Blu-ray losing out to downloads

A new report from consumer knowledge site

Reevoo

has claimed that Blu-ray has not seen significant sales rises as a result of either the demise of Toshiba’s HD-DVD or the drop in Blu-ray hardware prices – and it’s saying that direct downloads have stolen the missing piece of the pie.

We think this could be partly a convenience choice,” Reevoo’s Samuel Bostock stated, according to TechRadar. The death of the VCR and the cassette saw the end of the chore of rewinding tapes. The convenience of downloads and wider availability of flexible digital content, suggests impatience with the eject button which may be partly why Blu-ray isn’t capturing the imagination.

When DVD came in, you could almost see the video shelving shrink before your eyes in Blockbuster and HMV. The same hasn’t happened with Blu-ray.”

Stats show that in the first two years of hi-def disc availability sales have hit 8.3m units – this compares to 16.3m sales of DVD in its first 24 months.