Ok I?ll be the first to admit the headline is a little misleading but according to this xbit labs article, ABI Research believes Blu-ray players will only account for about 30% of the global high-def DVD player market by years end, leaving a whopping 70% market share for HD-DVD.

Ah but there?s a catch, the Play Station 3 (Blu-ray capable) ?could change the market dominance picture dramatically?. Another mitigating factor in the format war has always been studio support; however ABI makes some interesting points about that as well.

The research firm points out that: “the studios support is not carved in stone, but is based on the perceived size of the market for a particular technology. If studios see that HD-DVD has a higher market share, or continues to increase its penetration, they could support it instead of ? or as well as ? Blu-ray. They don?t really care what technology is used as long as it meets their copyright protection needs and enjoys support from the vendor community.?

One point in the article that I have to disagree with is according to ABI; with the format war on-going the prices of players and titles will remain at relatively high levels longer than if there was a single standard.

I feel that if either camp wanted a quick boost in sales and the corresponding market share, it wouldn?t be out of the question to enact some temporary loss-leader pricing, until things tipped in their favor.

R.Hollis

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 27th, 2006 at 1:09 am and is filed under HD-DVD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.