As we head into Q4 2008, its worth taking a look at the sales and release data for this past quarter, as well as since the inception of the format. All statistics in this piece are for the U.S. only.
In terms of releases, this past quarter has marked a substantial increase in the number of titles released. A total of 236 Blu-ray disc titles (not including adult titles or PS3 games) were released between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2008, and 82% increase from the previous quarter, and a full 70% of the number of titles released all of last year.
The above chart shows how many titles were released on Blu-ray disc in each quarter since the formats release, as well as how many titles have been announced so far for Q4 2008.
AS you can see, the first quarter in which over 100 titles were released was Q4 2007, and it wasn’t until Q3 2008 that over 200 titles were released in a single quarter. Q4 2008 is shaping up very well, and its almost certain that once all titles have been announced, the total will be well over 300.
The total U.S. title count stands at 886 currently, and should easily be over 1,200 by the end of the year. (Again, note that PS3 games, adult titles, and BD-R releases are not included in the total.
Although full sales data is not yet available for the last two weeks of Q3, the data throughout the rest of the quarter shows that Blu-ray disc sales varied between $6.1 mil and $10.6 mil per week. Sales of DVD discs varied between $111 mil and $125 mil per week over the same period. This data is for all titles, as opposed to the early release top 20 data I report each week, and thus gives DVD full credit for its extensive catalog of available titles, most of which are not yet available on Blu-ray disc. Still, this leaves Blu-ray with between 5.3% and 8.3% of the total market each week.
Despite certain doomsday predictions that Blu-ray player pricing would increase following HD DVDs demise, the opposite has occurred. Both Sony and Samsung have dropped the MSRP on BD-Live (Profile 2.0) players to below $300 now, and both “house brand” and name brand BonusView (Profile 1.1) players frequently sell for even less
Given the current economic slump (or recession… or dep—forget I said that) most analysts are prediction slow or no growth in retail this Q4. This will make it more difficult for Blu-ray to make its big push into the mass market this year, though with the price cuts and release of many exciting titles it looks likely to do quite well, and to enter 2009 ready to truly break-out as a format to fully take on DVD.
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