Playstation 3 not helping Blu-ray?

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After months of delay, the Playstation 3 finally hit the US on November 17th. The gaming console has long been known as Sony's secret weapon in the HD format war: Their Trojan Horse to get a blu-ray player into every home. However, it now looks as if also this launch from Sony is not having the impact they had hoped for. Many analysts claim that they were only able to ship 150,000 - 250,000 of the more than 400,000 promised units. These sold out quickly, but many units were bought with reselling at a high price in mind and not for gaming or movie use.

Sony sold the idea of Blu-ray to many studios with Playstation 3 as their biggest argument for supporting their format and not HD-DVD. Fox among others have said that the PS3 was one of the main reasons for their Blu-ray support.

So, here two weeks after launch, is the PS3 affecting sales? We did our own mini test on Amazon.com, and here is what we found.

If we look at the top three selling HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, we find titles like "Superman: Returns" and "X-men 3." Each product on Amazon has a sales rank that indicates how well the product sells compared with other products of its kind. We took a look at how the HD discs compared with all standard DVDs, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray releases. Here are the numbers:

HD-DVD Top 3:
1# Superman: Returns
DVD Sales Rank: 162

2# Batman Begins
DVD Sales Rank: 352

3# Superman: The Movie
DVD Sales Rank: 803

Blu-ray Top 3:
1# Superman: Returns
DVD Sales Rank: 394

2# X-men 3: The last Stand
DVD Sales: 2279

3# Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut
DVD Sales Rank: 2373

So, the answer is, no. As you see, Blu-ray sells far less than HD-DVD and still has a lot of catching up to do. It looks as if it has proven far more difficult for Sony to both launch their own brand new format and to beat their competition. The numbers also show that regular DVD is doing great and has nothing to worry about right now. We will have to wait and see if Sony can turn this all around by spring.

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