Despite the economic downturn and a slide in standard DVD titles that began prior to the global financial slowdown, one researcher is predicting that consumers currently are on target this year to top the 100-million mark in Blu-ray titles. Futuresource Consulting includes in this new data sales projections for North America, Japan and Europe.
In America alone, the firm says more than 80 million Blu-ray titles (movies, TV series and video games) will be sold in 2009. Part of the projection is based on dwindling price points for Blu-ray players, which, nonetheless continue to sell at three or four times the going rate of many standard DVD units.
Blu-ray, which provides video in 1080p and whose content capacity is many times larger than a standard DVD, is "gaining real traction" in the American marketplace, according to Futuresource, with Blu-ray sales in 2008 having jumped by more than 300 percent.
The largest market for Blu-ray in Western Europe is the United Kingdom, said the researcher.
And one stat signals that there is quite a lot of inventory out there ready to be shipped and sold. While 200 million Blu-ray discs were manufactured in 2008, only about 36 million actually were sold, said Futuresource.
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