Digital Home Thoughts: Blu-ray: The Future Has Been Delayed

"Hot on the heels of last week’s report from ABI Research noting that many consumers may not see the picture quality difference between Blu-ray and standard DVDs comes the latest Blu-ray sales figures from NPD Group. And they’re not pretty. According to NPD, sales of Blu-ray standalone players plummeted 40 percent from January to February, then rose a scant 2 percent from February to March. The general consensus was that once Toshiba dropped its support for the HD DVD format early this year, sales would increase. In fact, sales of Blu-ray standalone players remain so low that NPD has not yet released actual numbers, for fear that it would be easy to identify individual retailers. The research group will start to give actual figures later this year, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD."

Interesting. This story bring a few thoughts to mind. Firstly, I wonder how many people are holding off on buying Blu-Ray players in light of the recent demise of HD-DVD. I think there may be uncertainty built into some people now given a number of us have heard stories about how HD-DVD owners were just recently left in the lurch. Second, it is possible that the expected rise in Blu-Ray sales were thwarted by the super cheap blow-out prices by retailers of their existing HD-DVD inventory (though I will admit that this is a weak reason). Third, maybe there is a corelation to the sales of PS3's? Or fourth, maybe it really is the fact that consumers are not noticing the difference between an upconverted DVD and a Blu-Ray disk. Either way, I think it is time for the Blu-Ray group to step up its marketing effort otherwise the whole next generation media war would have all been for nought.