Andre Yoskowitz
30 Apr 2008 18:29
Despite Blu-ray's victory over rival format HD DVD, it seems Blu-ray player sales are falling or seeing little to no growth in various markets.
The latest figures, according to the NPD Group, show that Blu-ray standalone players sales (excluding the PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray PC drives) have mostly decreased since the beginning of 2008, or seen no growth. Sales dropped 40 percent in the US from January to February and saw only a 2 percent increase from February to March.
The numbers don't seem to make sense though. HD DVD died out in February, yet sales have sputtered. One likely reason is price. Blu-ray players were selling for an average of $400 USD during March while just 3 months earlier in the holiday season they were selling for closer to $320 USD. An even better reason, according to NPD, is that standard definition DVD is "good enough" for the average consumer and that the upgraded video, audio and features just aren't worth the premium in price, at least not yet.
To back up their analysis, NPD cites that upconverting DVD player sales have increased 5 percent year over year so far compared to standard DVD player sales which have dropped 40 percent in the same period.