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Old 2012-04-18, 10:34   Link #45
SeijiSensei
AS Oji-kun
 
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
Quote:
Originally Posted by Last Sinner View Post
Blu-Ray is still a faze in Japan far more than anywhere else.
Did you mean "phase?"

According to one large Japanese electronics retailer, a majority of their customers now own a Blu-ray player. Single-function BR players haven't sold well, but combo devices with recording capabilities apparently do, as have PS3's. The BR disc association expects total sales of Blu-ray discs to outpace DVD sales in Japan next year.

Blu-ray purchases have grown especially rapidly among the fans who buy anime. Look at recent figures from the sales thread here. You'll see that Blu-ray anime releases for many titles outsold DVD releases in Japan last year, often by substantial amounts.

Quote:
That article orion linked raised an interesting point in the comments section. BD systems not allowing backward compatability?
What I read in that article is that sales of optical media overall have slowed in the US. I don't find that surprising. Disc sales are driven by a small number of blockbuster titles. Last year's Hollywood releases had fewer such titles. Also, no pun intended, the demise of Blockbuster Video removed a large buyer of optical media from the marketplace. The rapid growth of streaming alternatives like Netflix and Hulu, as well as the expansion of pay-per-view offerings on modern US cable systems, have all led to a decrease in demand for physical media. Those trends will certainly continue.

Were you referring to that flaming commentator who falls into the "Sony-is-the-root-of-evil" school of thought? I suggest you consider the source before accepting what he or she says as gospel. Extrapolating from Sony's decision about backward-compatibility on the PS3, a platform Sony owns entirely, to Blu-ray players, where Sony is but one competitor, is absurd on its face. As far as I know all BR players play DVDs as well. Certainly my PS3 does, as does the $70 BR player I bought recently for a friend from Amazon. We didn't look at every player on the list, but none of the ones we looked at were unable to play DVDs.

Quote:
The BD step isn't significant enough.
That's your opinion. Other people would disagree.

Blu-ray ownership is dependent on ownership of HDTVs. In the US that figure is estimated to be around 70% of households. A recent report from Accenture claims that Japan has the highest level of HDTV penetration of the countries they surveyed, though I can't find an actual figure in that document. A more conservative estimate I've seen reports HDTVs in about 24 million Japanese households, or slightly under half of all households based on census estimates. It may be that HDTV penetration hasn't advanced as quickly in Australia thus retarding the demand for BR players and discs. (Reports suggesting that HDTV penetrations are quite high in Australia apparently count devices that show 576p content as HD. In the rest of the world, the minimum standard is 720p.)

Last edited by SeijiSensei; 2012-04-18 at 16:59.
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