NPD: Be Cautious About Blu-ray Vs. HD DVD Analysis
January 25, 2008
The week after Warner Brothers announced that they were ditching HD DVD for Blu-ray, many analysts chimed in saying that that the death of the Toshiba-backed format was imminent.
The weekly numbers from the NPD group then came in, and it appeared to echo the sentiment — Blu-ray had outsold HD DVD by an astonishing margin.
However, it was only a single week of figures, and NPD has now come out with a statement warning people against reading too much into the numbers.
“As you may have seen, there are attempts being made to portray NPD’s weekly sales tracking figures for next generation DVD as a trend. We want to remind you and make clear that it is not accurate to make long term assumptions based on one week of sales — a cautionary point that NPD has made as well,” the statement reads.
“The facts are that during the week that is being singled out, both Blu-ray disc players and software were being given away for free with the purchase of 1080p TVs. It is also important to note that the instant rebate promotions that had previously netted Toshiba’s players’ MSRPs to $199 and $249 had actually ended on Jan. 5th — causing an increase in HD DVD’s MSRP back to $299 and $399 during that same week. Since Toshiba’s retail price move on Jan. 13th to $149 / $199 — Toshiba is seeing very positive sales trends at retail. This reinforces the fact that price is a significant driver of sales. Toshiba’s HD DVD players represent a significant value to the consumer and the marketing campaign that just began is proving effective.”
For the record, the NPD Group is a market research firm and doesn’t have a horse in this race.
I just bought a Toshiba HD Dvd A30 for 156usd from Amazon. With the 7 free HD movies and the fact that I was in the market for a standard dvd player with up conversion anyway made the decision very easy for me. I had an samsung 1080p7 with up-conversion and when I did a comparison between the A30 and the Samsung with the same standard DVD material, I was amazed at the difference in quality of the A30.
At this point, I’m very pleased. I’ve never been happy with Sony since I bought Beta in the early VCR days. Back then, Sony’s greed was their downfall. If Toshiba matches their discounted players with a sweet deal to the content people, Sony’s greed is likely to screw themselves
Thanks NPD. I’v fed up with Sony camp that tries to print on people mind with “HD-DVD dead”. More I read, more I seen SONY, SONY and SONY. They are backing their own good with PS3, SONY Studio and $$$$, lot of. Both format are equally in pict quality but SONY Blue ray is picking your pocket more. Everyone has to remember one thing, SONY alway pick consummer pocket a big way. None of their product is cheap and recently (since 2000) their quality is not better than compititive brand. They are picking people pocket with tags and this mislead number is a lie, big way.
i’m just happy to see you come out and explain to people what happened. the blu-ray fans have really organized a media blitz worldwide. this is the normal time of year for slow sales so they are taking full advantage of the internet to wage a viral massacre. it’s pretty obvious from the way it is happening that the whole thing is somehow organized. i just hope the consumers will see through all of this bs and make up their own minds as to what is right for them.
somehow i sense that blu-ray fans are real fearful that toshibas lower prices will wake people up to the fact that the prices we’ve all been waiting for are actually here now.