Early HD DVD Sales See New Releases Outperform Catalog
Posted Fri Jun 30, 2006 at 10:09 AM PDT by
With the HD DVD format now a full two months old, retailers are beginning
to report disc sales trends with new releases outperforming catalog titles,
reports Video Business.
In an informal poll of major retailers, VB found that new releases like '
16
Blocks' and '
Syriana' have handily outperformed such catalog titles as '
Goodfellas'
and '
Blazing Saddles.'
After only one week on the shelves, "'Syriana' sales are double that of
[May Warner titles] 'Blazing Saddles' and' Goodfellas,'" which had already
been available for close to a month, said Mike Barry, director of business development
at DVDEmpire. "The newer titles are doing better, as opposed to catalog
titles."
However, specialty electronics giant Tweeter reported that Warner Home Video's
'
The Last Samurai' remains the chain's top HD DVD seller, while Walmart.com
indicated titles with the most sales activity are those that have been available
the longest, including Warner's catalog launch titles '
Million Dollar Baby'
and '
The Phantom of the Opera.'
Though neither Universal nor Warner (the only two studios to release titles in the HD DVD format so far) have officially released
sales figures, "All of the titles that we [Warner] have released to date
on HD DVD are doing well and have met or exceeded expectations," the studio's
senior VP of market management Steve Nickerson told VB.