With the new bombshell from Paramount, I thought it was time to revisit the HD Optical Landscape to see where the two respective format now stood in terms of box office marketshare.
Looking at the 2006 numbers, you can see that 84.3% of North American film revenue came from studios that supported (either exclusively or non-exclusively) the Blu-ray Disc format. Meanwhile, 39.3% of revenue came from studios that supported the HD DVD format. Note that for 2006, Paramount/Dreamworks is counted as supporting both formats.
With the new position of Paramount, it makes sense to recalculate the 2007 numbers based on the most up-to-date figures, and by counting Paramount as a HD DVD exclusive studio. With that in mind, the HD DVD numbers for 2007 go up slightly, with 48.7% of North American film revenue coming from HD DVD supporting studios. Blu-ray, on the other hand, takes a fairly significant dive, with 65.3% of North American film revenue coming from Blu-ray supporting studios.
So where does this leave us? At the moment, Blu-ray still has a significant studio advantage over HD DVD. However, if Warner Brothers were to be offered a deal too good to pass up from the HD DVD Promotions Group, we could conceivably end up with a nearly even pie, with both sides coming up just shy of 50% support. And that could force this "war" to continue indefinitely -- something not beneficial to anyone... other than Microsoft and Toshiba.
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