Survey: Blu-ray movie players slow to catch on

There seems to be some confusion on this board over ABI results.

Quote:
Blu-ray players are not flying off retailers' shelves, at least not in the numbers the industry might hope for. A new consumer survey from ABI Research has revealed a widespread reluctance to commit to a Blu-ray player in the near future: over half of the 1000 respondents, citing "other priorities," say they have no plans to purchase one a further 23% are likely to buy, but not until sometime in 2009.

http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/08/survey-bluray-movie-players-sl.html

Hrm. Very intriguing indeed.

IMO. If PS3 does not "slay" this holiday..."it's over."

Once again, for the millionth time: if BD does not get their prices down on both hardware and software, (actually, software is more important, because that will ultimately drive sales of players), then they are dead in the water this Chrisrtmas. Simply, the economy is too unstable for the average consumer to commit to an "iffy" product. The BD pundits may have won the battle last winter, but they are far from winning the war. They need to realize that and adjust accordingly.

Or the consumer's wife is iffy because of hd dvd's short life

Agreed Steve. I don't think Sony has really realized this. The asumption that they won the format war, is merely not enough to truly compete with the home entertainment department. Yes, HDTV is catching on, but DVD is still the champ, and if Blu-Ray truly does want to succeed, it will have to do a better job. Sony unfortunately has priced itself on the top of the food chain again, like it did with SACD and Minidisc. Other manufactures like phillips, and pioneer suceeded with their minidisc player primarily due to cost. I know this, because I used to sell them.

It makes me wonder why Toshiba knew to pull out so early. Really when you think about it there was two deciding factors that went it to folding of the HD DVD product. The big one was the lack of Studio and retailer support. But if you look at Toshiba's trend over that year, I think they knew that throwing more money around was not going to help them but cripple them that much more if the won or lost. Considering their losses after pulling out of the format war, can you imagine the ramifications if they decided to keep going, and then lose... Financially it was a bad decision, for losing millions, but for the business to continue it had to be done. They must of realized the total cost involved with taking on the DVD market. They chickened out and joined the DVD battle out of spite. DVD was their baby, and didn't want to lose to Sony a second time.

For Sony, the gamble paid off hansomly. But, it this victory lap is to continue, they are going to have lose their losses, and compete a lot harder. They might have to release a basic 1080i, 1.1 profile player at $299 for Christmas, and then stage two or three models above this for audio enthusiasts, video holics, and complete nerds. From a stategic point of view, Toshiba has done this method for years. Sony primarily has never released more than two main players, not counting their ES line-up. The other alternative is to advertise the living shit out of the PS3, and hope that families will recognize the benefits of the gaming console. Except for the remote control bugs...

At any cost, the studios will soon realize that if Blu-Ray is too suceed, DVD will have to price drop, along with Blu-Ray, or Plan B which I can see happening would be that DVD and Blu-Ray co-exist at the same price points! DVD of course having the bigger profit margins. But, now the consumer can visualize value for money. Could stay in SD, or move to High Def for the same price! Anyways, what do I know. That's how I would market Blu-Ray.

ReaggieP said -

Quote:
"It makes me wonder why Toshiba knew to pull out so early..."

Really no reason to wonder.

By early February of this year Toshiba had spent roughly $1 billion on HD-DVD [yes Sony's has spent over a billion too], and when Warner pulled the plug on HD-DVD support (along with retailers), well, the company realized they had no chance for financial (profitable) $uccess in continuing to promote HD-DVD.

So, they've chose another path - DVD - since it's still the #1 home video format, and which brings them more disc royalties (from patents), and regular sales of Toshiba DVD players. Their fight against Blu-ray will soon involve the marketing and competition of Super-Upconversion players pitted against the growing BD market. Toshiba's hoping for a win here in this war's "2nd round" - by slowing the growth of BD - in convincing consumers to remain with the DVD standard (and also buy a new Toshiba SUC DVD player).

_____________
-JOE-
(Jimi McLovin - Love Hendrix!)

"...Toshiba SUC DVD Player..."



Funny stuff Hendrix.

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[Post edited by wolfen on Aug 11, 2008 - CDT 12:40 PM]

Actually, what would really help is if they'd release movies that people feel they can't live without -- star wars for example. Blu-ray is doing the same thing DVD did during its inception, release a bunch of mediocre films and slowly trickle out the good stuff every few months. And people wonder why things aren't moving fast enough?

Price is one thing, but another factor is do I really need to replace all my sub-par DVDs with Blu-rays? I think not! The only Blu-rays I buy are the ones I feel I will get good repeat value out of. Movies like "T2" I've ssen so many times that I just don't think I can make it through another sit-down. Therefore, a blu-version of T2 is far off my list, let alone I really don't care. Most of the Blu's available are just "stand by" material you'd find on any cable channel -- many of them are not worth a dime, IMO. So yeah, that copy of "The Mummy" I have on DVD . . . not really worried about replacing it in Blu any time soon. Then again, I've seen it far too many times and will probably never worry about replacing it. Now, "The Godfather" on Blu . . . that's a different story -- I'd replace that no questions asked.

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[Post edited by Tim Raynor on Aug 11, 2008 - CDT 1:16 PM]

Quote:
Really no reason to wonder.

Well think about it this way Joe. If Toshiba was in Sony's shoes, they did not have a gaming console riding on the technology! Toshiba folded early knowing full well that Sony proably would have gone to the edge of bankruptcy to push Blu-Ray, Toshiba knowing this wasn't prepared to lose it whole business on one stupid format. You could see this trend develop in October, five months before the end of the HD DVD business. With Toshiba ultimate purchse of CELL from Sony, Toshiba knew full well that they were going to lose or cut a deal with Sony to sell out HD DVD by folding, cutting the price tag on HD DVD, and kill all advertising on the product. That my though on it but what ever... It was a measure of wills. Who's the bigger gambler! Sony on the other hand knew if they lost, they would official come close to closing the doors in the electronic industry. They would proably rebound at some point with all of their assets, but they would be broke for a long time. This decision goes bigger than Warner jumping ship, I mean really. Warner backing out was not the key factor. Retail support from Walmart really F'd up Toshiba. It came to the point that Walmart has now pulled Toshiba products off of the shelf. If you go to Best Buy, it has removed 40% of the Toshiba line up out of it's stores! They now carry the cheapest line up and a couple high end peices. After my trip to the States last week, you can littlerally see that Toshiba products are pretty scarce. The majority of brands are Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic, and Sony! Hmm, geese I wonder why that is? That is more of a contributing factor than just Warner. That 11th hour deal with Walmart and Best Buy cut a lot of throats. I do not blame Sony for that, that was a smart decision, and I would have done the same.

BTW how is your Toshiba CELL SUC chip doing in your PS3?

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[Post edited by ReaggieP on Aug 11, 2008 - CDT 1:11 PM]