed for years and they'll milk it for all it's worth.
I got myself an xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, but I ever got round to getting any HD-DVDs, I feel kinda lucky for some reason.
Maybe I should start going round shops and buying cheap HD-DVDS...
That's what I'm gonna do. The 360 add-on was a gift, as were most of my HD-DVDs. I don't mind stockpiling a few - especially since most of the HDs I have are combo discs :)
It'll get me through until a decently priced standalone BR player comes out that is 2.0 compatible (and has IR - hear me Sony - I would have bought a PS3 if you put IR in it - seriously, what is this 1985?).
PS3 has bluetooth - what is this, 2002? Get over not having IR.
lucky you spent $200 on something you've never used? funny definition, if you ask me...
Hey Alan. Nyko makes a usb IR adapter for the PS3 (that even comes with a spiffy remote for FREE!) I got mine for about $12 US. Better start looking for a new excuse.
no big deal for early adopters, most early adopters can afford to adopt again if they didnt buy both players in the first place (makes me wonder if there are any studies on what percentage of highdef player owners bought bothe Bluray and HD-dvd).
I was rooting for HD-dvd a month ago, but this is why I bought a drive that plays both formats. So i guess my drive is useful and collectible.
of the 600,000 in the us 300,000 were from the 360 hd dvd drive
From what it sound like, it's not 600k total american players. It looks like 300k 360 drives and 600k standalone players.
May Sony rot in hell for this. After the Betamax debacle, they were determined this time around to ensure they got the studios on their side, even if it means paying them off. Now that they have the HD format MONOPOLY, get ready for $50 movies
Stop talking, you are ignorant.
It's not a monopoly. Were you yelling "monopoly" at Philips yesterday and for the past 9 years? You should have according to your logic, they put DIVX in the ground. (DIVX is the HD-DVD of years past)
You also should yell at the founders of VHS for creating a monopoly after putting beta-max in the dirt.
Your thoughts are best left in your head.
I am so tired of these stupid monopoly comments. Didn't you people at least take an econ course somewhere? Yes, sony is gonna jack up the price for blu-rays to 50 dollars, no wait, why stop at 50, why not make it 500, or a 1000 dollars a movie, because you know, if you have a monopoly, you can charge any price you want, and people will still buy it, thats totally how it works. Personally, I'll be used to paying 50 dollars a movie, cause I was paying 50 dollars a movie during all those years DVD had a monopoly......oh wait....
OK, this is the most uninformed post I've read today.
1. Bluray is the older format. The spec were agreed upon in 2002 by the Bluray consortium, consisting of: Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Sony, Thomson, LG, Hitachi, Sharp and Samsung. The group was later joined by Dell, Apple and HP (HP switched to HDDVD in 2005). So Bluray was the standard most of the industry agreed upon early on.
2. By the victory of one format prices are going to FALL, not rise. Two competing formats resulted in most consumers remaining on the fence and not buying into either technology. Now that the war is over, buying bluray is no longer a risk for consumers ---> Higher demand, competing manufacturers (just witness the members of Bluray consortium), higher disc production volumes, lower prices etc...
Just remember, prices for DVD players and movies came down without a competing format.
And let's not forget that there actually is still competition for blu-ray, regular DVD's. I don't remember who conducted the poll, but it determined that most polled said that they don't feel any rush to go get a blu-ray player, as they're perfectly happy with DVD's for the time being.
That's understandable, considering that in order to really appreciate the new format you'll need a high-definition TV, which are still rather expensive even compared to tube models of the same screen size.
How exactly can a monopoly happen when you have different firms making/marketing players and disks. You will have the same number (eventually) of distributors for the disks as you do for dvd a similar number of firms selling the players I cannot see a monopoly market. As for the firms getting together and setting a price, well that is illegal here in Australia and most likely in many other countries too. To say this is a monolpoly market as there is one format is crazy. It would be the same as saying that a petrol company has a monopoly as Unleaded is the dominant or a Car company because all cars have an engine and 4 wheels. The mono part means one, but one company not one format. Competition will lower the price over time, and if you look at many post-grad marketing analysis on consume goods, the quickest decline in price on goods in recent time came from DVD's. Most marketing guru's funnily enough point to the level of feirce competition forcing the price of DVD's down so fast as the reason that a DVD successor became necessary so soon. Remember the above these companies that, through fierce competition forced DVD prices down in record time are the exact same companies that will be marketing Blu Ray going forward. The companies do not care what they have spent in the past on development, that has been spent and no actions now will get that back. What they are interested in is what can make them the most going forward and as history has shown, the marketing departments at these companies are not patient and just want to secure as much money as fast as they can even if it brings an early end to a format like DVD through market saturation and greatly reduced prices.
At last they have realized that they were loosing. So much for all the folks that insisted in saying that the PS3 did not count as a player...
My guess is that the PS3 is going to be sold at an increased rate...
Could it be that mickeysoft / copysoft (ms) got it WRONG again?!! No..!!
As soon as we heard Apple backed Bluray and therefore ms backed the competitor HD, could we see the outcome or what?! Lol. Love it.
Hell but ms's professional pride must be all but non-existent. What HAVE they got right in the last 10 years? Yeesh.
The spec was agreed upon in 2002? Then how come they kept making changes to the specs, essentially making any older players obsolete?
Since Toshiba has already spent a fortune on R&D I would have loved if they had kept the format alive for data storage with cheaper discs and drive. You know, cash in a few coins or so, rather than throwing everything in the bin.
My SDVD player died this weekend and I purposely picked up an HD player because it was cheap and does a great job of upconverting until Blu-Ray gets stable and cheap. Plus now I'll get a few bargain basement cheap HD movies. I feel bad for anyone who got it under the pretense on finally "taking the plundge" though.
PHEWH! good thing i made the right purchase... Sure would hate to be one of those 1.3 million people...
@Ryan, could you please recheck your numbers?
During the press conference, Toshiba said they had sold: "600,000 players in the US -- 300,000 of which were Xbox 360 HD DVD drives. 100,000 units were sold in Europe. And about 10,000 players and 20,000 recorders in Japan. So about 730,000 units worldwide."
Therefore, it appears that the standalone players sold in the US (excluding the X360 add-on) were 300,000 -- and not 600K like you reported in your story.
Sorry, the numbers in this post are updated and accurate to the best info we have right now. Will bring the live coverage in line!
McCoy looks at the Star Trek HD-DVD box set.
McCoy "It is Dead, Jim"
Really? Has it suddenly stopped working in your HD DVD player? :P
Well, that was fun. Now can we freeze the format and have a BR player for $200, please? I don't want a PS3 or a Samsung player that was obsolete months ago.
Class action lawsuit time
class action lawsuit... FOR WHAT???!??
yeah, sucks they lost but get real. did toshiba make you buy the player? no. did early adopters know there was a format war? probably, but if you didn't that's really your own fault (or best buy's - god i love blaming them). did toshiba intentionally defraud anyone? nope.
listen, i bought into hd-dvd (blu-ray too, but in the last month) and i really wanted the format to win. but it didn't. guess what i'm going to do - i'm going to stock up on hd-dvd movies that will be in the inevitable firesale on ebay and be happy with it. not really a whole lot i can do. i knew there was inherant risk, i took it and, didn't come out on top. so be it. is that toshiba's fault?
hey listen, if you're really serious about that class action lawsuit, how about you sue engadget too? they gave coverage to hd-dvd and didn't protect us! how about the nfl? they let commercials pertaining to hd-dvd be aired. hmm... hd-dvd's have plastic, which are made from oil. let's sue bush too! i bet he had something to do with this to help out his texas cronies!
sheesh.
i just want to laugh in the face of those who said "beta-max" when blu-ray came about... HA!
24th actually (going by the time of the posts)
I guess you set a new standard for fail...
I feel disappointed that the format i picked didn't win, but at least I didn't drop lots of money on it.
$120 is all i spent on HD-DVD player and got 10 movies with it.
I think the numbers might be off unless you're counting PS3s. Also, it isn't a complete loss. HD-DVD can be copied.
Still, I'm glad I didn't invest too much in media. Although I would have preferred an HD-DVD win, I'm glad the war is over. Nevertheless, I won't be investing in a Blu-Ray player until I can get a stand-alone that does Profile 2.0 for $300 or under. Hopefully, I won't have too long to wait.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxGejqxN2WY
"Thanks, Toshiba and Sony!"
If you bought an HD-DVD player, you have yourself to blame. Not Toshiba or Sony.
Time to start watching the landfills in Utah (or was it Nevada).
If there are 10 million Bluray owners and there are 10 million PS3 sold then how many stand along BR players are sold?
As far as Sony would be concerned, that's a double victory - they get Blu-ray in the loungeroom, and when the people are bored of watching movies, they go out and get the games for it. Given PS3's proven software upgradability, that's win-win.
*3000 years in to the future*
Now class what you see before you is a fossilised 'HD Dee Vee Dee' as those hapless homosapiens were beleived to call it. The original scrolls have long been lost, but many scholars maintain that this beast was slain by 'Blu Ray'; what appears to have been some form of water dwelling creature whose primary source of nutrition consisted of plankton, shrimps and these Hd Dee Vee Dees.
I'm holding out for the *next-gen* discs.
These are still too fuzzy and grainy. LOL
Well it's great to see Blu-Ray win. In the end, no won wins with this format war. Definitely not the consumers. And, in the end, the studios are on their way to make the same mistakes the music industry did with CDs and downloadable music.
Actually, would anyone really want to spend their money on any Blu-Ray 1.0 or 1.1 players available today knowing they are not upward compatible, except maybe the PS3? With the 2.0 players planned for sometime this year, it really creates a gap between now-and-then.
Myself, I will happily continue to use the Toshiba XA2. Yes, I purchased the losing format, but will continue to use it, and its wonderful HQV Reon chip, to upconvert the endless available DVDs, while buying HD-DVDs at fire-sale prices.
Did anyone say downloadable HD content?
That's why I went with a home theatre PC. All my HD-DVD discs look great, and I can stock up on a lot more during the firesales, BR looks great, and all those 1080 x264 rips look great as well.
It's Win/Win/Win.
To me it was clear HD-DVD was dead about 6+ months ago, and yet I still bought a £99 player with 5 free HD-DVDs. Foolish early adopting? No. I'm enjoying those movies, I'm enjoying HD-DVD rentals and I will enjoy cheap HD-DVDs in the coming fire sale- there are already a number of titles on Play.com for a not unreasonable £15 with a 3-for-2 offer on. I've got a Blu-Ray player too, so it's win-win really.
£99 on an HD-DVD player is just a tiny fraction of what it cost me to early adopt a 1080p LCD in rip-off Britain.
So basically without PS3, Bluray players sold even less than HD-DVD. (Sony just announced PS3 sold 10.5 worldwide)
Thats why these kids are so vile about a movie player. They are making it a video game war and since the PS3 is clearly loosing in the US (now some kid will say but for one month the PS3 out sold MS) they are using this to cheer about.
I dont care about the console war since I have all 3 that are out right now. I have both BR and HDDVD as well but prefer HDDVD. I wish that in 2 years I would still be able to buy movies for it but it looks like I will not. I guess I will just enjoy my 80 + movies for now. In a decade when the machine dies (I have 2) there will be something new to replace it.
I'd be interested to see the numbers that announce this officially.
I don't recall ever seeing backers of a storage format just decide to throw it in the garbage and give up.
They weren't looking for a storage format primarily, but a worthy successor to the multibillion dollar movie home movie industry.
The creation of two formats was a result of a schism on decided on how to implement high definition video. One camp wanted to expanding existing technology, while the other wanted to implement newer technology. This happens; Windows/OSX/Linux, GSM/CDMA and there are more examples.
"Thanks Toshiba and Sony!"
And Sony? How it is Sony's fault that Toshiba continued to push their format when the tide was more and more heading in Blu-ray's favor? How is it Sony's fault that Toshiba continued to push HD-DVD when Blu-ray by far had more industry support?
Christ Ryan... it's fine that you guys are HD-DVD fanboys, but you really need to get off of the anti-Sony kick you're on.
Is anyone coming out with a combo HD-DVD, 8-Track, Betamax player?
Forgot reel to reel...
My combo LaserDisc/DVD player stopped reading DVDs though.. :(
Well, these are the final real numbers from Toshiba. Not some made up BS spit out by the red camp.
This shows just how badly HD-DVD was beaten. A full total of less than a million players and HD-DVD computer drives sold. Looking at these numbers there was no way that HD-DVD was ever going to win. The numbers may have been hidden from the public but industry insiders knew that sales were too slow to become a viable format. That is why the bottom dropped out so fast.
For all the posturing and promoting by rabid HD-DVD fans the format couldn't move 1/10th the number of BluRay hardware. HD-DVD was all but dead in Japan and on life support in Europe, 30k in Toshiba's home market. Throughout this format war people were told that HD-DVD was the superior format that would sell massive numbers. We were told that HD-DVD had already moved millions of low cost players. In the end it was all just PR spin, a rosy coat of gloss paint covering a turd. While BluRay was advancing and HD-DVD was faltering Toshiba kept up the positive spin and its supporters ran with it. Supporters of the format chose to see rapid price drops and massive player subsidies by Toshiba as a good thing.
When you looked at the facts from the beggining it was clear that BluRay would win, Toshiba never really stood a chance. Without Microsoft HD-DVD would have been dead out the door but they gave the format enough life to cause this latest format war and share most of the blame for it.
What we can learn from this format war:
1) Lining up key manufacturing support and multiple partners means a lot more than going in it alone.
2) Lining up key aliances with a majority of studios will ensure the viability of your product.
3) Price is not the determining factor, profitability is.
4) Early adopters usually do not sway the direction of mass adoption.
5) Marketing means more than technology to the average consumer
And I still don't care. DVDs look fine on my 2001 Sony TV; which set me back over $2200 for a 42" 1080i display. I'm watching broadcast HDTV through my mythTV box and HDHomeRun -- and yes, the pic is sharper than a DVD, but when you're 10ft away from the screen, it doesn't really matter.
I can also archive DVD movies on DVD+Rs, or even on XVid (0.7GB/hr) or h.264 (0.5GB/hr).
I've seen BD first-hand, on a very nice TV set. I still fail to see how a small increase in detail and resolution is worth all that extra money and 5x the storage space.
Ask me again in five years, when BD players are $40 at walmart, burners cost $80, and BD blanks are less than $0.50. Until then... pfffft.
This could have already been stated but, It really did not matter who won this war. blue ray will end up stopping production as well in a few years when they see there is no demand for this technology other then backing up your hard drives. With the XBOX 360 media download (HIGH DEF AS WELL) and NetFlix (HIGH DEF AS WELL), and other down loadable content, there is no need for a disc. Anyone who has 360 is able to download any movie or television show they want. It has replaced my dvd and cable. This is the direction we need to move. Forget about having useless piles of discs in your house. VHS, DVD, HDDVD, BLUE RAY, I mean really? Everything to a hard drive. We are now at Terr bytes lets use it up.
I have both formats. I have about 20 movies on hd-dvd and maybe 6 on Blu-Ray. Since this pointless format war is over i wont be buy any more Blu-Ray's until they start selling them for cheaper..like $20 per movie.
I will however scoop up plenty of HD-DVD's on clearance.
Okay, so I have a high definition disk player (HD DVD) and a bunch of movies. I'm going to be able to get more movies dirt-cheap now that the format is "dead". I'll be able to watch all of these moves for many years before the player dies. Certainly it will last long enough for Blu-ray players to become reasonably priced, despite Sony, who will probably try to hold the price high.
I only paid $100 for the player. It seems to me that wasn't a waste of money.
I don't know what I am more sick of hearing. Blu-ray fanboys cheering because they "won", or people telling me I wasted my money on HD DVD and my player is now worthless.
For all the fanboys who sit there and tout how BR won the war with technology, be honest. Sony bought the victory, the technology didn't. The minute both sides started throwing money around for exclusivity, the format wars were a fiscal decision based on who had deeper pockets and the only ones who made out were the studios.
Once again, when consumers have a choice, they do not choose MS - add this to the heap of webtv, msn, talking barney's, watches, & the xbox ... of course, MS has the silent shareholders willing to keep quiet as MS loses $2 to $6 billion a year on Box unlike the more responsible Toshiba ... next on the death watch list - the Xbox after Ms squanders all its bankroll and goes into debt to buy Yahoo (another death watch there if MS "wins" Yahoo)
Sweet, now RIAA/MPAA can eat our souls:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/21/dmca_exemptions_controversy/
now once I can get a $150 stand-alone Blu-Ray 2.0 player and the old movies go for about $10 I will think about getting one...
...and for the person that commented that the PS3 has BlueTooth and doesn't need IR- find me a universal remote that supports BlueTooth!
I love how people try and compare the sales of BD and HDDVD and include the PS3 in those numbers. That isn't truly a factual count if you do. Every person who bought an HDDVD player did so solely to watch movies. Folks that bought a PS3 bought a gaming machine which happens to also play BD movies. If you do a comparison of folks that bought BD standalones vs all HDDVD players (standalones and 360 addon), the numbers will look VERY different.
Also cracks me up that people are whooping it up that PS3 sales beat 360 for one month. Well yea, at this point, just about everybody already has a 360. Of course eventually PS3 sales are going to beat it. Duh!
Ehh. It's their own fault.
If you bought any of these devices before the war is over it is basically your own fault. Normal people didn't buy these things. Geeks did. And they knew.