Rich Fiscus
27 Oct 2007 0:03
Anonymous representatives of two movie studios backing Blu-ray technolgy are reportedly claiming Paramount is inflating sales figures for the Transformers HD DVD release. Based on Paramount's numbers the Title sold more copies than any other hi-def release to date in both the first day and first week of sales. According to competing studio insiders that's not even possible.
One studio source said "Here's the dumb lie: they've claimed to sell 100K in one day and 190K in one week. Exact point of sale data from 3 retailers that make up 62% of the high-def market show sales of 73K units for the week. Being very generous, they could possibly reach 125K-130K, which would barely set a record for HD-DVD." He added "It’s an outrage. They think they can say whatever they want and that no one will call them on it. They need to be called on it."
Data from a Nielsen Videoscan email does seem to cast suspicion on Paramount's numbers. Although no one from Paramount has disputed the Nielsen figures, at least one person explained that the additional units were sold by outlets like Amazon.com. Most Paramount employees dismissed the furor as simply more posturing by the Blu-ray camp.
However, such a big discrepancy between reported figures and reality could easily be chalked up to Paramount making a misleading statement to promote their format of choice. Sales records could easily influence both hardware manufacturers and consumers that one format or the other is winning the war, so it's hardly surprising that Blu-ray backers would cry foul.
Source: Deadline Hollywood Daily