Bourne, Harry Potter HD DVDs Hot Format Sellers
DEC. 21 | Fourth-quarter HD DVD releases The Bourne Ultimatum and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are turning in uniquely strong performances for the format, according to Universal Studios Home Entertainment .
In its first week on sale, starting Dec. 11, the Bourne single-disc HD DVD configuration sold 60,000 units, according to Universal estimated based on Nielsen/VideoScan data.
Including the boxed set of all three Bourne films, 71,000 units were sold, according to the studio.
The figures represent only sales through retailers that report to Nielseon/VideoScan and are not extrapolated nationally.
Additionally, Universal, citing Nielsen/Video Scan, said Warner Home Video’s HD DVD release of Order of the Phoenix was selling at a 45% HD DVD to 55% Blu-ray ratio, stronger than the HD DVD average which has been closer to 33%.
Ken Graffeo, Universal executive VP of marketing and co-president of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group, acknowledged the continued strength of BD over HD DVD software, on average. Graffeo said, however, that HD DVD is on an upswing with recent releases because of the surge in people buying HD DVD hardware, which also has been steadily and heavily discounted since before Thanksgiving.
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| Submitted by: | Greg Spears 12/31/2007 1:36:05 PM PT |
| Location: | Pittsburgh |
| Occupation: | video retailer |
Well the story finally got changed to a decent headline and content for what it is. But I do wonder, Video Business, Harry Potter sold more blu-rays, so why wasn't there a news story on that, which would be of more interest to us retailers. You still seem to be off the mark when it comes to what we want to know about. If I am choosing number of copies between 2 formats, I would prefer to read a headline and story about the better selling of the two. Unless Video Business votes for the underdog, please give us headlines and stories about the better selling items over the lower sellers. Two stores in Pittsburgh here, no rental-sell movies only. 410 blu-ray titles in stock and 78 hd-dvd titles. Why? Demand. We started equal, and no matter the sales of hd-dvd players or huge hits like Transformers, we rarely see a bump in hd-dvd sales. I am strongly considering starting off the new year going exclusive, as is one of our larger city-wide chains (I know this because we are friends). Same story in his store. Maybe hd-dvd movies are selling better outside of Pittsburgh?
| Submitted by: | Albert Prado (aprado1@comcast.net) 12/26/2007 12:28:54 PM PT |
| Location: | Houston |
| Occupation: | Systems Analyst |
What people need to remember when comparing these so called wins of BluRay is that there are 3 to 4 times as many BluRay players, only due to the PS3. Yet with so many players BluRay sales are not far off from HD-DVD. The PS3, in my opinion, is a trojan horse used to get BluRay in homes. If it wasn''''t because of this HD-DVD would have won a long time ago. So far HD-DVD has not lost but is catching up slowly and I believe will eventually win now that Christmas is over and people who got HD-DVD players can now start buying discs.
| Submitted by: | Jim Heber 12/26/2007 10:42:38 AM PT |
| Location: | Iowa |
| Occupation: | video store owner (6 stores) |
Personally, I think it is editorially wrong to take comments from one side of a format war, like these from Universal, and allow the spin in print. The story was corrected somewhat but still very biased. If Video Business were to provide stories like this, they should be as interviews with the studio, not as news stories, this is just the wrong way to present news. Had I written the story I would have allowed for a response from Sony and Warner, Universal has no right to tout wrong Warner numbers before even Warner makes a statement, and Video Business should know this. This was a typical case of Universal wanting to get a headline in favor of hd-dvd out there before the actual blu-ray win was official, and I am saddened to see Video Business easily went along for the ride. In any case, we sold 4 times as many Potter discs on blu-ray as we did hd-dvd. Bourne was not as hot as we thought it would be. I am tired of listening to Universal and Toshiba, I get stuck with way too many copies listening to their proposed figures, which usually turn out wrong when actual official figures come out. That''s why I hate the fact Video Business goes along with these stories, it hurts the stores and creates a false environment of thought when we place orders and number of copies to order.
| Submitted by: | Jud Kramer 12/23/2007 9:04:17 PM PT |
| Location: | Atlanta |
| Occupation: | Owner of 3 Video retail stores |
Owning 3 video retail stores, our sales of Harry Potter on blu ray sold 4 to 1 in favor of blu-ray. We have a ton of hd-dvd versions left of all the Harry Potter films and I will think very carefully before ordering the same way next time. I am going to have to heavily reduce them and lose money now. What happened with all of those new players supposedly sold at the $98 price point and over the holidays? And then to top it off, a publication like this that we rely on for buying information goes and posts the comments from a Universal executive, a studio who is heavily invested in hd-dvd, and turns it into a news story instead of an interview or commentary, which would have been the correct thing to do. I will now rely on Home Media Retailing magazine for my buying decisions, unless the story is taken off of the website and hope to God it was not printed in the print edition.... To Video Business: Please refrain from this type of story, which proved to be wrong anyway, and is so one sided with figures that are very wrong in all statements quoted. Dealers like me rely on publications like this to determine how many copies to buy and other information and if you are going to do this type of thing, you are hurting retail outlets.
| Submitted by: | Tommy Willard (jrw6@aapt.net.au) 12/23/2007 9:46:20 AM PT |
I am VERY dissapointed in this article you have printed Video Buisness. I have been a long time reader and take the Nielsen Videoscan numbers very seriously. This DOES NOT look like something VB would usually print and I am quite frankly disgusted. These statements from Universal are so obviously factually incorrect. The Nielsen numbers say something completely different so how can VB even contemplate printing such a false story full of lies. I am stunned. I am sorry to say that unless you print an article to straighten out the ridiculous lies being told by Universal and print the truth then I will have to give VB a miss from now on. It is a complete contradiction to your printed sales numbers. Not only are the numbers being touted by Universal so far from the truth but compare a christmas holiday release, Bourne to a movie, Spiderman released several months ago. A fair comparison would have been Pirates of the Carribean released just the week before Bourne. Do what''''''''s right VB and correct this very misleading information, until you do I am sorry to say that you have lost a long time reader.
| Submitted by: | Stewart Hart (stewarthart@talktalk.net) 12/23/2007 6:15:26 AM PT |
| Location: | UK |
Nielson numbers have already been released for this week. It's 61-39 for Bluray with HP5 selling 1.2:1 better on Blu-ray and the boxset seliing 1.3:1 better. Quite sade to see how HD-DVD are desperately trying to spin any figures they can lay their hands on. As for the comments from HD-DVD owners below, what more needs to be said, rather than reasoned, articulate pro HD-DVD responses, we see childish fanboy rants.
| Submitted by: | Stewart Hart (stewarthart@talktalk.net) 12/23/2007 6:14:32 AM PT |
| Location: | UK |
Nielson numbers have already been released for this week. It's 61-39 for Bluray with HP5 selling 1.2:1 better on Blu-ray and the boxset seliing 1.3:1 better. Quite sade to see how HD-DVD are desperately trying to spin any figures they can lay their hands on. As for the comments from HD-DVD owners below, what more needs to be said, rather than reasoned, articulate pro HD-DVD responses, we see childish fanboy rants.
| Submitted by: | Shawn McCollough 12/23/2007 3:22:11 AM PT |
| Location: | Dallas Texas |
| Occupation: | Retail Sales |
Seems to me we already heard a falsified story of HD-DVD release victory a few months ago with Transformers... I am still skeptical as to any information coming directly out of that camp, and using data from Amazon? Really? I mean really?
| Submitted by: | Roger That 12/23/2007 2:05:53 AM PT |
Ah, to see all the blu ray attack dogs sniffing the web for anything that is not glowing towards blu ray and they start with the FUD to distract from the facts. Typical. Bunch of paid off blu ray promoters here.
| Submitted by: | Jaffrey Ali 12/23/2007 2:00:45 AM PT |
How many people realize that neilsen reports less than 50% of sales. To say Neilsen will report the actual numbers is believing in half the story. Neilsen has been used as an effective BD propaganda tool so far.
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