Finally some hard numbers in the format war
Nothing new here, but it is good to see some hard numbers in the format war. The most reassuring aspect of these numbers is the fact that they once again mirror our previous indexes like Amazon. Casino Royal (IMDb 7.9/10) is still the king in the next-gen battle and although there are few other titles for both sides that do well, many aren't selling that great. We'll put our money on the fact that many are still choosing to rent older titles, rather than buy them, effectively hedging their bets. The other interesting point to note is that, titles that are available for both formats and released on the same day, sell more copies on Blu-ray than HD DVD. For example during the week ending March 18th 2007, The Departed (IMDb 8.4/10) on Blu-ray sold 3,057 copies vs 1,287 on HD DVD and while some like to blame the overall lead Blu-ray has on the fact that Blu-ray has more titles available, this disagrees. This is fun and all, but as long as Warner can sell 4,344 copies of The Departed instead of only 3,057, there is still no end in sight to the format war.
