On January 4, 2008, a day before CES 2008, Warner Bros. (the only major studio still releasing movies in both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc format) announced that it would release only in Blu-ray Disc after May 2008. This effectively included other studios that came under the Warner umbrella, such as New Line Cinema and HBO—though in Europe, HBO distribution partner, the BBC, announced it would, while keeping an eye on market forces, continue to release product on both formats. This led to a chain reaction in the industry, with major U.S. retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Circuit City and Canadian chains such as Future Shop dropping HD DVD in their stores. A former major European retailer, Woolworths, dropped HD DVD from its inventory.[citation needed] Netflix and Blockbuster—major DVD rental companies—said they would no longer carry HD DVDs. Following these new developments, on February 19, 2008, Toshiba announced it would end production of HD DVD devices, allowing Blu-ray Disc to become the industry standard for high-density optical discs. Universal Studios, the sole major movie studio to back HD DVD since its inception, said shortly after Toshiba's announcement, "While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray Disc." Paramount Studios, which started releasing movies only in HD DVD format during late 2007, also said it would start releasing in Blu-ray Disc. Both studios announced initial Blu-ray lineups in May 2008. With this, all major Hollywood studios now support Blu-ray.
According to Adams Media Research, high-definition software sales were slower in the first two years than standard DVD software sales. 16.3 million standard DVD software units were sold in the first two years (1997–98) compared to 8.3 million high-definition software units (2006–07). One reason given for this difference was the smaller marketplace (26.5 million HDTVs in 2007 compared to 100 million SDTVs in 1998). Former HD DVD supporter Microsoft has stated that they are not planning to make a Blu-ray Disc drive for the Xbox 360.[49]
Blu-ray Disc began making serious strides as soon as the format war ended. Nielsen VideoScan sales numbers showed that with some titles, such as 20th Century Fox's Hitman, up to 14% of total disc sales were from Blu-ray, although the average for the first half of the year was around 5%. Shortly after the format war ended, a study by The NPD Group found that awareness of Blu-ray Disc had reached 60% of U.S. households. In December 2008, the Blu-ray Disc of The Dark Knight sold 600,000 copies on the first day of its launch in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. A week after launch, The Dark Knight BD had sold over 1.7 million copies worldwide, making it the first Blu-ray Disc title to sell over a million copies in the first week of release.
According to Singulus Technologies AG, Blu-ray is being adopted faster than the DVD format was at a similar period in its development. This conclusion was based on the fact that Singulus Technologies has received orders for 21 Blu-ray dual-layer machines during the first quarter of 2008, while 17 DVD machines of this type were made in the same period in 1997. And the other key equipment supplier for optical disc Anwell Technologies Limited had shipped its Blu-ray Disc production equipment to Frankfurt for the largest trade show in the world — MEDIA-TECH Expo in May 2008 and they received new order for the Blu-ray production line also. According to GfK Retail and Technology, in the first week of November 2008, sales of Blu-ray recorders surpassed DVD recorders in Japan. According to the Digital Entertainment Group, the total number of Blu-ray Disc playback devices (both set-top box and game console) had reached 17.3 millions by the end of 2009. According to Swicker & Associates, Blu-ray Disc software sales in the United States and Canada were 1.2 millions in 2006, 19.2 millions in 2007, 82.4 millions in 2008, and 177.2 millions in 2009. Some commentators have suggested that renting Blu-ray will play a vital part in keeping the technology affordable while allowing it to move forward. In an effort to increase sales, studios are releasing movies in combo packs with Blu-ray Discs and DVDs as well as "digital copies" which can be played on computers and iPods. Some are released on "flipper" discs with Blu-ray on one side and DVD on the other. Other strategies are to release movies with the special features only on Blu-ray Discs and none on DVDs.
Blu-ray faces competition from video on demand and from new technologies that allow access to movies on any format or device, such as Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem or Disney's Keychest.
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