James Delahunty
22 Nov 2004 2:04
After 26 years of sales, Dixons will stop selling VCRs before Christmas. Sales of DVD Players at Dixons are currently beating sales of VCRs by 40 to 1. Dixons will focus more now on the sales of devices such as DVD recorders and devices it calls the "next generation of home entertainment systems". If you look back even just a couple of years, almost every home had a VCR, it was the ruling technology in home video entertainment but now sales of VCRs are at a crawl as DVD player sales are growing like wild fire. "We're saying goodbye today to one of the most important products in the history of consumer technology," said John Mewett, marketing director at Dixons, "The video recorder has been with us for a generation - and many of us have grown up with the joys - and occasional frustrations - of tape-based recording. We are now entering the digital age and the new DVD technology available represents a step change in picture quality and convenience."
The first VCR ever sold by Dixons was the JVC HR-3300EK, a piano key operated top-loader with a red LED digital clock/timer. After that VCRs were among the biggest sales world wide for years but now the demand has turned to higher quality digital options. The question that most would like to hear an answer to now is how long will DVD rule the market? High Definition TVs and DVD players may be the next thing to see in everybody’s home, but what comes after that?
Source:
The Register