Blu-ray outsells HD-DVD

Blu-ray outsells HD-DVD format in Europe
By: Reuters

High definition movie DVDs in the Blu-ray format have outsold the rival HD DVD standard in Europe this year, breaking the 1 million barrier and constituting 73 percent of all HD movie discs sold.

Citing industry sales data, the Blu-ray disc association said in a statement on Tuesday Blu-ray movie disc sales had topped 1 million units and when counting Blu-ray gaming discs the total number produced for sale in Europe exceeded 21 million units.

Sony's PlayStation 3 game console includes a Blu-ray Disc drive.

Hollywood and electronics manufacturers are hoping that new high-definition DVDs, with better picture quality and more capacity, will revive the slowing home DVD market.

But the launch of the next-generation DVD players has been complicated by the fact that there are two competing technologies available, Blu-ray and HD DVD.

HD DVD was developed by Toshiba Corp while Sony Corp backs the Blu-ray standard.

Of the high definition movie discs bought by consumers so far this year in Europe, 73 percent were in the Blu-ray Disc format and 27 percent were HD DVD, according to sales data provided by Media Control Gfk International.

Blu-ray said the best selling titles were "300", "Spider-Man 3" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End".

Home Media Research said in October Blu-ray Disc DVD titles had outsold rival HD-DVD titles by almost two-to-one in the first nine months of the year in the United States.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by David Holmes)

Copyright Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

That's good news for Sony. But really, who cares about Europe?

PS3 outsells 360 in all regions of europe except britain, so I like to think Europe matters. BluRay only has 64% or 66% in North America. This type of news shows strength for BluRay, and could help tip the scales for BluRay, or at least shows that the scales will be tipped soon.

I thought that these graphs might be of intrest. They're from the first week in November.

SandspiderII, would that pie chart you posted be for high def players or movie disc?

I believe it's disc. Nielson do the CD sales stats and TV Ratings. I don't think they are like NPD that do hardware sales s well. It shows BluRay gaining more and more market share. This is definately a good sign. HD DVD is dying out big time.

The pie chart is for volume of movies purchased.