Blu-ray prices fall, as spending rises

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"Blu-ray Disc pricing has fallen more than 10% for new releases and a full one-third on catalog titles since 2008..."

Cubist commentary

There's a lot of interesting data in this article. Blu-ray is often cited as the solution for studios' declining DVD revenues, yet the trends described here indicate that consumers are unwilling to pay more than a modest premium for Blu-ray Discs other than the A-level, latest releases. Perhaps the uniqueness of HD content has been undercut by the success of upconverting Blu-ray players, resulting in consumers who are satisfied with "better" rather than "best". Perhaps unique Blu-ray features haven't become common enough on catalog titles to overcome consumer's retail reluctance. Perhaps both are true. But this may be an indication that Blu-ray hasn't yet hit its technological stride when it comes to capturing consumer attention. There may be significant interest by studios and distributors to get their movies out in HD, but without something more on such releases, something that makes them more than just DVDs in HD, consumers just aren't going pay big bucks. There's a lesson there -- for studios execs, for distributors and for authoring houses.

File under: Blu-ray News