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Toshiba rejects Blu-ray victory claim

19 March 2007 17:31 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 6 comments

Toshiba has rejected claims from the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) that Blu-ray is winning the format war. Olivier Van Wynendaele, Deputy General manager of HD DVD at Toshiba Ltd, accused the group of using propaganda in their press releases and at CeBIT in Germany this year. The BDA and news sources have been reporting that Blu-ray is outselling HD DVD by a ratio of 3:1 in the U.S., which Van Wynendaele strongly denies.

He told Tech.co.uk that the reason for the sudden surge in Blu-ray figures was due to new owners of the PlayStation 3 console redeeming Blu-ray movie vouchers given to them by Sony. The vouchers can be exchanged at retail stores and Van Wynendaele said this has distorted the genuine sales figures.

He then went on to say that over 200,000 HD DVD stand-alone players were sold in the United States, compared to 30,000 stand-alone Blu-ray players, and criticized the BDA for attempting to count all PS3s as Blu-ray player sales when they have no proof that customers are using them for anything other than games or are interested in buying any Blu-ray movies at all.

He then made a very valid point; with high def player sales figures being only 1% of regular DVD player sales in the U.S., it is impossible for either format to declare victory at such an early stage. He did say, however, that HD DVD still beats Blu-ray hands down in terms of affordability and threatened that Toshiba would undercut any lower priced Blu-ray players with even lower prices.

Van Wynendaele went on to point out how stand-alone HD DVD players cost less than Blu-ray players, and admitted that even the HD DVD player prices are still too high for consumers.

Source:
Tech.co.uk

Permalink to this article

HD DVD group promises 70 new titles in 4 months (29 March 2007)

Toshiba lowers HD DVD player prices (22 March 2007)

Blu-ray will replace DVD within three years? (15 March 2007)

Blu-ray continued to outsell HD DVD in February (10 March 2007)

Blu-Ray supporter shows off HD DVD powered notebook (4 March 2007)

Sony to offer more affordable Blu-ray player (27 February 2007)

Blu-ray supporters move toward joint license (24 February 2007)

Sony says Blu-ray is winning format war (6 February 2007)

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Discuss this article!
Run4two (Junior Member) 19 March 2007 17:55
Those "vouchers" were not for free BD movies, just a reduced price. Hell, I received a free 3 movies rebate when I bought my A2 HD DVD player. Don't let this spin fool ya. Blu will win in the end!!! Take it from me. I own both formats and have no bias either way, but see the light. [ + quote]
sorrow93 (Member) 19 March 2007 18:10
earlier in the week it was claimed Blu-ray will beat normal dvd within three years I believe it will take more than three years for Blu-ray and HD to become fairly priced. I don't really want to waste my time on my movie collection now when it could become dead but hey I do believe Blu-ray and hd players will forever be backward compatible with dvd-r+r ... how long will it be before Blu-ray media is under $5 to buy and burn? for now I still love my dvd and dvd-r+w burning capability. one more note I hope Blu-ray accepts the adult industry because we don't need another Beta failure [ + quote]
janrocks (Inactive) 19 March 2007 18:29
Do we really need to go through all this again and again.. It's too early to say either way.. and there are no winners yet with between them less than 2% of total media sales.. irc.OFTC.net #debian-women .. Stuff Vista.. Stuff Micro$oft!! The revolution has happened.. Now we just need to TELL people! [ + quote]
AxFactor (Member) 19 March 2007 21:16
One problem I have with the format war is that less than 30% of the population owns a HDTV, and I just pulled that number outta my a$$ it reality I think it's less. But most people are still upgrading to just a DVD player, people are not ready to invest in a product that only few will see the results. case in point the PS3, ya it plays blue-ray, but when ur watching it on a 20" sdtv whose really gonna care between blue-ray and dvd? Companies are shoving this down our throats when most of us are not even up to par on what's already considered "mainstream". [ + quote]
duckNrun (Member) 19 March 2007 23:30
blah blah blah blah blah blah... I dont need any of it. Happy with what I got and I am not buying into this fake 'consume or die' culture. Three releases of the same bloody movie over x years (on dvd alone) each time being told I NEED this new updated version with all the new features and extras.. Yeah it MAY look better under certain circumstances but I'll be darned if I am going to rebuy 900 movies just because the people selling them tell me I need to if I want to continue to enjoy them. [ + quote]
ddp (Moderator) 20 March 2007 5:44
closed to prevent flamewar [ + quote]