Wal-mart declares HD-DVD winner?

[Tekki]

http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback184.html

Im not biased towards either one, I dont care. I dont have a HD-TV and I dont plan on getting one until the end of the year. (I made a thread requesting pricing, and went with the opinions that I should just save more money and wait.)

That said, this article makes a lot of since and the prediction has a lot of weight. In my years of retail, you learn a lot about all retailers. I had an assistant manager who came from Target and talked about similar tactics used in this article used at his particular store. His Target used DVDs and Coke (Pepsi/Coca-cola)to do exactly the same thing. Drag the pricing down to nothing, or at loss to bring more people in to buy other things, like clothing that was marked up 500% over cost or overpriced furniture/electronics.

As I wrote that I remembered something. The local Wal-mart did the exact same thing with Gamecubes around the time they came out. They sold them briefly for less then regular retail to bring people in there to buy other things. I remember this for sure b/c at the time even my mom commented on it. She was frustrated that she waited in line to get one for my birthday just for them to do this about a month later I believe.\

EDIT: Dont stop at the article, he follows up questions and concerns in the comments.

[Scythiroth]

I know this isn't a great source of info anymore, but I remember hearing on G4 last night that blu-ray sales overall were slightly ahead, but not enough for either to be declared a "winnner."

[Gatsby]

Walmart may have decided the winner but in the end if the china manufacturing that will decide if wal-mart made the right choice.

[Mysterio]

Walmart may have decided the winner but in the end if the china manufacturing that will decide if wal-mart made the right choice.

totally lmao

[Tekki]

Bah I didnt edit my post fast enough. Like I said, read his comments as well. He addresses that. This is strictly a prediction, and from my experience, this is a prediction that carries weight. His best poinsts are the fact that retailers need a winner to make more money, which is true for media formats and that retailers will go for cheaper formats as well, which has proven true in the past.

[Tekki]

Another article that runs along the same lines:
http://www.homemediaretailing.com/news/ ... e_id=10557

(A freind and I are discussing this on AIM atm and he linked me this article)

[Scythiroth]

Competition tends to drop prices eventually, and this seems to be proof of that lol. I really don't care who wins anyways.

[Ichthyos]

Yeah, Wal-Mart has slashed prices on a lot of things in the past to try to get people into the store. There's an interesting story in the current issue of BusinessWeek about HDTV sales in the last 6 months.

Don't believe the hype about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD though... almost all the articles you read about one being ahead of the other are just PR hype. Some people claim the Blu-Ray numbers are inflated by including sales of movies that were bought using free coupons included with PS3's. Who knows how accurate that statement is. Really though, I don't see either catching on soon. For most people, DVD quality is good enough. I think combo players and combo discs will help things along, but people who are committing to one format or the other right now are just throwing away their money.

[divisortheory]

Competition tends to drop prices eventually, and this seems to be proof of that lol. I really don't care who wins anyways.

It can only drop insofar as the manufacturers aren't losing money on every sale. HD-DVD has a lower production cost, both for the media as well as the players. That's the key point of the argument, that Wal-Mart is going to pick one or the other to market the shit out of , and due to the lower cost of HD-DVD, it will be able to reach a lower price point, and therefore it will market it vigorously and ignore Blu-Ray until such time that Blu-Ray is dead, at which point other retailers will adopt HD-DVD since Blu-Ray will be dead at that point.

[Scythiroth]

Competition tends to drop prices eventually, and this seems to be proof of that lol. I really don't care who wins anyways.

It can only drop insofar as the manufacturers aren't losing money on every sale. HD-DVD has a lower production cost, both for the media as well as the players. That's the key point of the argument, that Wal-Mart is going to pick one or the other to market the shit out of , and due to the lower cost of HD-DVD, it will be able to reach a lower price point, and therefore it will market it vigorously and ignore Blu-Ray until such time that Blu-Ray is dead, at which point other retailers will adopt HD-DVD since Blu-Ray will be dead at that point.

That's true, didn't think about that.

And to the post above yours, I'll be sticking to DVDs for a while. I really have no need for either since you can only see a difference in quality on really good TVs anyways.

[Sonomaa]

the article was sortof debunked in the comments, and it said that blu-ray outsold HD 4 to 1, however remember that sony counts units shipped, not units sold (nobody else counts units shipped unless they specify it) so the numbers of blu-ray "winning" compared to HD are probably inflated and bias

[Gatsby]

http://consumerist.com/consumer/format- ... 250728.php

POS results. Top 10 Blu-ray sold 880 in a week..

Its hard to determine a winner just yet but if anything, walmart will prolly slash the prices using one vendor and then go to another vendor once they win.

[Tyche]

Im not HD-DVD savvy or Blu Ray savvy, but if im not mistaken, aren't some movie companies obligated to release their movies to one or the other, and not both. Example, all paramount movies have to be blu-ray (example, probably not factual). If that's the case, then it really doesn't matter in the end, as if you want to broaden your collection beyond what wal-mart declares to be the best coice, you'll have to buy both (or a combo-box when its available) anyway.

[divisortheory]

the article was sortof debunked in the comments, and it said that blu-ray outsold HD 4 to 1

That wasn't really the point of the argument for HD-DVD. In fact, sales of one vs. the other are kind of irrelevant to the argument.

[arlania]

Isnt HDdvd the lower cost one because it's the inferior of the two in a technical side? I remember looking up the specs for both of them awhile back and Blue-Ray was very better in what it could do then HDdvd. Although I believe that was the case in Beta vs VHS as well.

[Ninjadik]

1. "The scales have tipped in the hi-def format war, and the advantage is now all Blu-ray's. According to recent sales data provided by Home Media Magazine and Nielsen VideoScan, Blu-ray is beating HD-DVD by a substantial margin of 70%-30% within the first quarter of 2007."
http://gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=109828

2. "As of today though, Wal-Mart stocks both formats in limited quantities. And while recent reports have suggested that the retailer has begun favoring Blu-ray with more shelf space than HD DVD, Wal-Mart has made no public statements to suggest that it plans to be anything other than format-agnostic."
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news/sh ... iction/585

3. "This core is independently developed by Fuh Yuan, and is a joint project with TDK."
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=836632

4. "The guts are developed by Taiwan's Fuh Yuan with a touch of help from Japan's TDK."
http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/20/the- ... n-the-way/
[link deleted]

6. TDK is a founding Blu-ray company and is a Blu-ray Board of Directors member.
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_info ... Index.html

7. TDK is not supporting HD-DVD.
http://www.hddvdprg.com/eng/about/member.html

[divisortheory]

Isnt HDdvd the lower cost one because it's the inferior of the two in a technical side? I remember looking up the specs for both of them awhile back and Blue-Ray was very better in what it could do then HDdvd. Although I believe that was the case in Beta vs VHS as well.

I'm not sure because I'm not really a videophile and don't keep up with this stuff, but based on the arguments I've seen, I think Blu-Ray is supposed to be superior from a technological standpoint.

[Ichthyos]

If we're talking about the media themselves, single-layer Blu-Ray discs hold like 25 GB vs. 15 GB for single-layer HD-DVD discs. But really, who cares as long as it's big enough to hold a movie at 1080p?

[arlania]

If we're talking about the media themselves, single-layer Blu-Ray discs hold like 25 GB vs. 15 GB for single-layer HD-DVD discs. But really, who cares as long as it's big enough to hold a movie at 1080p?

Think in game perspectives as well as DVDs. You can store a lot more on Blue-Ray on a single disc that would require 2 of HDDVD. That's more behind the scenes and special menus on a DVD and way more in depth gameplay and enviroments.

[Minions]

If we're talking about the media themselves, single-layer Blu-Ray discs hold like 25 GB vs. 15 GB for single-layer HD-DVD discs. But really, who cares as long as it's big enough to hold a movie at 1080p?

G a m e s