Blu-ray to boom despite downturn
Analyst forecasts 100 per cent sales growth
World+Dog will buy more than twice as many Blu-ray Disc players this year than the number sold in 2008, it has been claimed.
According to market watcher Futuresource - a long-time Blu-ray advocate - 12m Blu-ray Disc players will be bought in 2009 in addition to Sony PlayStation 3 consoles and PC-oriented optical drives.
By comparison, some 3m machines were sold in Q4 2008 - a figure that Futuresource said was more than half of all the players sold that year, putting 2008's total at less than 6m, making for year-on-year growth of more than 100 per cent, if Futuresource's 2009 sales forecast proves correct.
It said it expects 6m BD players to be bought in Q4, up from 1.2m in Q1 and 4.8m in Q2 and Q3 combined.
Falling prices will drive this growth, which comes despite the world economic downturn.
“In the last quarter of 2008, average retail prices for standalone Blu-ray players fell by 15 per cent in most major markets," said Futuresource researcher Jack Wetherill, "and we’re going to see them fall by another 25 per cent during the course of this year.
"Add to that the raft of movie titles being issued on Blu-ray – over 1100 at the end of last year, on track to more than double this year – coupled with the increase in promotional activity and the continued benefit of growing PS3 ownership, and we’ll see Blu-ray continue to gather momentum in all major markets across the globe.” ®
COMMENTS
3D
Anyone who has been to the cinema and seen the latest 3D films will understand why no one cares about HD. HD is pretty at first, but then it gets dull and you realise it adds nothing.
3D as in the cinemas on new films are where it's at because that really is a big step forward in visualisation. Just wait until it hits consumer hardware.
Oh, and Mark, stfu idiot. He demonstrated scepticism because the source was known to be biased. I know you're the biggest most ignorant fanboy on earth, but I hoped even you could understand that if the source is biased, the story must be treated with caution. Apparently you can't though, because that's how ignorant you fanboys are and to you inflated statistics from biased source = truth if it suits your own fanboyist bias, but is the ultimate crime if a competitor does it going against your fanboy bias resulting in the ultimate troll and violent anger as you explode from the inside due to the level of idiocy and ignorance in your head reaching such critically dangerous levels.
I suspect that DVD will survive.
I think it is quite likely that pretty soon there will be very cheap DVD players that upscale to 1080p and play HD disks such as BD5, BD9, 3x DVD and DVDROMs with HD files.
Since BD5/9s play in most BD players, it is possible that these may eventually be found alongside the cheap DVDs found in markets. (The legal ones.) Some of these would offer better quality than DVDs.
Blu-ray Films
Now while I own a Blu-ray player I've not gone down the route of buying lots of films like I did with DVD. The reason is that Blu-ray films are mainly of the Craption genre so the more interesting films are still on DVD. The other problem is that Blu-ray highlights the flaws in the filming process and some disks aren't worth the bother.
@jonnyscavenger - I really doubt your favourite film on DVD looks better on your laptop than watching Planet Earth on Blu-ray on a 40" screen.
100% growth
So that means they expect to sell two discs next year then?
Does that just mean it is a double-pack with an 'Extra Features' disc?
