Retailers Adjust High-Def Space
Posted by Dave Cowl
closeAuthor: Dave Cowl
Name: Dave Cowl
Email: dave@formatwarcentral.com
Site: http://www.blu-raystats.com
About: Originally from New Zealand, Dave now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Dave's day job
involves developing high resolution LCoS projectors.
Dave also has a strong interest in cinema and film making, and has
always been an early adopter - he still uses his Sony DVP-S7000 DVD
Player and also owns first generation Blu-ray, HD DVD and DTheater
D-VHS equipment.
Dave has been following the HD Disc format war since the beginning,
which resulted in the Blu-ray Statistics and HD DVD Statistics
websites, designed to track the studio progress with features as they
have released HD media product.See Authors Posts (349) on January 18, 2008
Filed Under: Blu-ray, Format War, HD DVD, Retailers
We see that Video Business is reporting that some retailers, including FYE will be dedicating more space to Blu-ray Disc than HD DVD in the wake of the Warner announcement.
Also, in the coming months, FYE plans to order only select, key new releases on HD DVD, while continuing to take in most new BD releases.
Other retailers like Best Buy say that they have no plans to change their mix, but are keeping customers informed about changes like Warner’s decision to drop HD DVD later in 2008.
No related posts.
It makes perfect sense. FYE doesn’t sell hardware, so they don’t need to put on any airs. Best buy and Circuit City etc are in terror over the thought that thousands of people could be returning their HDVD players within the 30 days of Christmas. I would expect we’ll see space shifting elsewhere after the 26th or so of January.
At Future Shops in Canada I’ve seen at least 7 or more returned A3’s open box around the stores, and I’ve been to at least 3 or 4 stores. The retailers want the war to end but I’m sure they’d prefer it to last at least until February to avoid more Christmas returns.
I think in general people are not aware of the studios and their policies. That, and stock already at stores, is one reason that the Paramount move didn’t change much of anything up until Transformers was released. The retailers really have little incentive to move quickly following the Warner announcement…
I would disagree, if only o the extent that the retailers want to say ‘come on in hd consumers, the waters fine’ and start to let consumers know it’s safe to buy into Blu-Ray with full confidence at this point.
WHAT A MINUTE!!!!
I thought that one of the reasons that Blu-Ray has such a big advantage was because they take more space at stores than HD DVD.
This ain’t news, it just… Friday.
Excellent news and of course a logical coice. Let’s hope that this can further persudade those moorons at Paramount and Universal to end this useless war.
Did Video Business also bother to inform us of the other shrinkage news on 1/18 at FYE? They’re shutting down 30% of their distribution centers and several stores. You would think that they’d be thinking of other things than the “format war.” Why do they still sell UMD movies and DVD-Audio/SACD?
My local FYE’s (Wash DC suburbs) don’t have specific “shelf space” for either.
All their hd discs of either format or on a single shelf behind the checkout counter, and all you can see are the package spines. Sad really, andno surprise they don’t seem to sell many. Store staffers even initally scratched their haeds when I asked where their “hi def” discs were. They had to ask the manager.