You and me!

Do a search for HD DVD or Blu-ray sales and see what you come up with. Nonsense, rhetoric, and claptrap. It’s pathetic. Every time I post something about one camp or the other I get at least a comment or two from the other side. “HD DVD is definitely going to win because of the price of the players.” “Blu-ray is the obvious winner: they sell more discs, they’ve sold more players, and Michael Bay loves them.” Well, let’s break this down:

• HD DVD player sales to date – ~750,000 (as reported by the HD DVD camp)
• Blu-Ray player sales to date – ~2.7 million (as reported by the Blu-ray camp)
• Blu-ray outsells HD DVD discs by 2:1

So what does this mean? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Endgaget reported that Blu-ray was barely outpacing HD DVD disc sales in 2007 (no numbers) but you can bet dollars to donuts that those numbers don’t touch the DVD sales which (if I’m doing my math right) will be over a billion discs this year. $23.4 billion divided by ~$20 per disc… yep, 1.17 billion discs. But even if I’m off by a factor of 10, that’s still 100 million disc compared to the paltry 5 million high def discs that have been sold since both have been launched (that was in 2006).

But here is where the arguments start:

• “Blu-ray player sales number are inflated because they include PS3 and most PS3 owners don’t use them for players!”
• “Blu-ray is just better.”
• “HD DVD has better attach rates!”
• “HD DVD is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the high def format for its own ends!”

Want to hear my argument: Who cares?

If there was going to be a winner of this war, it’d have to be the right war. Right now Blu-ray and HD DVD are fighting against each other for the crumbs that fall off the plate of DVD (for example, the popular movie 300 sold under a million units on HD DVD and Blu-ray combined and was touted as a huge success while it sold seven million DVDs in its first week!).

Let’s put this simply. Blu-ray and HD DVD:

YOU ARE FIGHTING THE WRONG WAR!

To the public, you are the same thing. It’s like identical twins fighting over the a girl who has only seen them from across the room. The girl doesn’t see the difference yet and likely won’t as she walks away to find someone less stupid to let hit on her. As Blu-ray and HD DVD try to convince us that they are the best out of equals, the public is turning back to that comfortable favorite – DVD. Sure, it may not look as good but it doesn’t make an ass out of itself in public either.

My prediction stays the same – niche. These two formats will take themselves down as the public discovers downloadable content (God help us if Michael Bay is right and this is all a Microsoft plot – I need less Microsoft in my life, not more) or perhaps another new format that doesn’t have some artificial competition. I really wish only one would have come out so I could spend my time answering questions about whether or not it is worth it to go from DVD to HD (it is, IMO) instead of explaining the ridiculous nature of this “war”. So, who lost? We did. Because both these formats will die and we’ll have to wait for the next format (likely not disc-based) before we can start enjoying high def.

Liked it? Take a second to support AV Rant on Patreon!