Sony Slips, Reveals Blu-ray Sales in Free Fall

Fascinating news from the CEDIA show currently running in Denver, Colorado: Sony, as part of a press conference it was giving, showed rare (and perhaps unintentional) candor in outlining week by week sales of Blu-ray and HD DVD titles. The idea was to show how Blu-ray is kicking HD DVD's butt. That fact (see photo for detail) is reasonably apparent, but what's left unsaid is how severely sales of Blu-ray titles have fallen in recent months: from 60,000+ discs per week in the spring to about 30,000 as of this summer.

HD DVD sales are hardly encouraging, either. They've been hovering around 20,000 discs per week all year. As DailyTech notes, this is not merely a pre- or post-Christmas dip; sales of movie titles are not all that seasonal. Rather, it really looks like consumers are still just not that interested in high-definition video formats, demonstrated by the initial surge of sales in conjunction with the launch of the platform, followed by occasional bursts when promotions or highly-awaited titles are announced.

The big question is what happens next. Will dual-format players save the day or are some much-needed price drops going to be required to revive this market? Given that overall high-definition sales are at or near an all-time low, something needs to change to make this market viable in the long term.

LINK: Sony Inadvertently Reveals Declining BD Sales