Just a few days before Sony's PS3 reach the European shelves, the HD DVD camp claims a victory in the European region while the Blu-Ray remains popular in the U.S.
The Blu-ray Disc Association presented figures from 20th Century Fox at the MEDIA-TECH Showcase and Conference in Barcelona last week. Philips' Frank Simonis presented the figures from market researcher Nielsen VideoScan, which claim that Blu-ray Disc movie sales in the US are outpacing those of HD DVD titles by a factor of 2 to 1. He added that the ratio would rise to 3.5 to 1 by the end of this month.
At the same event, Oliver Van Wynendaele of Toshiba U.K. presented figures from GfK Marketing Services, which show that during January, HD DVD had an 85% share of the market for blue-laser players. Specifically, he said that the HD DVD players dominated the UK, French and the German market, while the HD DVD movies were also selling well in U.K and France.
Blu-ray title sales began to accelerate after the release of the Blu-ray-equipped Sony PlayStation 3 on November 17 last year. With the PS3 due to launch in Europe next week, European sales of Blu-Ray software is also expected to rise.