Strategy Analytics (account needed for the full report) recently released a report that estimates there will be close to 30 million households around the world (US, Japan and Europe, actually) with at least one Blu-ray device by the end of this year. With HD DVDs demise this makes quite a bit of sense, but ALL of the Blu-ray players are dated with the exception of the PS3. Without the latest firmware the current BD-R players are useless unless, of course, you don’t care about the online features. At least with HD DVD you didn’t have to worry about that. It was already there whether you wanted it or not.
Our forecasts for BD players, games consoles and PCs indicate that total annual device sales will reach 57.4 million units annually by 2012. We estimate that nearly 30 million households worldwide will own at least one BD device by the end of 2008, and predict 132 million BD-owning households by 2012.
Peter, that’s a little misleading. Claiming they’re “useless, unless you don’t care about online features” is simply misleading. What are the online features you’re referring to?
I’m not sure why people keep reporting it this way, but it keeps coming up. Will the player play the movies? Will it play all the non-internet-required content on the disc? If the answer is “yes”, than labeling all the old players “useless” is like saying a PS2 without an online account/online access is useless. For the PS2, playing online was nice for some games, but a vast majority of games weren’t designed to be played online, and worked just fine without internet connectivity.
DVD’s have had the ability, if you want to call it that, to watch scenes from different angles. How often was this taken advantage of? How many people will really use the internet content? I honestly don’t know, but on a personal note, I buy/rent movies to watch movies. Not to explore additional features online.
Now that’s just me, but I suspect most early adopters who bought blu-ray players will learn to live with not being able to access additional content online. Or maybe they won’t be able to live with it. Maybe they’ll say to themselves “screw it, I spent $400-1,000 on buying this thing, and now that I can’t use it online its worthless and I’m not buying anymore movies”.
Blu-ray is growing a a must faster rate then dvd.
cant say im surprised Blu-ray is the future.