Blu-ray Glass Half Full?

It's all a matter of perspective.

We just received an email from a consumer group with the subject, "Blu-ray momentum continues to build!" As we reported a few weeks ago, Blu-ray sales are seriously slow. Now, another survey is out, and the reports aren't great either. Well, guess it depends on if you think the glass is half full or pathetically empty.

What do the numbers mean?

The NPD Group posted a study that determined that almost 4 million HDTV owners plan on buying a Blu-ray player in the next six months. That's just 9 percent of HDTV owners.

Our friends over at Gizmodo did the math. The numbers indicate that only 45 percent of HDTV owners are familiar with Blu-ray, an increase of 10 percent from last year. Obviously, that means that over half of HDTV owners don't even know what Blu-ray is all about. Sounds like a PR nightmare. How can you expect a format to succeed if your target consumer doesn't know anything about it?

In another survey of Sony's PS3 systems with Blu-ray players, over 50% plan on buying Blu-ray discs in the next yeaBlurayr. That means half of the people who already have a Blu-ray player are not going to buy any Blu-ray titles, and the same number don't exclusively rent Blu-ray movies.

If the people who already have players and HDTVs aren't embracing Blu-ray, who will? -Leslie Shapiro

Via Gizmodo

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