Update to the Update
DQ reader Vahur Teller sent me some outstanding links to information about DVD software and hardware sales.First off, and you can read this here, is a .pdf by the MPAA that lists unit sales for DVD's in 2005. There's also an absolute ton of interesting information in this document, but let's focus on "Sales of Home Entertainment to U.S. Dealers" (page 29). Under the category "Sell-Through DVD's", the number is 1,114.2.
That's in millions, by the way. And that means over a BILLION DVD's were sold in the U.S. last year.
Is it possible that the 1,114.2 number includes stock that hasn't been sold yet? No, because on page 31, under "DVD software units shipped to dealers", the number listed is 1,657.
I had absolutely no idea.
So HD-DVD and Blu-Ray sales aren't 1% of the total DVD market. They're more like 1/10 of 1%.
However, it does look like high-definition formats are being adopted faster than original DVD. If you look at the DVD FAQ, only about 1.5 million DVD players were sold in the first two years of availability (1997-1998). What's interesting, though, is that the number of titles available increased at an astounding rate--from 60 in 1997, to 3,000 in 1998, to 6,300 in 1999. So it will be interesting to see the rate at which new titles for Blu-Ray and DVD-HD are coming out.
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