Japan turning Blu; Retailers continue to slash prices on players and titles; BD-Live players break the $500 mark; Mac users strike back at Jobs; BD passes the 1,000 title milestone; Mark Twain's quote is back, again.
Sales figure from Japan for September generally show how well technologies will sell in the West nine months or so down the line and they indicate that Blu-ray is quickly winning acceptance. BD players and recorders accounted for 31% of the market with the remainder made up of DVD decks. The figures represent a leap of over one hundred-fold from last September and, more significantly, a doubling of Blu-ray's market share from just six months ago. Yes, this is very good news and should fly in the face of the skeptics in the press.
Retailers are fanning the fire with a sub-$150 price point looking more likely for Black Friday. But the manufacturers are getting into the act, too. Panasonic and LG both launched their new Blu-ray disc players (with BD-Live) under $500 which means that the trend in lowering prices will only continue. Samsung joined the party by offering a free player with purchase of one of their TV's. It looks like the bundling and discounts are having a dramatic effect on purchasing with Sony's 80 GB PS3 gaining by 76% (week over week) and rising to No. 17 best-selling product in Amazon's Video Games division. Amazon also cut prices to as low as $14.95 on selected titles which means more and more will bite the bullet and head towards the deep Blu!
Mac users are having speaking out via comments within the blogosphere criticizing Steve Jobs for the lack of Blu-ray in Mac Books. Most point out to the fact that regardless of how you feel about playing movies, the 50GB of storage provided by BD should be more than enough reason to include it as an option. Maybe he's saving it for Macworld in the spring?
Blu-ray hit an impressive mark this week with 1,000 titles either released or planned. This is a big deal! It was a small news item in the mainstream media because they couldn't help themselves with their bashing of the product and its place in this economy. A few bloggers for some very well known news/web outlets made some bold and rather unfair statements that don't bear repeating. It reminded me that press is press and the more that Blu-ray becomes a household name the better. I just wish they weren't so negative (cut to me crying in front of a webcam with black eye-liner screaming, "Leave Blu-ray Alone!" :-)
What is also pleasing is how many times I've seen the old Mark Twain quote, regarding reports of his death being greatly over exaggerated, resurface. Those who proclaim the death of Blu-ray will one day feel as silly as those who proclaimed the death of DVD in light of P2P/EST in the early part of this century, or the death of VHS in the 90's because of the birth of VOD, or those who proclaimed the death of the Movie Theater in the 80's because of the birth of VHS, and so on and so on...these things take TIME people and with Blu-ray we are only JUST BEGINNING!!
