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Blu-ray's publicity win
August 29, 2006
The L.A. Times takes a look at how studios are banking on Blu-ray to save the day now that DVD sales are slowing. The proof of Blu-ray’s hotness? One Best Buy guy says his sold out of its 10 copies in a week - which admittedly isn’t bad. It’s just odd given recent complaints over Blu-ray from retailers and others that the story about the industry's hopes for Blu-ray doesn’t delve into sales any further. In fact, most of the piece retreads over Hollywood fears of slowing disc sales (apparently people are getting choosier so films may have to actually be good to do big sales(!)…) Meanwhile, HD DVD, barely gets a mention, except at the bottom, when the story notes the format war.
One of the more interesting, yet foreboding, quotes comes at the end from
Netflix’ Reed Hastings:
"DVD sales will go down this year because consumers know about high definition but they don't know which format to buy," says Reed Hastings, chairman of Netflix, the online DVD rental powerhouse that has been growing at the expense of traditional video stores. "The problem with picking sides is that creates consumer anxiety, and so they'll just stop buying, period, or slow down their buying. The solution to getting the business growing is to have the studios support both formats. In videogames, the two main formats are Xbox and PlayStation, and the market does well with two formats."
Posted by on August 29, 2006 | Comments (0)
