As reported previously (see “HD Format War Developments“), Warner Bros. Entertainment will be releasing its high-definition titles “exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year”. A few days later the Financial Times reported on rumors that Paramount was set to follow suit (see FT.com, “Paramount in HD blow“), though Bloomberg.com (see “Paramount Denies Report It Will Drop Toshiba’s HD DVD (Update2)“) reported shortly after that Paramount was denying those rumors, though the official statement was carefully worded.
My last report (see “More HD War Developments Out of CES“) covered rumors that Universal (which, along with Paramount, represents the two remaining major studios supporting the HD DVD format exclusively) may change its decision to back HD DVD, including an excerpt from a story published by Variety (see “Blu-ray could win high-def battle“).
In the last week, I’ve read some more news of interest to those following this story.
Engadget has the latest Nielson Videoscan numbers (see “Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending January 13th, 2008“), which do not paint a pretty picture for the HD DVD format:
Click here for higher resolution at Engadget
As you can see above, chronologically, HD DVD has increasingly lost market share. Per Engadget, who reports these numbers weekly, the numbers shown in week ending 1/13 are likely to become the norm, with no key exclusive titles coming to HD DVD in the near term.
Click here for higher resolution at Engadget
Looking at the top ten titles, also per Engadget, this may be the first week in which all titles in the top ten are of the Blu-Ray format.
Also, per a different Engadget report (see “Amazon: $129 Toshiba HD-A3 with 7 HD DVDs and free shipping“), you can buy the HD-A3 (Toshiba’s third generation HD DVD player) for $129 shipped, with 7 free HD DVDs. Even with such incredible promotions (Amazon also has had many “up to 50% of” sales of late), the format still lags far behind it’s competitor.
There is also an interesting story on CNET’s blog, Crave (see “Can anything save HD DVD?“), which recounts the recent troubles of the format as well as offers speculation about the prospects of Toshiba or Microsoft buying a studio to keep the format alive. The reasoning suggests that there are no obvious or perhaps even plausible options.
Jason De Bord