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Analysts disagree over how many people are buying DVDs this Christmas

According to a report from Digital Entertainment Group Europe (DEGE), more DVDs will be sold during this year's Christmas shopping season than during last year's holiday sales period. In fact, according to DEGE the numbers aren't even close, with 68% of U.K. residents questioned buying one or more DVDs last year, compared to 78% this year.

DEGE, which represents a number of European movie studios, is expecting over 90% of this year's DVD sales going to the standard definition variety, although they're optimistic about the future of next-generation HD DVD and Blu-ray formats as well. The report suggests that most U.K. consumers who haven't already are planning to upgrade to HDTV and either HD DVD or Blu-ray within the next year.



Meanwhile other analysts are painting a less rosy picture of holiday sales this year. Just last week NPD Group released their own report, showing that both revenue and the number of people buying DVDs have dropped since last year. guess is that it’s really the moderate and light DVD consumers that are falling off on buying,” said Russ Crupnick, VP and senior entertainment analyst at NPD. “The average DVD household now has about 80 DVDs. For some people, it has got to be really exciting content for them to buy, as they already have these large collections.”

Source: Video Business

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 18 Dec 2007 18:04

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• 9 comments

• b18bek9

  stop with statistics and give me facts.....dvd hd dvd blu ray blah blah...show facts not what a poll says or some pr persons side of the story....its really annoying every other day dvd sales are low and now they are high yet hd dvd is on top no blu ray is irs jsut here say....

  19.12.2007 01:51 #1

• indyjase

  er......wouldn't it be more to do with the fact that the movie industry really has put out mainly bloody awful movies this year as opposed to last year!!!! People are letting the industry know that they won't buy any old crap just because a studio releases a film. Try taking a movie back if its really bad...opps! can't do that in the states, movie studios changed the law here and that sucks!!!I took back bi-centinial man to HMV in the UK and flat out told them I wanted a different movie as that one was so Pi$$ poor and they exchanged it no problem. Customer satisfaction seems to be sorely lacking from the movie studios and it's about time too that people stopped buying crappy movies just because it is new out......

  19.12.2007 01:55 #2

• emugamer

  Movies are too formulaic these days. Studio Execs need to see a movie follow a certain formula that has been "proven" on paper to work before they finance it. Writers, producers, etc...are held by the nuts to put out cookie-cutter crap. But that's how big business works. It's not about the art and the consumer. It's about the bottom line $$$ figure. A movie (or television series for that matter) is labeled "high quality" if it meets a paper standard. We need more indie flicks. Or anything with more substance for that matter. I don't even buy DVD's anymore. So all of their bottom lines and graphs and charts with consumer data is crap, because it's the same metric used to put out the crap in the first place.

  19.12.2007 12:04 #3

• jos22

  another problem is the lack of some older movies that cant be got on region 2 dvds. I heard a lot of people looking for the snapper an irish flim which has not yet being released in Ireland or Region 2 disks.
  that why I unlocked my player and imported it 3 years ago from deepdiscount. the high dvd prices is an issue for decling sales too
  90 euro ($129)for heroes season 1 on DVD in ireland. IS far too steep maybe if they charge a more reason 30 euro dvd sales would pick up.

  19.12.2007 12:59 #4

• tester22

  Originally posted by b18bek9: stop with statistics and give me facts.....dvd hd dvd blu ray blah blah...show facts not what a poll says or some pr persons side of the story....its really annoying every other day dvd sales are low and now they are high yet hd dvd is on top no blu ray is irs jsut here say....
  
  Ummmmmmmmm..........Statistics ARE facts, in fact.

  19.12.2007 13:58 #5

• tester22

  Originally posted by indyjase: er......wouldn't it be more to do with the fact that the movie industry really has put out mainly bloody awful movies this year as opposed to last year!!!! People are letting the industry know that they won't buy any old crap just because a studio releases a film. Try taking a movie back if its really bad...opps! can't do that in the states, movie studios changed the law here and that sucks!!!I took back bi-centinial man to HMV in the UK and flat out told them I wanted a different movie as that one was so Pi$$ poor and they exchanged it no problem. Customer satisfaction seems to be sorely lacking from the movie studios and it's about time too that people stopped buying crappy movies just because it is new out......
  
  2007 is definitely the year of horror. MORE POWER TO THAT!!!!
  
  Rightfully so that DVDs can't be returned. If allowed then every ghetto, low-life would buy, burn, return.......buy, burn, return. I personally wouldn't do that because I rent, burn, return but that's just me.

  19.12.2007 14:01 #6

• Mez

  There were not many great movies last year. In the countries where people actually buy legal movies, the citizans are getting into budget cruunches. In the US the Salvation Army is not getting close to their holiday donations this year. When most are tightening their belts, there is less money to buy marginal movies.
  
  When you look at who is running the movie industry, there will be more junk to come. They are only interested in making money. In the old days they were mostly interested in making movies and trying not to go broke in the process.

  21.12.2007 07:27 #7

• funkspiel

  Facts are stupid things.
  
  - Ronald Reagan

  21.12.2007 11:10 #8

• borhan9

  Originally posted by b18bek9: stop with statistics and give me facts.....dvd hd dvd blu ray blah blah...show facts not what a poll says or some pr persons side of the story....its really annoying every other day dvd sales are low and now they are high yet hd dvd is on top no blu ray is irs jsut here say....Thanxs mate i feel exactly the same way. I am tired of all this stats that are coming out. Why cant they just do it like once or twice a year.

  28.12.2007 00:05 #9