NPD: Consumers Ready to Embrace HD, If It's Cheaper and a Single Format

From allthingsHiDef on Oct. 25:

New research from The NPD Group brings good news and bad news for the high-definition disc business. Nine out of ten consumers who have bought a Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD player are extremely satisfied with their purchase, and they plan on replacing up to a quarter of their existing DVD libraries with high-def discs.

But the NPD study also found an overwhelming reluctance to buy either a Blu-ray Disc or an HD DVD player. When asked "how likely are you to buy a high-definition player in the next six months," nearly two-thirds or 66% of respondents said "not at all" or "not likely." Another 23% answered "somewhat likely," while just 11% answered "extremely likely" to buy a HD player.

The NPD study revealed the hesitation stems from a variety of factors, most notably high player prices (cited as the major deterrent by 72% of respondents.) Another 70% saw no immediate need to replace their existing DVD players, while 60% said they get their high-def movies from cable or satellite. And 54% said they intend to hold off buying a HD player until the format war is resolved.

Still, NPD believes hi-def will ultimately succeed. The full report contains projections for sales of HD players and software, as well as comments from Russ Crupnick, VP and senior analyst with NPD Entertainment, on what movie studios need to do to encourage consumers to adopt HD media.

[XxZxX]

Kill HD-DVD and all blu-ray fan in N4G each fork out $10 for ITR and Cdzie1 to get a blu-ray player(PS3 40gb). Everybody will be happy.

[mikeslemonade]

I like the wishful thinking. HD-DVD still isn't the "cheap" price point people will be looking at. At $200 people expect something more out of a player. $100 is the magic price for a standalone player. I mean HD-DVD has been so close to $200 anyway like as low as $230. Would $30 really make such a big deal? I don't think so. For now the only things that are really penetrating is the PS3, the xbox 360 HD-DVD player, and the Home Theater PCs.

[jaja1434]

Actually you would be surprised how 30$ can make a difference.

[cdzie1]

Ha! Actually, I have a PS3, I got it on launch day last year. I just wasn't very impressed, although I thought Resistance & Motorstorm were good. I’m keeping it though, I’m not going to sell it. I’m very curious about this “Little Big Planet” and of course, I have to get Resistance 2 when it comes out (fall of next year?). I just like the games on Xbox better and I felt a lot of arrogance from Sony. At some point Sony became less about offering the best value and more about “you’ll buy Blu-ray because you’ll have no other choice.”

[XxZxX]

cdzie1, you dont have to buy sony blu-ray you know, there are pioneer, samsung, panasonic,denon and sharp blu-ray player. Toshiba on the otherhand you can only buy toshiba HD-DVD player

[Loopy]

I think there are more than 80 BR fan on n4g...

[Karebear]

Pay us to NOT make our product. What a racket that would be. Seriously a company should listen to this :)

5 dollars of every widgit A sold could be a bribe to not make widgit-B.

Where do I sign up for that. Zero costs, pure profit.

[HarryEtTubMan]

i'M GETTING BLU RAY! SPIDEY 3 BABY!

[Bladestar]

ok... let's just hope Sony runs out of money and blu-ray gets drop.. so HD DVD can be adopted... LOL.. Not going to happen.
Something can be done about "cheaper" but nothing can be done about "Single Format"... with all the money companies are putting into the format war.. expect it to be prolonged. both sides have big dogs with big pockets... Expect the format war to last a long time...

[XxZxX]

LOL look bladestar with his new account haha

[Game Crazy]

Bladestar I agree with you. This is going to be a long drawn out format war just like Betamax and VHS was. Neither side is going to give in to the other, studio support is split, and the adoption rate is so slow due to the cost of the hardware to play the HD movies, the higher cost of HD movies, and the fact that you need an HDTV that does 1080P to get the maximum performance out of these HD movies.

I know alot of people who dont have HDTV's or else they bought an HDTV in the past few years that only does 720P/1080i without HDMI that arent going to be upgrading to HD movies anytime soon.

Heck I have a 1080P HDTV and I havent bought a single HD movie yet. Like the other 99% of all home movie consumers I am waiting till this whole HD format war plays out before investing my hard earned money.

[Adamalicious]

Hopefully HD-DVD will bow out so things can get moving. As long as Sony and Disney stick with Blu-Ray HD-DVD simply can't win - they just own too much content, maybe you can "compete" but you can't win - in the long run pretty much everyone loses. This format war is bad for consumers and very bad for retail, the only ones I see getting anything out of it are the studios who are basically pitting the formats against each other to get what are tantamount to bribes. This makes sense because they can probably, in the very short term, make more money this way, but once a format starts to take off they'll follow the money.

HDTVs are getting more and more ubiquitous and retail likey - they also want to up-sell the HD movie player - competing formats make people wary and less willing to buy. They remember Betamax.

[MK_Red]

If the stupid Paramout had not gone HD-DVD exclusive, the format war would have been over by now and all people could happily go with one format.

[Prismo_Fillusion]

Make HD tv sets cheaper too please.

kthxbai