Blu-ray Disc Association makes wild claims of 2.7 million players sold, forgets 74% of figure are PS3 sales

Blu-ray, HD DVD, Home cinema
Share

PS3-Blu-ray-sales.jpgI do feel a bit sad for perking my ears up every time I see the words ‘Blu-ray’ and ‘HD DVD’ mentioned in the same breath. There’s nothing I love more than a good ol’ fashioned format war.

Whilst the HD DVD camp is actually fairly transparent with their sales statistics (recently claiming to have sold 750,000 players), the Blu-ray Disc Association has always been cagey, never actually releasing figures on actual players sold.

The story being bandied about the playground today is that 2.7 million Blu-ray Disc players have been sold in the US so far, but of those 2.7 million? Yep, most of them are just PS3 sales.

In a recent article on Tech Digest, several commenters were outraged that the HD DVD side is counting Xbox 360 external hard drive add-ons, when official Blu-ray players aren’t allowed to count Sony PS3s, which play the HD format. What these Tech Digest readers failed to understand was that the PS3 is predominantly a games console, bought for playing admittedly shite-house games.

External HD DVD add-ons for the Xbox 360 however, were bought for the sole purpose of playing HD DVD discs, so can be counted in the sale figures.

This new ‘milestone’ for Sony, supposedly selling 2.7 million Blu-ray players, thus demands to be taken with a pint full of rock salt.

Of the 5.59 million PS3 consoles sold throughout the whole world, two million of those are reportedly in the US. Using simple maths, if you subtract the number of PS3s from the purported 2.7 million Blu-ray players sold, you’re left with just 700,000 units. That’s just a shade under the 750,000 HD DVD players supposedly sold so far.

That means 74% of US Blu-ray Disc players owned in the US are actually those hulking dust-gatherers, PS3s.

I’m a little intrigued as to why the Blu-ray Disc Association has released these figures mere days after the HD DVD squad announced their amount of players sold – surely people are clever enough to sift through the flour of lies to find the little grains of truth?

Time to look to the other side of the tennis table and see what the HD DVD team can serve up in the next round.

(via Daily Tech)

Related posts

HD DVD bites back with claims of 750,000 players sold
European Blu-ray Association claims they’ve sold one million discs, owns 73% of HD market
HD DVD owners buy more movies than Blu-ray owners, in Europe at least

Katherine Hannaford
For latest tech stories go to TechDigest.tv

16 comments

  • Er, journalist or extremely naive fangirl? How could you ever have thought this article would go unpunished?! Where’s the Ed?

    And isn’t the PS3 the cheapest route to Blu-ray? Of course, I must be the only person on the planet to realise that given no-one has ever used one for HD movies, right?

    $100,000,000 cheque, anyone?

  • _______________________________

    If no-one buys a PS3 for Blu-ray, no doubt there are plenty of people out there who have bought a PS3 for games and a HD-DVD player for HD movies, right? PS3 owners are the exact demographic for high-technology and quick take-up. You claim they buy a PS3 for games not movies. So most must have both. Dare you to say it.

    Anyway, apart from the disputed hardware sales, ALL the evidence points to a BD lead – including the behaviour of MS (big fat bribes – sorry, sweeteners), hardware developers, content providers and retailers. Yet you and the HD-DVD camp seem to think there are fewer BD users in the US than there are HD-DVD users! You couldn’t make it up.

    And Kat, it is very, VERY silly and a bit of a rookie-type mistake to brag “what these readers fail to understand is…” when you demonstrate so clearly and succinctly what YOU fail to understand, particularly the salient facts that Steve posted above which blow the “PS3 is bought for games, HD-DVD add-on is bought for movies” wheeze. Agree with Jay: this blog entry reeks of bias and fangirlism. Sponsors do pay your wages…..

    And dudes, sort out your posting system; reading these entries is a tremendous pain in the a$$.

    Del

    BTW Armageddon, post your apology to Katherine – quickly. Post was out of order. Disagree all you want with the lady, but don’t post abuse!

  • I’m a big fan of this blog and its bloggers (especially Katherine), but this is, without any shadow of a doubt, the most ill-advised and poorly worded post of the year. Sorry Kat.

    I recognise that this is the view of the blogger, and if we don’t like it we could move on and surf elswewhere, but I don’t think the advertisers would agree.

    It’s not the facts that are the problem, it’s the way they are presenetd by both commentators and the industry. Blu-ray is winning. Which is why MS have to write absolutely massive cheques to content providers.

  • It was pretty obvious this article was written by someone who like’s HD DVD’s better, after the “Hulking dust gatherer’s comment. That’s pretty much why you should just look at the #’s instead of someone else’s idea of what they think is better or not. I have a PS3 by the way and mine is dust free. I have the first xbox and that does have a lot of dust on it.

  • Wow…what a biased hating nazi faggot article writer.

    PS3 plays Blu-Ray’s. Most the gamers at work have a PS3. The others who bought x360/wii, are buying PS3’s now for christmas. We all buy games, and find that there are more good games for PS3 than we have time to play.

    I rent Blu-Ray movies ALL THE TIME. THey are Incredible. They will also last longer than HD-DVD because they hold more data per disc!

    You attack all the PS3 owners, then wonder why they get ‘defensive’? Because you’re saying they’re stupid or wrong for having a PS3.

    Did you know, first year sales states, PS3 sold more than Xbox 360? Probably didn’t. PS3 is also a much better investment in terms of value for $$.

    Faggot.

  • ^^ Correction, 2.75 million PS3s have been SHIPPED in the US. Sales I think are about 2 million(?)

  • **************

    Katherine,

    The HD-DVD camp’s argument – which I think you support – that “the PS3 is bought for games and not Blu-ray and therefore doesn’t count” falls flat on its misleading, fraudulent and disingenuous face when you learn a second rather interesting fact:

    When reporting disc sales, all of a sudden the HD-DVD camp INSIST on including all US PS3 owners!! ALL 2.75 MILLION OF THEM! If they didn’t, it would of course show a much higher disc take-up rate for BD than for HD-DVD per unit sold! How convenient for HD-DVD’s figures.

    First the PS3 doesn’t exist, then it does – each time the decision to include it or not benefits the HD-DVD camp hugely. Enron stylie!

    PS Here’s the crunch: How many people would have bought a BD player if they hadn’t already got one in their PS3? There you go……

    PPS How many people bought a PS3 because for a year it was the cheapest way to get BD? Ooops, another important fact.

    PPPS How many people are just using their dirt cheap HD-DVD player for upscaling?

    PPPS Just how crap is the X360 HD-DVD add-on?

    PPPPS I bought the PS3 for games AND Blu-ray. As did all my mates.

  • I am a sony fan but try very hard not to argue with other fans.

    In my opinion, people are seeing that Blu Ray is taking off by selling more discs which in turn helps them make the decision to go Blu Ray. If I was in that boat then I would look at my options for a Blu Ray player. Why would I spend $399 on a stand alone Blu Ray player when I can spend the same amount and get a Blu Ray player / gaming system in one package? Not to mention all of the gamers out there who have already bought them. Maybe also PS3’s are selling more because it is the only Blu Ray player out there that is constantly getting updates to handle all of the Blu Ray formats being developed. (I agree that Blu Ray needs to get off there butts and get a set of standards)

    I prefer all in one units unlike the HD-DVD add on for the 360 because it is just one more thing I have to worry about hooking up. The less I have going into my stereo receiver the happier I am.

  • What does it matter that HDDVD sold more during this peroid, what truly matters is how much film studios are backing either format and 4 major studios a backing Blu-Ray while only 2 major studios are backing HDDVD. And rumor has it that Warner Bros might become exclusive to Blu-Ray giving Sony 70% market share. Also the PS3 is not just a gaming machine but an open platform. meaning you can run anything you like on it. (The PS3 was designed as a Gaming machine first and a Blu-Ray player second.)

  • Dear Maybe You Should Do Some Research, might I suggest you change your name to Maybe You Should Do Some Reading?

    In the ‘related posts’ section of my post, I actually linked to a previous post on Tech Digest, by the name of ‘European Blu-ray Association claims they’ve sold one million discs, owns 73% of HD market’. I actually wrote that myself, so am well aware of how many discs they’re claiming to have sold.

    This post was merely commenting on the news that 2.7 million Blu-ray players had been sold, and of that amount, 2 million of them are actually PS3s.

    Next time, use the links. Embrace the links. And after that, go give your PS3 a good wiping down, it’s looking mighty dusty over there.

  • Perhaps majority of the blu ray players are ps3s and maybe ps3s are just for gaming but wow the sales numbers for blu ray are far greater thus proving that people are buying ps3s for blu ray.

  • There is nothing to forget about. The fact is during Black Friday, there were more stand alone Blu-ray players(not counting the PS3) sold then stand alone HD-DVD players(not counting the 360 add-on). Despite the fact that the cheapest Blu-ray player was $399.99 and the cheapest HD-DVD player was $99.99. The count was more then double in Blu-ray’s favor. And the main point of this whole HD format war isn’t who sells the most players, it’s all about who sells the most movies. That’s all that really matters. So what does it matter if the PS3 is counted in with the total amount of Blu-ray players sold in the U.S. Blu-ray has sold 4 million movies and HD-DVD has sold 2.5 million movies in all of 2007. During Black Friday, Blu-ray had 72% of those sales compared to HD-DVD’s 28%. This is what you should be looking at. I have a PS3 and currently own 10 PS3 games and 23 Blu-ray movies and I’m just one PS3 owner.

    “According to Media Control Gfk International figures cited by BDA, BD movies control 73% of the European market, outselling HD DVD by a three-to-one margin, and BD holds a 95% share of the high-def recorder market in Japan.” – By Susanne Ault — Video Business, 12/3/2007

    GAME OVER.

  • Hi, I’m the author of the post above. And guess what, Brad? I’m actually a HD DVD *girl*. Yep, girls can write about technology too, not just about kittens and rainbows.

    I called it a dust collector for comic value. It’s black and shiny. My boyfriend’s PS3 actually has a thin layer of dust, even though he uses it every day too. My Xbox 360 has a layer of dust, but of course, that’s not as noticeable as the dust the PS3 collects. Gee, anyone ever noticed these Sony fanboys are very defensive? Maybe they know they’ve got to make excuses and bully anyone that opposes them, to justify the huge cost you’re paying for a machine whose manufacturers just don’t care about the audiences. Look at how many lies they told us all over the years.

    I’m sure many PS3 owners do use their console to play Blu-ray Discs, I’m not doubting that for a second – but first and foremost, it’s a games console, and that’s what it has to be counted as.

    Person with the spam-name, listen up. HD DVD consoles themselves aren’t counted, but you know what? HD DVD external add-ons are, which you’d know if you had read my post correctly. Want to know why? Because these external add-ons have only one purpose, and that’s to play HD DVD discs, unlike the PS3 which is a SONY PLAYSTATION. It plays GAMES. Sure, it plays Blu-ray discs too, but they can’t be counted as Blu-ray disc players, due to their predominant usage as a games console – no matter how many discs you watch on it.

    Just look at the ‘remote’ you’re using to control the PS3 to watch your Blu-ray Discs. It’s a games controller, not a remote. Catch on, yet?

  • The PS3s are being counted because the HD-DVD group count them as players when they talk about attach rates. They cant have it both ways. If they count them as players in some stats then they have to always count them as players. HD-DVD are losing badly and the best thing everyone can do is just abandon it and put and end to this mess.

  • Actually I have a PS3 and I use it everyday. I also have bought blu-ray movies. You call my PS3 a dust collector? May I ask where you get this from. Ive got about 40 ppl on my friends list on PS3 and its not often there is one that is offline. I think you are wrong when you say the PS3 owners arent watching Blu-Ray. It is the dominent media. BD reads faster than HDDVD. That means more information going on at one time. Better images. Better sound. You HDDVD boys better smarten up HDDVD is nothing but a souped up DVD. It isnt next gen. Blu is next gen. Give your head a shake. Get real.

Comments are closed.