PlayStation 3 gives Blu-ray disc sales a boost

PlayStation 3 gives Blu-ray disc sales a boost Impact of new console in market "significant" by Amy-Mae Elliott

Tags ps3 261 news, 20 reviews Blu-ray 64 news, 3 reviews sony 257 news, 84 reviews >> More tags

23 May 2007 - News from the Blu-ray Disc Association suggests that the impact of PlayStation 3 on sales of Blu-ray Disc movies in North America and Japan after the launch of the console last November has been "significant".

Early market data sourced by the association indicates that a similar trend is developing in Western Europe.

Industry data for the period from 1 January until the end of April shows a change in market dynamics in the European HD software market.

Up until the PS3’s launch on 23 March, HD DVD was comfortably outselling Blu-ray discs. However, in the week after PS3 was launched in Europe, Blu-ray discs accounted for almost 87% of all HD disc sales.

In the period since 23 March, Blu-ray discs have consistently out sold HD DVD's rival product by a significant margin.

In the latest week that the figures report, Blu-ray discs outsold HD DVDs by a factor of more than three to one.

This means that despite the PS3 being available for only one month of this four-month period, Blu-ray software sales account for over 64% of the total volume since the start of the year.

For the good of the overall Blu-ray cause, it looks like these figures justify Sony's inclusion of a Blu-ray disc drive in their next-gen console, despite the delays this caused to the launch of the product and partly accounting for its high price.

Looks like SONY taking the console price hit for Blu Ray in its PS3 has been successful in terms of helping them win the HD format war.

Hurt them in terms of game console sales initially, but helping them win the much more lucrative and important in terms of profit, HD format war.

Europe will likely decide which format wins the long run, US is largely sitting out the war, waiting to see who wins.

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