Blockbuster Chooses Blu-Ray Over HD-DVD
June 19 Ed Lau
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Almost two months ago, Reuters reported that Blu-Ray was outselling HD-DVD by more than a 2-1 margin and some believed this was the beginning of the end of the format war when it came to high definition DVDs. This wasn’t particularly surprising really as Blu-Ray has more industry support (three out of the five major movie houses support Blu-Ray exclusively) and chances are, there are more Blu-Ray players in homes due to the fact that PS3s pull double duty. However, with HD-DVD players dropping in price (and several going at very low sale prices), they were expected to inch closer to closing the gap.
Today, though, chalk up another point for Blu-Ray as Blockbuster announced that they would be stocking the Sony discs at their stores. While the rental company had been carrying both formats since 2006 and Blockbuster intends to “continue to rent the HD DVD titles it already offers and may expand its HD DVD inventory in the future” but it looks like they’ll be in the Blu-Ray camp.
What does this mean for consumers other than they won’t be able to find as many HD-DVD titles (which is the format all movies from Universal are exclusively released in) at the store? Well, almost nothing to most people but those who have invested in HD-DVD players might be getting a little nervous. However, it is still a little early to be declaring a winner in the format war even if Sony’s Blu-Ray seems to have the advantage at the moment.
Filed under: HDTV
Tags: Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, HDTV, Movies
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