Sony Pictures Home Entertainment recently sent over a “Next Generation Disc Tracking Report” prepared by Nielsen VideoScan for the week ending March 18, 2007. Of course, that was right after SPHE’s huge hit ”Casino Royale” debuted on SD and Blu-Ray disc, so no surprise the report showed Blu-Ray disc sales soaring 74.4 percent while HD-DVD sales declined 14.1 percent. A little more telling were the year- to-date sales – 549,730 for Blu-Ray, 249,451 for HD-DVD, which gives a 7:3 advantage to Blu-Ray. Nielsen also noted that only one of the top ten “new generation” titles – “The Departed” – was an HD-DVD exclusive.
One sleeping giant is about to be roused, though. Universal – responsible for about 36 percent of HD-DVD sales and 24 percent of all “next gen” titles – has a sizeable crop of films old and new coming out in the next three months exclusively in HD-DVD, including big hits “40 Year old Virgin,” “Lost in Translation,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Bruce Almighty” and “Liar, Liar.” That surge could even out the sales ratio some. Or not. Upcoming Blu-Ray exclusives include the theatrical hits “Apocalypto,” “Pirates of the Caribbean – Curse of the Black Pearl,” “Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest”, “Cars,” “Con Air,” “Crimson Tide, ” The Rock” and “Bridge to Terabithia,” all from Disney. Also, Blu-Ray-only “Hellboy” and ”Ghost Rider” loom large on the Sony release schedule.
