Quote:
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A year ago, the cheapest high-definition players cost about $500, according to David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy are now poised to sell machines at $199, with Black Friday promotions bringing the cost as low as $128. Player sales jumped in October compared with the same month a year ago, Mr. Bishop said, even as most other retailing categories had sharp declines.
Hollywood has been counting on Blu-ray to drive its crucial home entertainment business. After years of rapid increases, domestic DVD sales fell 3.2 percent last year to $15.9 billion, according to Adams Media Research. It was the first annual drop in the medium’s history.
DVDs remain a blockbuster business, but any decline is cause for concern because disc sales on a worldwide basis can account for as much as 70 percent of revenue for a new film. Blu-ray discs, which use a Sony technology that includes interactive bells and whistles, typically sell for 25 percent more than standard DVDs.
Underscoring the alarm, the major studios are working to push DVDs in general and Blu-ray in particular. The studios, along with several consumer electronics companies, are spending $25 million on a television and print advertising campaign that highlights coming releases from the Walt Disney Company (“Wall-E”), Sony (“Hancock”) and Warner (“The Dark Knight”).
“We think this is a do-or-die time for Blu-ray,” said Ron Sanders, president of Warner Home Video. “We must get it established as a favorite holiday item.”
Individual studios, meantime, have also been mounting solo assaults. Disney released “Sleeping Beauty” on Blu-ray and standard DVD last month, taking the unusual step of including a free standard DVD in the Blu-ray package to spur interest. Disney is also working with Panasonic on a “Blu-ray demystification” television and online campaign.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment staged a lavish party last week at a Hollywood nightclub to promote the Nov. 11 release of “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” on DVD and Blu-ray. A spokeswoman said it had been years since the studio organized such an expensive DVD event.
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If we read the quote in context, they are talking about declining DVD (optical disc) sales, which a major part of the studio's business. Studios have seen this coming and were contemplating what alternatives they have to counter that development. Blu-ray is one part of this counter strategy.
So with declining DVD sales, of course NOW is the time to get the alternatives up and running and to support them. Blu-ray is getting the support and they want to see results, as it would prove their strategy successful.
Why people are sometimes clinging to the words of companies exec's and take them at face value, i don't know. If they say, Blu-ray will replace DVD in three years: everyone calls b.s. (rightly so)
If they say "do-or-die time", suddenly that is a (valid) ultimatum? Give me a break, mein Herr...
