Posted Mon Jun 11, 2007 at 09:13 AM PDT by
While Blu-ray still dominates the market with over 3.6 million PS3s sold, the HD DVD camp says that when it comes to stand-alone players, HD DVD has outsold Blu-ray by a 50% margin.
In a press release this morning, the HD DVD Promotions Group announced that it has sold 150,000 stand-alone HD DVD players, accounting for 60% of the total market for standalone high-def disc players. Backing out of those numbers, it would seem that by comparison 100,000 standalone Blu-ray players have been sold.
Of course, counting the PlayStation 3, there are still twenty times more total Blu-ray players on the market, but the HD DVD camp claims a significantly decreased "attach rate" (the number of discs owned per player) for the PS3 vs other dedicated disc playback devices.
This morning's announcement comes three weeks into Toshiba's most aggressive HD DVD sales campaign yet. In mid-May, the manufacturer began offering a $100 instant rebate on its entry-level HD-A1 HD DVD player, which has seen the price for that player drop to increasingly bargain basement rates as low as $199 at some retailers).
Toshiba has said plans to extend the $100 instant rebate to all of its HD DVD player models this week.
"Toshiba's latest promotional efforts are clearly resonating with consumers and showing that price is king when it comes to hardware," said Craig Kornblau, chairman of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group. "Behind the increase in sales for hardware and movies, you're seeing fundamentally lower manufacturing costs and ease of authoring for HD DVD. That's the type of model that can scale."
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