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X360 HD-DVD sells 100k News
Xbox 360 News by Tom Bramwell
Microsoft's Xbox 360 HD-DVD player has sold nearly 100,000 units in the US according to figures released by NPD Group.
The movie-playing add-on, which launched in November, sold 42,000 units in its first month and another 50,000 in December.
Xbox 360 itself has sold around 4.5 million units in the US according to the same group's figures.
Microsoft UK said it does not release individual sales figures for peripherals, so we've nothing to compare that to on this side of the Atlantic. Unless we make up a figure, like "78" - in which case the US version would obviously be doing a lot better.
The HD-DVD player, which costs GBP 129 over here and comes bundled with Peter Jackson's King Kong remake, attaches to the console via USB and has its own power supply.
Thanks to a minor software update, the drive integrates quietly with the 360 dashboard by splitting the "eject" button into semi-circular HD-DVD and DVD drive buttons.
The films themselves aren't particularly widespread yet, although e-tailers like Amazon and Play do sell them, with the best of them all obviously being Serenity. So buy that, you. YOU.
Quite how the player's actual sales will be viewed is unknown, but in a sense the relatively slight take-up is a vindication of Microsoft's stance that advanced movie-playing is better as an option than a pre-requisite - rather than the other way round, as it is with Sony's PlayStation 3 Blu-ray disc drive.
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Poster
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"but in a sense the relatively slight take-up is a vindication of Microsoft's stance that advanced movie-playing is better as an option than a pre-requisite - rather than the other way round, as it is with Sony's PlayStation 3 Blu-ray disc drive."
Or it means that people are unwilling to fork out extra for just an expensive movie playing device that isn't going to enhance their gaming experience at all :P As a sidenote, gamestation sell HD-DVD's too...including Serenity :) |
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Psychotext
15/01/07 @ 09:35
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I imagine they'd have sold a lot better if they were able to get the stock out. Seems like these things have been rarer than hens teeth. Oh, and Zane - The PS3 can only use dual layer blu-rays. The 200gb prototype needs modifications to the drive optics to work.
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most recently on 15/01/07 @ 09:35
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This article is about the US numbers, where they weren't as sold out as here in the UK (where one HMV lady told me there were only 1k for the whole of the UK).
Hopefully everyone here knows HD-DVDs are region free, as is the 360 add-on :) After a frustrating trip around my local gamestations, dixons and PC worlds, I ordered one from the US via movietyme, and it was here within a week :) As for lack of movies, I'm sure most people will one out of the 150 currently available they like? We watched Tokyo Drift last night, and even if you don't like the movie, the cars, the girls and tokyo city look absolutely awesome in HD. |
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thedaveeyres
15/01/07 @ 09:53
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I'm hanging on for a HD-DVD integrated 360 - it's bound to happen.
Oh, and congratulations, this thread mentions the two worst DVD's I had the displeasure to sit through last year! |
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I had one sent over from Japan. It was cheaper than buying it here and it works flawlessly. It's also a lot quieter than my 360 drive.
Serenity is magnificent. Superman Returns looks good, and Batman Begins looks amazing. Despite all that though, I can't see either HD format taking off like DVD did. The step up in quality is not big enough. My parents couldn't really tell DVD and HD apart on their 40" Bravia. I can, but I work with this stuff. So, I'm fairly happy with the drive, but HD movies are not enough of a step up to warrant much of a premium, nor the purchase of a dedicated player in my mind. -A |
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@TipTop: depends on what level of compression Sky is using, it tends to change during the day (best time to record HD is late at night). I'd say the best quality Sky stuff is about level with HD-DVD, but HD-DVD also offers the high definition audio options. The thing with Sky movies is that once they've full sorted all the rights issues it'll have the widest range of HD movies of the HD 'options'.
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"I can't see either HD format taking off like DVD did. The step up in quality is not big enough. My parents couldn't really tell DVD and HD apart on their 40" Bravia. I can, but I work with this stuff. "
I agree... a decent DVD on at good DVD player with scaling looks great and the leap to HD-DVD is not big in 720p. Maybe the difference in 1080p will be bigger though. |
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Psychotext
15/01/07 @ 10:06
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Steroyd: Nope, they intended it to be just a software modification but they could only get it to work by modifying the optics in the end.
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S.J.Rogers
15/01/07 @ 10:22
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If I could find one, I would purchase it...!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are you listening to me Microsoft…???????? |
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TipTop,
I am also an early Sky HD adopter, and I work in the TV/Film industry having access to HD video in all its various formats. I can tell you that when watched on a good quality HD TV, material from a HD-DVD or BluRay disc does look significantly better than any broadcast HD (including Sky Movies), some but not all of the time. The SKY standard def digitial broadcasts look considerably worse than DVD, SKY's HD broadcasts look a little better than DVDs upscaled to HD, and HD-DVDs look at than SKY HD broadcasts. (You notice the difference most in scenes that show the extra compression the worst e.g. dark scenes with lots of shadow, smokey/graduated colour areas, or things like the grass when panning across the football pitch on SKY sports, which becomes a blurry mess in broadcasts.) Ceatlan |
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a.d.venturer
15/01/07 @ 10:31
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"As an early adopter of SKY HD, does anybody know if HD DVD is going to be any better than SKY MOVIES HD? I appreciate the points about ownership etc. but is the quality different as they are both HD sources? "
Sky compresses their HD content so much that it is barely better than standard digital broadcast quality. So you'll see a significant improvement. |
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Sky Movies HD range from adequate to good. I think with a good DVD player you can achieve similar results (via upscaling). I don't know what compression Sky are using. BBC HD seems to be the best advert for HD content IMO. Some of their content looks stunning (Planet Earth springs to mind). Oh, "Lost" recently look quite lush when it was showing on Sky One HD.
I *believe* however, that HD DVD is already showing superior results at 1080i and once BluRay encoding switches to the VC encoding from MPEG the results will look stunning. But it would appear both formats have yet to show us their full potential yet. |
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Led : "So we have 100 000 HD-DVD enabled 360s vs 750 000 Blu-Ray players (PS3s). Mmm. I guess Sony's plan is working after all, when it comes to that format war."
It's not ! You have to take into account the number of those PS3 early buyers who actually owns a HDTV, and then will become BluRay movies buyers. On the other hand, we can suppose that all X360 HD-DVD buyers do have an HDTV. It's also good to know that the porn industry finally decided to back the HD-DVD format, mostly for pricing reasons, but also beacause Sony seems to be reluctant to see some porn content onto its own format. |
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Kazzahdrane
15/01/07 @ 10:56
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It's correct that only 1000 units made it to the UK for the December 1st launch, the store I work in was the only one in my city to get one - suffice to say we sold it to a guy who had been queuing for an hour (who then sold it on eBay and bought another one last week).
As of yesterday we actually had one on the shelf though, so I think we're seeing MS beginning to get more stock into the UK, which is good as we get a lot of people asking about them. |
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t8tyman
Here's a riddle. it begins with http://www. the middle has xxx and ends .com what is it? ;)
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Psychotext
15/01/07 @ 11:02
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Steroyd: Yup, cos me and the missus are going to get it on in front of the monitor... SEXAY!
Either way, adult DVDs were worth 4 billion dollars last year. Nothing compared to normal movies but hardly an insignificant sum. |
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@wonka
"N'thing but a splash in the ocean" Agreed, but this is actually good for MS. As far as I can see HD movies are going to remain a niche market for a good 5 years. Low saturation of HD sets, relatively high price of HD movies and other than a higher resolution no advantages over DVD (not to mention the fact that a good HDTV does an amazing job of upscaling DVDs). They were 100% right not to force it onto consumers and make them pay the price for it. |
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Got one from Gamestation on Friday which included King Kong!
Quality is superb to be honest and superior to Sky HD although the difference isnt massive. Agree that BBC HD is the best broadcast example at the moment. I actually enjoyed KK even though I didnt think I would. Hardly noticed the 3 odd hours passing. |
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chupachups
15/01/07 @ 11:08
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They've gone out of stock on Amazon almost as soon as they've become available, so I'm guessing there's either extremely limited stocks in Europe or else an enormous demand.
"So, I'm fairly happy with the drive, but HD movies are not enough of a step up to warrant much of a premium, nor the purchase of a dedicated player in my mind. " It's worse than that, most people need to buy a new TV as well if they want to watch HD. Like you say, the step up is nice but probably not good enough to make HD videos an instant hit.
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kangarootoo
15/01/07 @ 11:45
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@lambtron
Blu-ray isn't region free. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray#Reg... Though the US and Japan are in the same region, which is of note if you plan on importing a player (PS3 or otherwise) and already tend to import your films. |
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It's not ! You have to take into account the number of those PS3 early buyers who actually owns a HDTV, and then will become BluRay movies buyers. On the other hand, we can suppose that all X360 HD-DVD buyers do have an HDTV.
When the Xbox 360 launched the attacth rate of those who had a HDTV as well was at 60%. Now obviously the it might not be the exact same attatch rate for the PS3 but lets just say it is that's 420,000 people who are very likely to get at least 1 HD movie. |
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