The battle between HD-DVD and Blu Ray to be the dominate video format has been raging for a few years now. For most of that time, neither format has held a decisive lead, but in the last six months Blu Ray has begun pulling ahead of HD-DVD.
Blu Ray is reported by Google News to be outselling the HD DVD format in Japan by a dramatic margin. A recent survey of more than 2000 Japanese electronics distributors found that Blu Ray was preferred by consumers, and that Blu Ray sales had increased by over 6% in the last quarter of 2007.
The survey is certainly good news for Sony, the developer of the Blu Ray format, who has been locked in a “neck and neck” struggle for video supremacy with HD-DVD. With potentially billions of dollars at stake, both formats have become bitter rivals–online message boards display the level of fanatical support that each format has among users, something which begins to appear more cult-like than a simple business rivalry.
The Japanese report showed that next generation DVD recorders using the Blue Ray format accounted for a whopping 90% of total DVD recorder sales over the past two months. Of course, Sony’s PlayStation 3 game machine also uses the Blue Ray format, so this also accounts for a substantial percentage of sales.
But even when you discount the sales of PlayStation 3 gaming machines, the Blue Ray format is clearly leading the pack in Japan, and this could turn out to have a great reprocussions on other markets.
Even though Japan is a small to medium-sized market in population, the country is highly influential when it comes to high tech devices and gadgets. For example, the cell phone market in Japan is significantly more advanced than that of the United States, or even Europe. Mobile phone TV channels, for example, are nearly ubiquitous in most Japanese cities, but virtually unheard of in North America.
Because the Japanese electronics market tends to cast a long shadow, their adoption of Blue Ray could signal the beginning of the end for the beleaguered HD-DVD format. European and North American electronics distributors tend to take their cues from the Asian marketplace. And the Japanese in particular have a reputation for being early adopters of the latest and greatest cutting edge technology.
The battle between Blue Ray and HD-DVD isn’t over yet, but when it comes to high tech products, conventional wisdom says, “as Japan goes, so goes the rest of the world.” We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out, but for now, things look grim for HD-DVD.
Related Business Directory Categories:
