Blu-ray Wins The HD Format War, HD DVD Is Dead...Again

sonybluray.531.jpg
With Wal-mart announcing yesterday that they will devote their shelf space to Blu-ray and Blu-ray only, tech pundits and analysts believe the format war with HD DVD is finally over. "Wal-Mart is the biggest player in the DVD market. If it says HD DVD is done, you can take that as a fact," said Rob Enderle, a Silicon Valley tech industry analyst. In the last week or so, first Netflix, then Best Buy, and finally Wal-mart have all vowed Blu-ray exclusivity, rapidly moving the HD DVD format toward extinction.

Toshiba hasn't yet commented on Wal-mart's announcement, so HD DVD isn't officially dead, but comment or no comment the industry has obviously chosen its format of choice. By finally eliminating HD DVD from the mix, retailers hope that the customer confusion generated by two competing HD formats will cease and sales will move ahead. There has also been incentive to resolve the format war in a timely fashion because digital downloading of movies is posing an increasingly formidable threat. While Blu-ray backers don't feel that digital downloads pose an immediate threat to physical disc movies, telecommunications companies are getting to the point where the bandwidth they offer to consumers will make the perfect pipeline for bringing movies to living room home theaters instantly and on the cheap.

It'll be interesting to see how Blu-ray's victory affects the sales of Sony's Playstation 3 over the next year or so. The Playstation 3, which has an integrated Blu-ray player, accounts for 3 million of the 4 million Blu-ray players sold in the 2 years since the format war began and in January of this year, the Playstation 3 made in a huge move in the gaming console wars by selling 269, 000 units, a full 16% victory over Microsoft's Xbox 360 which sold 230, 000 units. More impressive is the fact that the PS3 nearly overtook the massively popular Nintendo Wii last month falling only 5000 units behind the 274, 000 Wii's sold.

Research firm iSuppli predicts that by 2011 the Playstation 3 will tie down a victory in the game console war with a combined 38.4 million consoles sold, with the Wii close behind and the Xbox 360 coming in a distant third. While sales of the Xbox 360 and the Wii are expected to peak in 2010, sales of the PS3 will continue climbing upward after that.

With the January 2008 sales numbers confirming the PS3's popularity is skyrocketing, we wonder if the PS3 may move well ahead much sooner than 2011, especially with the developments in the HD disc format war. You can bet that Sony will milk Blu-ray more than they ever have in light of Blu-ray's unofficial victory over HD DVD, and be assured that an official announcement from Toshiba declaring HD DVD dead will send both Blu-ray players and PS3's skyrocketing.

February 16, 2008

Blu-ray Wins The HD Format War, HD DVD Is Dead...Again