Right now it's too early to tell anything. The earlier BD delays/cancellations can be traced back to Funi not watching what was happening in Japan (
Strike Witches-S2 BD-Box/movie release in theatres,
Sora no Otoshimono-Movie release on BD/DVD), so those releases may have nothing to do with it or everything. All we've seen are preliminary solicitations (nothing official) and the word from a PR rep who may or may not be correct. I've read the article and it's well-sourced, but it's too early to make conclusions with the data we currently have.
(It is plausible that Funi's decisions to release those two properties at those times pissed off Kadokawa, thus causing this whole problem, but that's merely speculation from myself.)
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Originally Posted by Ithekro
Well I can think of a reason for that in the US market. Japan and North America are both Region A for Blu-ray. Meaning "cheap" US copies on BD can be imported back to Japan for less than the locally made BD version costs...even with shipping charges.
For DVDs, the US is Region 1 and Japan Region 2. Thus while someone is Japan could ship the DVD back home, they would need a Region 1 player and thus it would be less common to "lose a sale" due to DVDs from America.
On the UK market, however, Western Europe is DVD Region 2 as well as Japan (though there seems to be some weird sub-region stuff going on in Europe) but Europe is Region B for Blu-ray. In theory, one could import a European Region 2 DVD to Japan, but I don't know what they pricing is like on the Euro or the Pound verse the Yen.
In recent times, some Japanese publishers have started to putEenglish subtitles in their Blu-ray releases right from the beginning. Thus they don't need an international parter, just someplace willing to sell at their prices. They have not been putting these subtitles on the DVD versions (guess there is a larger market for Region A BD than Region 2 DVDs in the English speaking world).
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If we believe what Manga is saying, then their market (Blu-ray region B) would be prevented from selling BDs, despite the fact that they would not be playable in Japanese BD players. That does not make much sense.
DVDs have an issue with NTSC and PAL, so despite the fact that Europe/Japan share the same region, European DVDs are very difficult to be played on a Japanese DVD player.
A lot of the recent English subtitles are on BD-Boxes from previous DVD releases and/or if there are no DVD releases planned, so that point is somewhat null. I've seen the same series have subtitles on both DVDs and a BD-Box. It depends on what the publisher wants to accomplish.