The first week of November saw Blu-Ray disc recorders surpass a 50% market share in the DVD player market in Japan. This indicates how much growth has occurred in the high definition format over the past 12 months or so, considering it only had a 10% market share back in October 2007.
This success is certainly due to the collapse of the HD-DVD format earlier in the year, allowing the Blu-Ray format to cement its position as the leading media format for the future. The uptake of Blu Ray recorders in Japan is also being put down to the reduction in price, something we here in the UK are also starting to see with some major retailers offering a Blu Ray player bundled in for free with larger HDTV sets.
Internet retailers are now listing many new titles such as Batman: The Dark Knight for below £15, a price which makes the product much more available to the average consumer, entering into the price range currently occupied by most new release DVDs.
Could this see the UK experience a similar transition over the course of 2009? Will Christmas next year see a huge re-release of every film under the sun in Blu-Ray format? It’s time for the film studios and marketers alike to start thinking how to persuade us to buy all these films and TV series again on this new format, so shortly after DVD fully established itself.
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