RSSAnalyst revises 2008 Blu-ray sales downward by 25%
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published October 20, 2008, 4:49 PM
Due to the stinging blows dealt by the economy these days, some analysts are now predicting bleak sales, both for the holiday season and 2008 as a whole, for Blu-ray players and many other CE products in the not-so-cheap category.
Back in about the second quarter of this year, Parks Associates predicted that Blu-ray player unit sales, not including Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles, would total about 5 million globally this year, up from about 800,000 Blu-ray players and 800,000 players for Toshiba's competing HD DVD format sold in 2007.
Parks also forecast that annual Blu-ray player unit sales would jump eightfold within four years to about 40 million, and that annual HDTV would increase 60% by 2012.
"By all counts, sales of both Blu-ray players and HDTVs were such that we did not [foresee] economic concerns impacting consumer purchases or intentions -- at least not at that point," said Kurt Scherf, principal analyst at Parks, in an e-mail to BetaNews today. "It looks like the significant contraction of purchases started occurring in September, and we're waiting to see what kinds of real numbers begin to emerge to verify this."
In the interim, Scherf estimates it's likely that total sales of Blu-ray players will drop at least 25% from the firm's original projections to about 2.2 million players in the US and 4.3 million worldwide. He told BetaNews that Parks is also currently working on revised HDTV sales forecasts.
Meanwhile, in a survey showing that 26% of consumers plan to spend less than last year on the holidays, NPD Group has identified televisions and sunglasses as two of the "season's bright spots."
In a report, the analyst group cited other research performed by NPD as indicating that, with the conversion to digital TV still scheduled for February 2009, many consumers are looking to buy new digital TVs. NPD's survey results also demonstrated, though, that, at 29%, "VHS and DVD discs" will be the third most popular holiday gift this season, following apparel at 49% and toys at 37%.
Books landed in fourth place at 27%, electronics in fifth place at 23%, and video games in sixth place at 22%. NPD's electronics category encompasses TVs in addition to home theater systems/DVD players/recorders, GPS systems, cell phones, computers, and a number of other CE products.
On the other hand, Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies, thinks that items priced below $200 -- a description that doesn't typically apply to either Blu-ray players or HDTVs -- will be best positioned this holiday season.
"Likely to take a hit are the higher price points. Shoppers will come in and browse, but they'll probably leave with smaller packages. Products like expensive flat-panel TVs, fancy notebooks, gaming desktops, and high-end phones will likely remain on the shelves in unprecedented numbers," according to Kay.
Earlier this month, Sony reduced the prices of some of its Blu-ray players by $100. Still, though, the least expensive BD Live-enabled box is priced at $299.
BLu-Ray will be a Niche. The future is in on demand and downloadable. Just like with Music , but it will happen faster. If I can sit in my chair, push a few buttons ont eh remote and get an HD Movie for a 1/4 of the cost, why would I invest in a $300+ players and a bunch of $20 discs.
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|Blu-Ray’s conquered the HD format war, but its design and technical limitations mean the current format is as good as it’ll get. Sony says it’ll be the last optical format, after which, we’ll move way from shiny discs altogether.
See, it’s all down to the limitations of lasers and the discs themselves.
Speaking at IFA, Taka Miyama, Sony’s product strategy manager for home video marketing in Europe told us: “Blu-Ray is the final format for the optical disc. We don’t have a shorter laser. In the future, if we have a physical media format, it will change physically. It won’t look like an optical disc.”
That suggests we’ll move to a Flash-based medium, or maybe holographic storage, but Miyama’s not giving anything away.
“I don’t know what sort of technology we will have in the future,” he said, “but while using lasers and optical discs, this is the final format.”
Final Format eh?? From the BR mouth itself...funny but this disc media is here for years according to the BloRay f**s
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|A VAST majority of people DO NOT have 7.1 receivers. There are a lot more people with 5.1. The only reason to jump into BR is because it CAN do these "special" features?? The average Joe will not say so...
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|Oh please like i've said numerous times before BR is just a decent backup medium it will never gain a hold the size of the dvd market and especially during a global depression. It just isnt going to happen. It's a niche market and as some poster has already said Sony hasnt made a decent industry standard for about 2 decades. The problem lies within Sony and I for one am glad people are wising up to Sony and how they want to become the "ONE" company owning all standards. As for the poster that said all BD players can upscale DVD's, very true but are they at the same price as DVD players? I think not. Also I can get 5.1 surround on a DVD quite nicely, why the hell would I want 7.1 with all the fandangled extras that BD supports? It just isnt worth upgrading my surround sound system just for the sake of BR and it's audio features.
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|It's a good thing you only represent 1 user out of several billion.
Are they are cheap as DVD players? No, but how long have dvd players been around? What about VHS? VHS players make DVD players look hella expensive. I can get a VHS player for $5 compared to about 10-15 for a cheap DVD player. Give BRD the time and it will go down as it already is. Just because you aren't paying attention to it doesn't mean it isn't happening. I remember when paying $100 for an APEX DVD player was a good deal and on the VERY low end of DVD players.
Who needs more than 5.1? So, let me follow your logic, because you don't need/want it no one does? Is this the case? Again, I am glad you represent all of the potential users out there.
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|Do you have a point???
Given enough time??? In the ever increasing shortening of product lifecycles, who cares.
NOT ONE enterprise solution has chosen to use BR for ANY backup or archiving scheme!
And both tape and Hard drives are cheaper than BR for backup and archival purposes!
Entry and consumable costs are still prohibitive for tht e return afforded compared to upscaled DVDs, and as far as just give them more time....yeah, just give them more time and competing technologies with much larger capacities will eclipse it.
Lets see, let's just compare the price of a BR disk with its now relatively puny capacity to the cost of a 250GB or larger hard drive...
Who cares about BR?
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|OK, Where in any marketting campaign has BRD or ANY optical media been deemed a reliable backup solution? I have not seen one marketting ploy where BRD was vowed to be a good backup solution. BRD is not meant for PC Archiving. Yes, you can do it, but its not meant for that. Just as any sys admin worth his weight will tell you, DVD is not either. Tape or magnetic media will always supercede that of optical. So yes, you are right on that aspect, but that does not mean BRD is not a very viable solution for home entertainment.
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|Funny, did you forget inorder to take "advantage of 7.1 sound you are required to purchase a receiver capable of producing 7.1"
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|With prices falling down so quickly it's getting very cheap to use BD-R discs for backup purposes both for businesses and home users.
20 TDK or Sony BD-R 4x 25GB single layer discs, which means 500GB of storage, already cost even less than an external Seagate or WesternDigital 500GB USB drive (if you buy them from Japanese sellers and shops)
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|why spend additional monies on a backup medium that costs more than conventional mediums. By the time you bloray fans are expeciting bloray to be mainstream the rest of the world would have moved onto the next more reliable more efficent tech to handle the needs. On top of that it will be more cost friendly (as long as its not distributed by Sony)
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|The fact is that there are MANY optical storage and backup solutions for DVD in the enterprise space. Not for BR.
And for home use, Hard drive storage is still more economical!
BR is an over-priced niche product that arrived too late to privide any meaningful use, and its lifecycle will be superceded by evolving products as well as the advance of alternative existing technologies.
At best, BR is a footnote.
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|Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3500320NS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive for 89.99 at NewEgg
Verbatim 25GB 2X BD-R(Blu-ray) Disk $7.99
Let's see, 20 x $8 = $160 versus $90.
Yup, that's comparable. NOT! (And we are not even figuring in the cost of BR drives and recorders!)
And you haven't even figured in the abysmally slow (can we say "glacial speeds") transfer rate of BR recoreding versus that of writing to a hard drive!
Even SS memory will quickly displace it in cost with infinitely faster write times.
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|20 TDK or Sony BD-R 4x 25GB single layer discs, which means 500GB of storage, already cost even less than an external Seagate or WesternDigital 500GB USB drive (if you buy them from Japanese sellers and shops)
You're kidding...right? How is using TWENTY blu-ray discs more economical and cost effective than using a single hard drive? Taking that philosophy to the extreme, we should just get 400,000 floppy disks if they were cheaper...
Seriously though...problem with backups is that you need the backups to be reliable and accessible. Having backups on twenty discs would not really fit either of those, as well as it is a royal pain in the a$$ if you want to try to retrieve files off of disc 17--or was that 18? Or if using a full backup, just one of the discs doesn't work? That would kind of ruin the whole set.
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|Show me one fortune 500 company using OPTICAL media as a backup solution. Optical has a lower shelf life and is far less reliable in general when compared to magnetic or tape based media. But whatever, I am done arguing with you over backup solutions. The purpose of this article was for the home theater side of things, not the business side. So by all means, keep arguing and posting. Have fun :)
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|You're right, I guess my 7.1 onkyo decoder is not capable of this 7.1 sound offered by BRD. Oh well, I guess it was a waste :-/
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|Genius, optical storage has been marketed and used by many - from IBM down!
Yup, and no one uses CDs or DVDs. LOL!
The fact is that tape and Hardrives offer a larger capacity and more cost effective alternative AS WAS MY POINT FROM THE BEGINING. And BR, despite the use of optical sotrage in enterprise systems, is a bust.
And I love your laughable "The purpose of this article was for the home theater side of things, not the business side." That is because there is no choice but to focus on this, as their has developed NO ENTERPRISE BASED SOLUTION FOR BR! DUH! And lacking such increased volumes and the economies of scale, that is simply one more nail in the BR coffin. DUH!
As far as shelf life, there are optical media rated for extended lifecycles far exceeding enterprise storage requirements, but playing in the HT market, you apparently are not aware of that.
But its cute to listen to you try to debate my point that BR is at best a niche product soon to be displaced by alternative media.
But since you are clueless about the larger world of optical storage, here is an excerpt from ByteandSwitch, one of the Enterprise trades from within the past 2-3 years:
"Thanks to new technology and compliance regulations, optical storage vendors are looking to WORM their way into the enterprise, despite numerous challenges.
Let's take it from the top. Optical storage, which uses light to record and read data, has historically been used by organizations that need a method of preserving information for long periods of time. The chief advantage of optical storage over other techniques has been its WORM (write once / read many) capabilities. As an archive technology, optical storage has faster access times than tape and is cheaper than magnetic disk.
Now that there's simply more data to store, optical storage is enjoying an uptick. IDC forecasts that approximately 30,000 UDO and PDD drives will ship this year, rising to just over 40,000 by 2007.
Within the last few weeks, several vendors have rolled out optical storage products based on the emerging Ultra Density Optical (UDO) format. Plasmon plc’s UDO and Sony Corp.’s (NYSE: SNE) Professional Disc for Data (PDD) formats give optical even more of a boost, by using blue laser technology to improve capacity and lower the cost of magneto optical (MO) drives.
Thanks to the sharper focus of the blue laser that reads and writes UDO and PDD drives, those drives store much more capacity than older optical technology. UDO disks hold 30 Gbytes, and PDD disks store 23.3 Gbytes. MO, which uses a red laser, maxes out at 9.1 Gbytes per disk.
Since mid-May, Plasmon rolled out two midrange optical UDO libraries and an UDO appliance for healthcare applications; FileNet Corp. (Nasdaq: FILE) and KOM Networks Inc. announced their software supports UDO; and StorageQuest Inc. brought out an appliance that supports UDO and DVD optical libraries. (See Plasmon Extends G-Series, FileNet Intros P8 ASAR, KOM Supports Plasmon's UDO, and StorageQuest Demos Net Archiving.)
An even more advanced technology -- holographic optical -- is also on its way, pioneered by InPhase Technologies Inc., Aprilis Inc., and Japanese-based Optware (see Compliance Hoists Holograph Hopes). Holographic disks hold 200 Gbytes of data. HO is more than a year away from commercial availability and will likely show up first to store high-definition TV images for broadcast companies.
All these developments signal a surge in optical storage, particularly in industries such as healthcare and financial services that have heavier-than-ever data retention requirements due to new regulations.
There is a downside. Despite recent advances, optical isn't a dominant archive medium. Tape and magnetic disk drives also feature WORM capabilities now, and content addressed storage (CAS) systems such as EMC Corp.’s (NYSE: EMC) Centera, based on low-cost disk, are making inroads in compliance-heavy organizations.
"Optical is finding new customers and new applications, but it still faces the same old struggles,” IDC analyst Wolfgang Schlichting says. “Tape is more cost effective, and now low-cost disk is becoming a strong competitor as well.” Several vendors see optical storage as a supplement to CAS or other disk-based archiving systems.
Another challenge is that not all optical storage is created equal. Industry sources agree Plasmon’s UDO is running well ahead of Sony’s PDD as far as blue laser optical formats. Plasmon got its drives out first, and insiders say it’s done a better job of marketing them than Sony. Plasmon has an OEM deal with Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), and it anticipates an OEM deal with IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM). (See HP Expands Tiered Storage.)
“There’s a transition from MO, and it’s clearly going more to UDO,” says an executive of a company that partners with Plasmon and Sony. “Sony hasn’t made a big enough impact to make anybody take notice.”
More competition is in the works, too. HP and Verbatim -- a division of Mitsubishi Corp. -- are also looking to ride the UDO train. HP sells optical jukeboxes through its OEM deal with Plasmon, and Verbatim sells UDO WORM disks for HP and Plasmon drives and jukeboxes."
Still, alternative technologies such as tape, MO, and now solid state continue to provide cost effective scalable alternatives.
Optical storage has definitely been in the enterprise space, even if you are clueless as to its historical uses. But BR has been ignored.
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|Aside from you valid point about using BR, there absolutely are backup management solutions that do exactly what you lament. The archiving and easily trackable and manageble access of huge stores of archived data.
A classic example of such a system in IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). And who cares if its disk 17 or 18 when it an handle 100's of thousands of such resources!
But no one is using BR!
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|oh ok.. Good for you... ..
I on the other hand as well as many dont have a receiver for this.. nor would we care to purchase this so again read the quotes here "required to purchase a receiver capable of producing 7.1"
IMO.. it was a waste.. tell me where you have taken advantage of this.. and i forgot to add *golf clap* 2 u
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|BD-R 25GB TDK or Sony you can order from Japan at $6 approx including shipping.
Hard Drives and Flash memories are not more reliable than Blu-Ray optical storage. If you want to use HDUs for storage you need redundancy which means you need a rack with RAID-5 or RAID-6 hardware capability at least, or a rack for RAID and one or two RAID SAS/SATA controllers with RAID-5/RAID-6 hardware support.
Flash drives can't be taken seriously, they are too expensive and their expected MTBF is actually lower than high-end HDU drives.
If you really think that mid to small range businesses don't use optical media for archival purposes then you are absolutely wrong.
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|Crack don't smoke itself, folks...
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|Optical is totally a viable backup solution. There's lots of applications where 25gig burn and archive would be nice. The price just still blows when standard DVDs are 25 cents each.
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|Now if Sony were to manage to get respective Movie Companies to Release the Following Movies to come out on Blu-ray :- StarWars Double Trilogy, Alien Quadrilogy, Titanic, Lawrence of Arabia, Jurrasic Park Trilogy, Indy Quad, lORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY, and on and on, then I would predict a Booming Christmas for Blu-Ray Sales,... Dont you Think Du!!!!
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|You mean people actually believed the typical Sony lies, er, hype?
Suckers.
Sony hasn't had a viable "industry standard" that went anywhere for about two decades.
What they have had is proprietary schlock.
Lesse:
Beta
MiniDisc
ATRAC
SACD
...and now presenting...
Blu Ray.
Oh, and let's not forget the compatibility issues between versions of Blu Ray - gotta sucker those rubes twice, doncha know!
Yup - stellar products from a stellar company.
I'll wait for the truly sensible successor to DVD which ain't here yet.
Nothing to see here, let's move on.
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|You're right, there's nothing to see in your rant, move right along.
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|No I totally agree with roj, I just don't feel Sony can keep something like Blu-ray alive long enough for it to become an "industry standard," given their long list of failures in that department.
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|lots to see from what i read.. speaks the 100% truth. Bloray is slowly becoming a silent partner is clearance shelves across the country.
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|What a silly anti-Sony rant and what a nonsense.
Blu-Ray it's already a worldwide standard and it's the HDTV Optical Media standard in use.
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|I've been saying it all along ..... BD is doomed just like HD-DVD was. Except Sony and it's partners will lose more money than Toshiba when it's all over.
The movies cost twice as much and most people just don't care about HD movies because DVD looks pretty damn good, especially newer movies like Transformers, Iron Man, Indiana Jones, Speed Racer, etc..
The difference is not that noticeable. The remastered older movies is night and day but most people don't want to buy the movie for the third or fourth time like Close Encounters.
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|Who says they have to buy it a 3rd/4th time? All BRD players read DVDS and almost all upscale existing DVD's. I own a BRD player and only buy movies I feel would be justifiable to purchase again (Full metal Jacket, MIB, 300, etc).
As for difference, if you cannot see a difference between Upscaled DVD and BRD, you need to get your eyes checked. Upscaling is fine but it does not replace the missing pixel content. Standard DVD consists of 345600 pixels (720x480) while BRD consists of 2073600. I am sorry, but upscaling cannot compensate for the lack of over 5 times the number of pixels. Yes, DVD looks good, but BRD looks better especially on a nice 46 inch TV.
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|Transformers, Iron Man, Indiana Jones... you can't see any difference from the low resolution DVD release to the Blu-Ray 1080p H.264 35Mbps encoded release ?
You must be kidding, really.
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|To MOST the difference between upscaled and HD is enough to justify continual purchase of DVDs. As for IronMan i bought it on Blo.. do i regret this yes. I see nothing on the blo version that surpasses the DVD version.
I am diapoined at Bloray as with HDVD's there was more you could do within the movie. ucontrol for example or even the added features in the HD version of Transformers. The fact that this opion isnt available in Iron Man leads me as a consumer to believe that even the studios are starting to believe that this is a dying format and as with the rest of us normal ppl (excluding Fanbois who will continue to post pro sony OR sony Fantrolls) that this will slowly be replaced by an inferior tech (DVD).
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|"...items priced below $200 -- a description that doesn't apply to either Blu-ray players or HDTVs -- will be best positioned this holiday season."
Not so Beta"News". Here is 1 example of a sub $200 Blu-ray player. And, apparently this wasn't the first time a player sunk sub $200 (link in article).
http://www.engadgethd.co...w-below-200-at-best-buy/
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|While I agree that blu-ray is getting down there the movies can still be quite pricy compared to dvd.
Also that player is not future proof, there is no usb or ethernet port nor is there a place on the site for firmware updates.
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|BR Discs are definitely more expensive compared to dvd movies. It is not enough for the players to go down, movies need another msrp price break. Not everyone buys from Amazon at $10 cheaper than most major stores. As a rule, I never pay more than $20 for a single movie. I own 16 blu-ray movies and counting.
I never liked the term "future proof". No 1st gen, 2nd gen, whatever gen, BRD player has been obsolete due to progressions in BR technology. Some features DO require usb for updates, Ethernet port for online access, bla, bla, bla... But the movie will work in any past and present player.
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|if you don't need writing capability,
http://kakaku.com/spec/01254519003/
that's for JPY 14580, about 140 USD.
With writing capability,
http://kakaku.com/spec/01256019150/
that's JPY 20969, about 200 USD.
I'd say that's cheap.
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|What a nonsense. It's quite obvious that any new technology initial prices have to be higher than the outdated ones. DVD is outdated technology as much as CRT tv sets and monitors are.
When Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were launched the industry cut the price of DVD hardware and software, if anyone did notice...
The exact same thing happened with CD-R media and writers when DVD appeared, the industry cut their price simply because it was all outdated technology.
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|The BD player prices have come down, but the media prices haven't.
You don't think this has anything to do with somebody understanding that the real profit to be made long term isn't in the retail sales of the players but rests firmly in disc sales?
The BD movies do, indeed, look better than standard DVD upscaled on HDTV... the problem is that they simply don't look $10 per movie better.
If and when they rethink this retail strategy, as long as it comes before another HD scheme positions to usurp, I'll reconsider. Until then, upscaled standard DVD reigns supreme in my home.
Sheepishly, I have to admit that this is the first time in my life that I have not been an early adopter and stalwart embracer of new tech.
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|Media prices havent come down? I just bought Iron man and Dark Night for 25 dollars each, only 3 dollars more than the same 2 disc set of each at a local walmart. And these come with more features and digital copies of each film.
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|Native HDTV 1080p content on Blu-Ray looks a lot better than any upscaled DVD or SDTV source. It's well worth spending the price premium especially if you got a large 46inches+ display or a projector.
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|Not only that, but you can get 2 Blu-ray discs for £30 in HMV in the UK. Average Blu-ray price is between £20 - £25 (when they were £25 AT LEAST last year). So fully agree with you Metshrine.
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|BD prices at Walmart where I live in southwest Michigan are still an average of $10 higher than DVD. That is just how it is, I visit Walmart each week to pick up new titles because I like to watch movies.
Obviously, the stores here must not be getting the same memo that your Walmart receives.
Please feel free to compare the prices for Blue-ray:
http://www.walmart.com/c.../catalog.gsp?cat=616859
and the prices for standard DVD:
http://www.walmart.com/c.../catalog.gsp?cat=530598
Sorry if you don't like that... neither do I.
Also, keep in mind that what may be worth $10 extra to you may not be worth $10 to me... and it seems that sales figures are indicating that a lot of people currently agree with ME.
Call us whatever you wish, but we are not seeing the value in the BD offerings.
As to display size, I watch on a 38" HDTV in my den.
Actually, I don't know anyone currently owning an HDTV larger than 42". The pricing on sets from 38" - 42" seem to be very popular with middle-aged folks that are in my circle of family and friends.
I am not attacking you for liking BD... I am simply stating that I don't find the product value worth the investment at this point in time.
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|What a suprise!!! I was going to rebuy all my VHS tapes this year to BlueRay.. but most are not on the medium yet.. Oh wait I have already been copying VHS -> Xvid for years now. I put the tapes in storage waiting for the MPAA audit.
Or is that not allowed??
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|From what I see regarding the above it is clear there is a serious lack of understanding the format as well as experiencing it.
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|Rebuy? Why? Are you loaded or something? Idiot.
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|Some statements on BN are simply baffling enough to stop even though they'd better be ignored...
- Why would he not repurchase films he likes in a far superior medium with surround sound, HD and no deterioration due to repeated viewing?
- Why is it your problem if he is loaded?
- I have no idea about the guy but why would any of these conditions make him an idiot? I guess being called an idiot by a retard is an inverted compliment...
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