stalemate
Latest
New research insists that format war stalemate remains alive
Here's a timely one. Just days after one reader in particular voiced his concerns about now being the right time to choose one format to support, along comes research claiming that the stalemate is still on. The new data was gathered from over 2,000 online shoppers in mid-January (read: after Warner's blockbuster decision), and apparently, 63-percent of those polled indicated that "they plan to wait to make a purchasing decision until one format leads the market." Potentially more interesting, however, was the note that some 56-percent of participants stated that "they would purchase a Blu-ray Disc player if they saw significant price drops," though just about 40-percent of folks said they didn't anticipate "purchasing any high definition product in the near future." Food for thought, sure, but don't go taking these results too seriously, okay?
HDTV owners holding out on format war
Ready for your fortnightly (give or take a few days) dose of analyst conjecture in the drawn out format war? According to new numbers from NPD Group, just 11-percent of HDTV owners surveyed "strongly intend to buy a Blu-ray or HD DVD player by next spring," and moreover, nearly 75-percent of those consumers noted that standard DVD was "good enough for them." Ross Rubin, director for industry analysis at NPD, even went so far as to say that both players may "emerge as a premium, luxury item," rather than a successor to DVD. All in all, we'd agree that the average joe / jane isn't apt to pick a side in a deadlocked battle when prices are still comparatively high (for players and titles alike), and considering that the war is still so close after 1.5 years of feuding, it seems increasingly likely that a bona fide winner may not actually emerge. 'Course, we tend to think that one side will eventually gain the upper hand, but as of now, your guess is as good as ours as to which camp that will be.
More analyst conjecture: format war will remain stalemated
If there's one thing you can count on in the format war, it's conflicting evidence -- oh, and the occasional knife fight, too. Among all the reports of Blu-ray / HD DVD claiming victory, there's also a decent amount of folks who believe this whole mess is still deadlocked, and the latest musings from sister companies Screen Media Digest and Adams Media Research certainly support the latter. Put simply, the two firms feel that the "main factor eating into high-definition adoption is standard-definition DVD," and while we've already heard that DVD player sales were slipping, we've no doubt owners will continue to snap up DVDs for quite some time. According to Helen Davis Jayalath, senior analyst at Screen Digest, "both formats will be established and coexist for the foreseeable future," and she even suggested that HD software would be split 60% / 40% globally, with BD taking the edge. Feel free to hit the read link if you're intrigued, but don't be shocked if you see something completely contradictory hit the presses just hours from now.
