PS3, Xbox 360 account for 80% of Blu-ray, HD-DVD players
by Blake Snow 
{ Jan 8th 2007 at 1:50PM }
The Wall Street Journal via the Post-Gazette examines the HD format war including new dual-format players featured at CES this week, and the reality that if movie fans want a Universal HD movie, they'll have to buy it on HD-DVD, and if a Disney HD movie is desired, they'll have to buy it on Blu-ray.More interesting, however, is the report's claim that of the 695,000 current US consumers that own either a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player, 400,000 own Blu-ray because they bought a PS3 (58%) and 150,000 own HD-DVD because they bought Microsoft's HD-DVD upgrade kit for the 360 (22%). So PS3s and Xbox 360s used as movie players account for 80% of total HD players in the market. Makes you feel sorta like a pawn, doesn't it?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
El Chino @ Jan 8th 2007 1:59PM
I bought my PS3 for 3 reasons:
1. Cheapest Blu-Ray player.
2. Metal Gear Solid 4
3. Final Fantasy 13
Everything else the 360 does it all for me.
SoonerBill @ Jan 8th 2007 2:00PM
I've been pawned?
Insomnia Bob @ Jan 9th 2007 12:51AM
58% of the existing HD-DVD players on the market are PS3s? Sweet mother of ghandi. That must mean...that almost NO ONE wants a rediculously expensive proprietary movie player!
SHOCKING!
Duterasemis @ Jan 9th 2007 8:32PM
OK, really it's just getting ridiculous. Final Fantasy 13 is kind of pushing it as a game that has "Final" in the title. 12 doesn't sound so bad, but once you get above a dozen titles the incongruity of the naming convention really stands out.
crono141 @ Jan 8th 2007 2:10PM
only ps3 people need to feel like pawns. Everyone who bought at 360 hd-dvd drive did so to watch hd-dvd movies.
The same cannot be said for PS3 owners.
DBX00 @ Jan 8th 2007 2:13PM
I wanted a HD player; Sony and Microsoft delivered at a subsidized price. Everyone wins.
Zack @ Jan 8th 2007 2:13PM
360 owners shouldn't feel like pawns because they decided to pick up the HD-DVD addon on their own, just like a lot of people picked up the PS3 primarily as a blu-ray player. The only people who got "pawned" are those who bought a PS3 for games and don't care about HD movies. ;)
alexanderwales @ Jan 8th 2007 2:58PM
"1. Cheapest Blu-Ray player.
2. Metal Gear Solid 4
3. Final Fantasy 13"
So ... you spent $600 on a console that doesn't have the games that you want yet? Why wouldn't you wait until the games come out and hope for a price drop?
ALH @ Jan 8th 2007 2:18PM
meh, makes sense, the only people who seem to know or care about this format war,let alone have the TV to suppourt either format are gamers or techys anyways
DBX00 @ Jan 8th 2007 2:19PM
At least PS3 owners will benefit from the additional space for game content while if HD DVD flops those people that bought the add on are out of luck and will have to purchase the future Blu Ray addon. It's your preference, but I'll take my chances with the PS3.
pandlcg @ Jan 9th 2007 10:43AM
@DBX00,
Apparently they are increasing HD-DVD capacity to 51GB. It's 17GB per layer and triple layered. Not sure what that means but here is the engadget link.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/51gb-triple-layer-hd-dvds-in-the-pipeline/
sheppy @ Jan 10th 2007 9:06AM
I own both a 360 and a PS3 (and a Wii but that's a seperate rant) and I do have to say this. BluRay was a bonus. Like MP3 playback in soundtracks for Xbox. BluRay as a gaming medium is needed (as even now, Kojima has managed to fill a BluRay). As a movie format? Well, they just saved me $500+ and that's a good thing. Especially since the movies I'm into are hitting BluRay whereas I scratch my head everytime I look over HD-DVD (thus, why I haven't bought the add-on yet).
Scooby Doo @ Jan 8th 2007 2:26PM
Umm...they mean pawned, not 'pwned'. In other words, you are the insignificant, front-line piece that can easily be sacrificed for a better position. The two opposing sides in this game being HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
I don't feel like a pawn because I refuse to participate in this game until a clear winner is determined, and I think a lot of us gamers feel the same way. I will eventually own all three systems, but I still expect to be buying regular DVD's for a long time after.
I think it's a little different for a PS3 owner than a 360 owner though. With the PS3, you have no choice, you have automatically purchased a Blu-Ray player with the unit. A 360 user had to actually want to upgrade and plunked the extra money down for the ability.
However I don't think anyone has to feel like a chess pawn. The most important thing is to flex as much muscle as you can as a consumer, which means spending the money on the new format and letting the movie studios know which one you prefer. Being an early adopter has its risks, and one of the biggest is that you may have purchased a technology which is replaced by something else in a short time frame.
vaylen @ Jan 8th 2007 2:59PM
So I can either get blu-ray and not get Universal movies or I can get HD-DVD and not get Disney, Touchstone, Columbia, MGM and Sony Studios movies...
As much as I wanna see the 6 hour version of King Kong and Steve Spielberg's greatest hits, I'm gonna have to go with the format that lets me see Spidey and Pixar movies.
Fred T @ Jan 8th 2007 2:37PM
Well, i needed HD content to feed my 70 inch SXRD.. so the PS3 was a cheapo BD solution.. works for me. I may pick up some PS3 games down the line as well.
Whats the issue here?
bandit @ Jan 8th 2007 2:53PM
so DBX00.... what happens to PS3 users if for some inexplicable reason BluRay goes the BetaMax route?
Filmfreak71 @ Jan 8th 2007 2:52PM
Eh??? How come only 400,000 people have Blu-ray players because they bought a PS3 - Sony said they sold just under a million units???
AsianStyle @ Jan 8th 2007 2:55PM
What about the people who bought the 360 hd-dvd add on without knowing that the player will become worthless when hdcp is enabled because the 360 does not have an hdcp compliant output?
David004 @ Jan 8th 2007 2:56PM
So there are 400,000 people in the United States that own a PS3. Hmmm.. that means 600,000 are sitting in Best Buys everywhere!
This just further proves...
NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE HD FORMATS!!!
Also proves no one cares about the PS3, but we already knew that.
JameyT @ Jan 8th 2007 2:57PM
#10: that was shipped, not sold.
Still proabably a now number.
Boss Tempo @ Jan 8th 2007 3:26PM
Taking your chances with BluRay is like saying Betamax, UMD, minidisc all might still win out because Sony is sooo good at creating media formats that stick in the consumer marketplace. Funny how people just don't learn from history and still believe Sony is going to win this one. Oh and then there's that little thing about the noticeable quality differences in BluRay and HD DVD. Anyone who has seen both will tell you HD is better, but don't take my word for it, as I am just a fanboy afterall. Go look for yourself.
And if you're fool enough to believe Disney won't be releasing on both formats the way most companies are now, then I feel sorry for you.
El Chino @ Jan 8th 2007 4:34PM
"So ... you spent $600 on a console that doesn't have the games that you want yet? Why wouldn't you wait until the games come out and hope for a price drop?"
Because $600.00 is not alot of money for me.
Next, you missed the part of where I said that I wanted a Blu-Ray player so why wait its cheap enough now just for that purpose alone!!!
vaylen @ Jan 8th 2007 6:52PM
It's actually easy to decide which high definition format is for you. Here are the movies which are exclusive to each format:
Exclusive to HD-DVD (you will only be able to view these movies in hi-def if you buy an HD-DVD player)
The Breakfast Club
The Deer Hunter
Casino
Fearless
The Scorpion King
Field Of Dreams
Hulk
Miami Vice
American Werewolf in London
Dune
Meet the Parents
The Mummy
The Mummy Returns
The Sting
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Jim Carrey version)
You, Me and Dupree
Accepted
King Kong
Waterworld
12 Monkeys
The Interpreter
Out of Sight
Slither
Spartacus
The Thing (1982)
Army of Darkness
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Waist Deep
The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Dazed and Confused
End of Days
Land of the Dead
Backdraft
Red Dragon
Sea Biscuit
Traffic
The Bone Collector
Spy Game
Animal House
Unleashed
Ray
Friday Night Lights
Pitch Black
The Chronicles of Riddick
16 Blocks
Happy Gilmore
The Rundown
The Bourne Supremacy
U-571
Van Helsing
Cinderella Man
Jarhead
Apollo 13
Doom
Serenity
Brokeback Mountain
Half Baked
Hollywoodland
American Pie series
The Aviator
The Black Dahlia
The Blues Brothers
Conan the Barbarian
Dante's Peak
The Lemon Drop Kid
Idlewind
The Return
Scoop
Exclusive to blu-ray (you will only be able to view these movies in hi-def if you buy a blu-ray player)
Spiderman
Spiderman 2
Pirates of the Carribean 1
Pirates of the Carribean 2
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
A Bugs Life
Finding Nemo
Monsters Inc.
The Incredibles
Cars
Remember the Titans
Snow Dogs
Dances With Wolves
Hoosiers
Silence of the Lambs
The Thomas Crown Affair
The Last Waltz
Species
The Terminator
The Covenant
All The King's Men
Flight Plan
Invincible
Pearl Harbor
Kung Fu Hustle
Talladega Nights
Annapolis
Enemy of the State
Goal!
Sky High
The Wild
Black Hawk Down
Little Man
The Brothers Grim
Dark Water
Glory Road
Gone in 60 Seconds
The Haunted Mansion
Click
The Big Hit
Dinosaur
8 Below
The Great Raid
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
A Knight's Tale
SWAT
Tears of the Sun
Silent Hill
Into the Blue
Memento
RV
The Benchwarmers
Stealth
Basic Instinct
Basic Instinct 2
Ultra Violet
50 First Dates
The 5th Element
Hitch
House of Flying Daggers
Underworld
Underworld: Evolution
XXX
Resident Evil
Casanova
Chicago
Gridiron Gang
The Guardian
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Open Season
Glory
Running With Scissors
The Tailor of Panama
Ladder 49
Marie Antoinette
Reign of Fire
The Prestige
Vertical Limit
Layer Cake
Aladdin
Armageddon
Bad Boys
Beauty and the Beast
Bram Stoker's Dracula
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Chicken Little
Desperado
Father of the Bride
For a Few Dollars More
The Guns of Navarone
Herbie: Fully Loaded
Kill Bill Vol. 1
Kill Bill Vol. 2
The Lion King
National Treasure
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
The Patriot
Go with what you prefer... But keep in mind, Universal is much more likely to change their minds and support both formats than Sony/Columbia/Universal.
El Chino @ Jan 8th 2007 3:42PM
And if you're fool enough to believe Disney won't be releasing on both formats the way most companies are now, then I feel sorry for you.
No actually I feel sorry for you because Disney has already stated Blu-Ray ONLY. Universal is the only one not on the Blu-Ray bandwagon.
DBX00 @ Jan 8th 2007 3:31PM
Boss Tempo
The quality issues were when companies used single layer blu ray discs; now that they are using the double layer the video quality is the same across the board. As far as I remember, Blu Ray did use some lossless audio that HD DVD has yet to pick up on.
Also, if you researched a little you would know that Sony was one of the major developers of CD's which started this whole optical storage device push. They also created the 3.5 inch disk and the minidisc is a success global, so I would say they have had some success in pushing well known formats. They've also developed several other things like SPDIF (optical audio format) and etc.
mietha CAG @ Jan 8th 2007 3:37PM
What about those, like me, who have both? How exactly did they account for that? And to #12, HDCP is ALREADY enabled on the PS3. Hopefully, it will remain a hardware issue, not software, and not be a problem. But with a 2nd 360 in development with a HDMI out and the Tivo-like service coming later this year, I'm not sure how the hell it will work out. I really hope they haven't shafted 10 million plus people who already bought a 360 by making it worthless by the end of the year. Sony couldn't pay for a better turn of events than that.
Marty @ Jan 8th 2007 3:53PM
Unfortunately for you, it is the consumer, not the large company, who ultimately decides whether or not one or both of the formats will succeed.
Saneless @ Jan 8th 2007 3:59PM
"No actually I feel sorry for you because Disney has already stated Blu-Ray ONLY. Universal is the only one not on the Blu-Ray bandwagon."
Yeah, because they had said they'd only release movies on Divx, NOT DVD. That sure held up eh?
Figboy @ Jan 8th 2007 4:01PM
Boss Tempo, your logic is based on the assumption that Blu Ray is a Sony only format. it is not.
Apple Computer, Inc.
Dell Inc.
Hewlett Packard Company
Hitachi, Ltd.
LG Electronics Inc.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
TDK Corporation
Thomson Multimedia
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney Pictures
Warner Bros. Entertainment
all of the above companies are part of the Blu Ray board of directors and have a stake in Blu Ray's success or failure.
Sony is the point man for this venture, simply due to the strength of the Playstation brand. Playstation is *SYNONYMOUS* with gaming now. Playstation is a popular brand, with a largely positive perception amongst the mainstream (you know, the people who will be buying your product in large quantities). The BDA decided that, instead of trying to create a new brand and establish brand trust the long and hard way, they'd just attach it to a brand that is universally accepted as a good, reliable brand, and associate that positive branding by proxy, to Blu Ray.
which is why the Playstation 3 (one of the most popular brands in the world), is packed with a Blu Ray player. the average customer will think, "well, Playstation is awesome, so Blu Ray must be awesome too." whether or not that is true doesn't matter, though, for the record, my experience with Blu Ray has been a great one. we have three movies on Blu Ray, and we don't plan on buying DVDs ever again. especially since we'll be upgrading to an HDTV in a few weeks. why should we buy a stand alone HD player, when we have one via our PS3?
Blu Ray also has the most support from the movie studios. 7 of the 8 major motion picture studios are making their films on Blu Ray, 4 exclusively, with the other 3 hedging their bets on both, and one being exclusive to HD DVD (Universal). also, the porn industry is backing Blu Ray exclusively.
we all know what happened to Betamax when the porn industry decided to back VHS exclusively, so i don't need to repeat it here.
the PS3 has helped Blu Ray cement a solid lead over HD DVD in terms of market penetration. if Sony has sold even close to the million PS3's they've shipped in 2006, that is an install base of over 900,000 Blu Ray players, as opposed to the 200,000 or so HD DVD player installed base.
Movie studios will be looking at that when deciding where to put their movies in HD. HD DVD has more to lose, as, everytime a PS3 is sold, there is a potential that the person will purchase a Blu Ray movie, and ignore the $600 360 + HD DVD add-on package, for their high def needs.
we are all being forced to make the switch from standard def to HD. the prices of HD TVs are dropping exponentially (i just saw online the other day, a 26", 720p HDTV with HDMI inputs for less than $800). it's only a matter of time before the penetration rate of HDTVs are large, and what will those people want to go with those TVs? HD content. as it stands, Blu Ray will have more of that HD content, due to it's larger support from movie studios and video game developers and publishers.
hell, the Best Buy near my home in Los Angeles has a Blu Ray section that is practically bare, as people are buying up the movies. the HD section, on the other hand, is always full.
Blu Ray will also be used for games, so even if, for some reason, movie sales die off, developers will never turn away from added disc capacity. they love it. how many developers that don't work for Microsoft have said that the larger storage capacity of Blu Ray was a bad thing? it doesn't encourage sloppy coding, it encourages and allows developers to make the game they planned originally, and not have to cut corners to cram the game onto a smaller disc.
i've seen HD DVD and Blu Ray movies, and i have to say, both formats are great. i don't know who i'd give the edge to, as they both look really good.
with that said, i'm going to go with the format with the most content. Universal is great and all, but you can't argue with the lineup of movies coming to Blu Ray. you won't see Spider-Man, Pixar films, X Men, Star Wars (you know an HD version is coming. friggin' Lucas) and too many others to mention, on HD DVD. not anytime soon.
each PS3 sold is a nail in the coffin of HD DVD (as a lot of people, even out of curiousity, will by a Blu Ray movie to watch). unless all 10million 360 owners buy that HD DVD add on, HD DVD is looking more like the new Betamax by the day.
the PS3 has shipped 1 million in the US (and potentially sold over 900,000 units), roughly 500,000 in Japan, and hasn't even *LAUNCHED* in Europe yet.
i'm not going to be as presumptuous as to declare Blu Ray the winner, but looking at the unbiased facts, it clearly has the upper hand, and is honestly, the safer bet (at least for those that bought a PS3, and not a stand alone BD player). the HD DVD add on is for movies only. if that fails, enjoy the $200 paperweight. if Blu Ray fails, you still get HD games at 720-1080p to enjoy on your HDTV when the obligatory shift from SD occurs. it's really a no brainer.
AsianStyle @ Jan 9th 2007 9:11AM
#19 I know the PS3 is hdcp compliant, but no company has enabled hdcp encryption to their movies yet. When all movies become hdcp enabled, if they are not played on an hdcp compliant machine the output resolution will be 480p. Soon hdcp will be enabled and the xbox 360 hd-dvd drive will become a worthless hd player that displays 480p movies. Unless you buy the xbox 360v2 with the hdmi out.
The ZeroCorpse @ Jan 8th 2007 4:34PM
I'll gladly give up Disney for Universal on my HD-DVD add-on.
I refuse to support Blu-Ray unless I have absolutely no choice. HD-DVD is the better format, with better compression, and lower overhead costs. If Blu-Ray wins, then I have no problem having paid for the 360 HD-DVD drive, as I'm already getting my money's worth out of it. Even as a separate DVD drive for movies, it's worth it to prevent my 360's optical drive from being used all the time. If HD-DVD bombs, I still have an external HD-DVD drive that works on my 360 and my Mac, and I'll still have media that works on it.
I most likely won't get a PS3 under any circumstances. It's proven to be garbage, and not worth the trouble. I'd sooner buy a dedicated Blu-Ray player than sully my entertainment center with the abortion that Sony wrought.
Kruegmeister @ Jan 8th 2007 4:20PM
Gamers who bought a PS3 did not get pwned or pawned.
A lot of the New games will be taking advantage of the Extra Capacity that Blu-Ray has to Offer, the Metal Gear Solid Developer already is wanting the 50Gig Version of Blu-Ray because they are filling the 25 Gig single Layer version. Can you say "5 Disc 360 Version"
The People who did want a BluRay Player got it Cheap at $499 for the PS3.
The 360 Owners who wanted the HD Player got pwned because you need the HardDrive version at $399 plus the Addon HD-DVD at $199 = $600.
If you want the Extras along with your system the 360 is the more expensive system.
I hope the Movie Studios start to use that Dual Format Disc that Warner Brothers has come up with. I would hate to be left out in the Cold on some movies because of a Format War.
Xboxsucks @ Jan 8th 2007 10:08PM
I hope both HDDVD and Blu Ray both flop.
Steve2 @ Jan 9th 2007 3:21AM
What kind of report is this? There are far more than 400,000 PS3s sold. They sold 200,000 in the US in the first week.
Which portions of this article are at all accurate?
The ZeroCorpse:
BluRay supports all the same compressions as HD-DVD. It also supports MPEG-2.
And having seen banding in Superman Returns (VC-1) and X-Men 3 (H.264) and not in Sony's MPEG-2 releases, I think I'm more sold on MPEG-2 than ever right now.
Also note you're giving up Fox if you go with HD-DVD.
As another note, X-Men 3 has 7.1 lossless audio on it, using DTS-HD. this audio cannot be conveyed over S/PDIF, only the audio sectio of HDMI, so even if HD-DVD supported it (and it might some day), no 360 can output it.
For whatever it matters, the 360 HD-DVD drive is not quite as capable as a PS3 for playing HD movies. I'm not sure the war will be won on technical grounds though. When Universal brings out Heroes and BSG on HD-DVD and not BluRay, it will have a big impact, IMHO.
Qtrain2brooklyn @ Jan 8th 2007 9:24PM
Blue Ray owns!
no sense in arguing with a bunch a fanboys who are always looking for an opportunity to bash Sony.. I like the idea of having a Blue Ray player already installed in my PS3. You go ahead and add extra parts to your entertainment center.
apoc06 @ Jan 8th 2007 7:46PM
"...HD-DVD is the better format, with better compression, and lower overhead costs. If Blu-Ray wins, then I have no problem having paid for the 360 HD-DVD drive, as I'm already getting my money's worth out of it. Even as a separate DVD drive for movies, it's worth it to prevent my 360's optical drive from being used all the time. If HD-DVD bombs, I still have an external HD-DVD drive that works on my 360 and my Mac, and I'll still have media that works on it."
Out of respect for the number of your accrued stars, how could you make a comment like that?
Both formats share the same compression specifications. Perhaps some studios are releasing content in the inferior mpeg2 codec, but both formats are able to use the exact same codecs. I thought everyone understood this by now. The only difference between the two formats is the amount of space available on disc, and the method they use to provide disc interactivity/ navigation. What people seem to overlook these days is that "quality" [in terms of use in side by side comparisons] generally is a result of the ability of the device you play the content on, not always the content itself.
No matter the codec, less compression equates to less artifacts, higher bitrates and better quality. Here is where the extra space Blu-ray provides could theoretically trump HD-DVD.
As far as overhead costs, have you noticed that Blu-ray movies are generally the same price or cheaper than HD-DVD counterparts? Where is this overhead savings? I'll tell you where. Whereas Blu-ray does not subsidize the players as much as HD-DVD. The media does not have the added "subsidy tax". HD-DVD subsidized their players more and charges more per media to make up for it. Any excess goes straight into the pockets of the companies.
Lekko @ Jan 9th 2007 12:07AM
So... what happens if you plug a HD-DVD drive into one of the PS3 USB slots?
Would that make the universe implode?
Tyler @ Jan 9th 2007 6:56AM
anyone else looking forward to Blu Ray Burner ROMs for PCs? 50GB storage per disk would be AWESOME
maximus @ Jan 9th 2007 7:50AM
Something 360 fanbois fail to mention is that the Universal HD-DVD exclusivity deal runs out next month.
I don't care who wins personally but no way i'm buying a HD-DVD add on for my 360 that could easily end up being a door stop.
Content will decide the winner and content follows where more potential customers are. On that front Blu Ray has won already..
HD-DVD capable machines sold - 320,000 approx
Blu-Ray capable machines sold - 925,000 approx