Dec 05
HD DVD is ‘Missing the Boat’ in Australia
Dec 05, ‘07 — Video Ezy and Blockbuster have thrown their support behind Blu-ray, saying HD DVD was “missing the boat” and not taking the Australian market seriously enough, Sydney Morning Herald reports.
SMH further writes, “Paul Uniacke, managing director of the Franchise Entertainment Group, which owns Video Ezy and Blockbuster in Australia, said the local roll-out of HD DVD had been too slow as its supporters did not see Australia as an important market compared with the US and Europe.
According to market-watcher GfK, 2241 stand-alone Blu-ray players have been sold in Australia to date, compared with 609 HD DVD players.
But Sony has moved more than 100,000 units of the PS3, which has a built-in Blu-ray player. Only 2461 add-on HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, which cost $249.95, have been sold so far.
The trend in player sales is consistent with sales of HD movies. More than 102,000 Blu-ray movies have been sold to date, as against just under 18,000 HD DVD movies.
Blockbuster in the US has supported Blu-ray exclusively for months and, locally, its head of product, John McKay, said Blockbuster would buy only Blu-ray titles “for the foreseeable future”.” More at SMH.