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Customers wait to buy Blu-ray discs
(Omaha World-Herald (NE) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 27--Are you Blu?
Maybe not.
The demise of Toshiba's HD DVD format hasn't led to a big bump in sales for Sony's Blu-ray stand-alone players, according to data from market research company the NPD Group.
Stand-alone Blu-ray player unit sales dropped 40 percent from January to February in the United States, and saw only a 2 percent increase from February to March, according to NPD.
Blu-ray recently emerged as the winner of a format war with HD DVD, when Toshiba, which created the HD DVD format, announced in February that it would no longer make or market its machines.
The tussle had been compared to the VHS-Betamax videorecorder clash in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with one format -- in this case, Blu-ray -- emerging as dominant.
People are moving to the new technology, but it's going to take a while, said Nebraska Furniture Mart Vice President Bob Batt.
Batt suggested that with the coming analog-to-digital television signal switch and the end of the high-definition DVD format wars, people might be feeling overwhelmed right now.
"The customer's going, 'What's next?'" he said. "Maybe people aren't reacting all at once."
"That stand-alone Blu-ray players haven't picked up significantly from HD DVD's loss shows that few consumers were dissuaded primarily by the 'format war,'" said Ross Rubin, NPD's director of industry analysis, in a press release.
Rubin said most consumers aren't investing in the next-generation players because they are too expensive and their old DVD players work well.
Wayne Grupe of Omaha has a collection of more than 14,000 films on VHS and DVD, but so far he has not dipped his toe into the Blu-ray format.
"I don't plan to," he said.
Describing himself as a collector by instinct, Grupe said his main interest where films were concerned was the stories.
"I'm not gung-ho about all the special effects and all that, and it is not nearly worth the price to buy Blu-ray when I can get the story for much cheaper on the straight DVD," he said.
Grupe said the price of a Blu-ray disc could be twice as much as the first-day sale price of standard DVDs.
"It's just not worth it to me when I don't appreciate what the Blu-ray gives you versus what the regular DVD gives you," he added.
"I don't need the bells and whistles, and I don't want to pay the cost to get the bells and whistles."
The Blu-ray "bells and whistles" include a high-definition picture and sound.
Blu-ray -- which is built into Sony's Playstation 3 game systems, as well -- has its adherents, Batt said.
"Every time a new release comes out on Blu-ray DVD, there's a group of people who are always waiting on Tuesday for the release," Batt said. "Every time something new comes, they want it. But it's not like buying bread and milk; not everybody does it."
Rubin pointed to the fourth quarter as a possible turning point for Blu-ray.
"This holiday season will be the best opportunity to date for retailers and manufacturers to promote Blu-ray adoption," Rubin said.
Batt agreed, with a caveat.
"Everything's a huge deal in the fourth quarter. Not just this, but everything," he said.
--Contact the writer: 444-1074, john.keenan@owh.com
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