Muggles Gone Wild: Potter HD DVDs Claim Top 4 Amazon Ranking Spots
Posted by Tyler Pruitt
closeAuthor: Tyler Pruitt
Name: Tyler Pruitt
Email: tyler@formatwarcentral.com
Site: http://www.tylerpruitt.com
About: As a life long Geek, Tyler is pretty much addicted to anything that has to do with technology. He became hooked on HDTV in early '04, and hasn't looked back since. Tyler is a HD video content addict, and has been since the days of recording HD movies onto D-VHS tapes.
At his day job in the aerospace industry, he is never too far away from the latest FWC related news thanks to Google Reader on the iPhone.See Authors Posts (339) on December 27, 2007
Filed Under: Deals, HD DVD, Retailers, Studios
In an unprecedented way, Amazon’s latest “Buy One Get One Free” sale has propelled the first 4 Harry Potter HD DVDs into Amazon’s top 4 sales ranking spots. These rankings include all DVD/HD DVD/BD media sold buy the online retailer. We know this is partly due to this weeks DVD releases getting pushed up to last Sunday, but it is still interesting none the less. We do wonder why Warner would have a deal on just the HD DVD version of these movies? Some might point to an excess stock of the HD DVD versions at Amazon, but without in stock #s nobody can know for sure.
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Excess stock on Amazon? They were selling just as well or better than the blu-ray versions (especially the giftset). Does every piece of positive HD DVD news need to be spun to the negative?
I was just posting one theory that has been thrown around. Do you have a theory on why only the HD DVD versions are included in the sale?
Tyler, yeah I have a theory. How about Warner actually wants to push HD DVD more? Or how about this one. Warner is obviously going HD DVD after New Years and this is one part of the promotional benefits they get from HD DVD Group?You see, my theories actually have more grounds then the overstocked inventory on amazon which is pretty ridiculous by itself when we knew that Harry Potter was already selling better then Blu-Ray counterparts.
I have no clue. But that "theory" is popular amongst the anti-HD DVD crowd. Maybe the HD Group worked out a deal with WB. It’s been plainly obvious since the advent of the format that WB prefers HD DVD because of its standard interactive features. They still have several big movies exclusive to the format (Batman Begins, Matrix Trilogy). They also pack 300 into one of their 1080i players. I would "theorize" that WB is trying to push HD DVD to the fore based on that knowledge…
Nfinity, I think you’re jumping the gun a little. You’re as overly-emotional as the HD DVD-haters. I agree that WB obviously prefers HD DVD, but we dont’ know what their intentions are. I guess we’ll find out everything next week.
And we will be on top of any WB news, as Dave and myself are both attending CES.
Maybe Warner wanted to know if all those cheap HD DVD players were bought by people who would buy movies vs. rent them or just use them as up players. Seams to me if Warner was behind this they got an answer, a loud and clear answer from the red camp.
http://www.themanroom.com/news/One_Third_of_HD_DVD_BOGO_Stock_Gone_at_Amazon_Promotion_Still_Running/1864
Whoa! That’s impressive. And maybe Warner did pull their titles from the promotion (besides, they got their answer as to whether they’ll move) I agree that maybe WB was testing to see how active the HD DVD userbase was.
Well, Either Warner Extended their commitment to the promotion or Amazon got more stock as all the movies are available again.
On the debate as to why a sale on HP moves on HD-DVD and not Blu-Ray, I think the biggest reason is probably that blu-ray already had a “sale” booked for this week on blu-ray titles, aka, the “up to 50%” sale, and in my past observations, it has been rare for more then one promotion to happen at a given time.
I think the HD-DVD side is hitting the BOGO style promotions really hard post X-mas just like BluRay did pre X-Mas and the HP movies being part of this HD-DVD BOGO just happens to be the luck of timing. Ultimatly, I think it is just the normal Eb and Flow of Sales and Marketing.
Well, obviously the HD Group had a pre-Christmas sale for current owners and a fantastic post-Christmas sale for new owners. Including the Potter movies just makes good sense. It’s not like WB hasn’t juiced every dime out of Potter 1-4 already anyway.