From our front-page news:
Remember CES earlier this year, when HD DVD was dying a seriously painful and drawn-out death? Well, Blu-ray fans immediately cheered, while the HD DVD supporters wept. But with recent survey reports, we have to begin to wonder if Blu-ray can be considered a 'winner' in the true sense of the word. Why? Lack of overall demand.
Given that Blu-ray is currently the only high-definition hard format available (ignoring high-def content available online), you'd imagine that support would immediately pick up, but not so according to ABI Research. Out of the 1,000 (year, seriously lame number here), half of the people said they'd like to purchase a Blu-ray player, with another twenty-three percent claiming they will purchase one by sometime during 2009.
Though I'm not a fan of Sony, per se, I do wish Blu-ray adoption would pick up, as it's a true pleasure being able to watch movies at such a high-resolution. Once you do, it's seriously difficult to go back to a standard DVD... at least with me. The glaring problem to me is the pricing, although Amazon does treat US citizens to some great deals quite often. When people see an older movie, like Training Day, available for $25 and a newer release, such as Casino Royale, for $35, it's no wonder Blu-ray is slow to catch on.
"While you might think gamers purchase fewer movie discs than others, we didn’t see any significant evidence of that in our results," said ABI principle analyst Steve Wilson. "PS3 console shipments will go a long way to help bring down manufacturing costs and drive down Blu-ray player prices."
Source: Edge Online
Given that Blu-ray is currently the only high-definition hard format available (ignoring high-def content available online), you'd imagine that support would immediately pick up, but not so according to ABI Research. Out of the 1,000 (year, seriously lame number here), half of the people said they'd like to purchase a Blu-ray player, with another twenty-three percent claiming they will purchase one by sometime during 2009.
Though I'm not a fan of Sony, per se, I do wish Blu-ray adoption would pick up, as it's a true pleasure being able to watch movies at such a high-resolution. Once you do, it's seriously difficult to go back to a standard DVD... at least with me. The glaring problem to me is the pricing, although Amazon does treat US citizens to some great deals quite often. When people see an older movie, like Training Day, available for $25 and a newer release, such as Casino Royale, for $35, it's no wonder Blu-ray is slow to catch on.
"While you might think gamers purchase fewer movie discs than others, we didn’t see any significant evidence of that in our results," said ABI principle analyst Steve Wilson. "PS3 console shipments will go a long way to help bring down manufacturing costs and drive down Blu-ray player prices."
Source: Edge Online
