Blu-Ray Rises From The Dead

Just over a year ago, prominent bloggers were declaring the death of Blu-ray. From tech.blorge, gearlog and even zdnet many were convinced that Blu-ray was going out the door and would soon be replaced with online streaming.

According to t3 magazine, in an interview with Home Cinema Choice magazine, a chief scientist at THX declared:

“Personally, I think it’s too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only become interested in replacing DVD when HD movies become available on flash memory. Do we really need another spinning format?”

“In the future I want to be able to carry four to five movies around with me in a wallet, or walk into a store and have someone copy me a movie to a USB device.”

Yet despite the naysayers according to Home Media Magazine, the  Blu-ray market grew to $80M for the week of December 13th to 18th - a new high for Blu-ray. At 14% of the market Blu-ray has in the past year grown 70% in the last year. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from Warner has been in 1st place at Amazon and has sold four times the 2nd placed Public Enemies put out by Universal. Terminator Salvation, another Warner film, Star Trek from Paramount and Up from Disney made up the top 5 slots. 

When we look at market share per title, the top seller Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had an wopping 24% market share for Blu-ray Disc. This is impressive for a media that only a year ago was declared "dead" by so many people in the industry. With prices dropping on players and movies the market penetration is bound to continue to increase. 

It looks like Blu-ray may have risen from the ashes.