Iraziel on 31 March 2007
Hus said:
"at the end of 2005 there were already 2m 'HD ready' TV households in Europe and by 2010 there will be more than 50m 'HD ready' TV sets"
I think Screen Digest is way of on the numbers of HD-ready TV sets soled by 2010. They are expecting a HDTV penetration across Europe at about 12m households by 2010. Compared to the anticipated total number of 252m TV households (today: 238,5m) in Europe HDTV will account for meagre 4,7% by 2010. I doubt that those 12m households will own 4 HD-ready TV sets each or that there will be a need to replace them in large numbers.
Preview of Screen Digest Report
"By 2010, 12 million European TV households will receive HDTV programmes and watch them on an HD-ready television set. This will include 9 million pay TV subscribers and 3 million free-to-air households."
While HDTV spreads very well amongst pay TV channels a lot of european free-to-air broadcasters are reporting that they won't be able to produce more than 30-50% of their programm in HD before 2012. You should note that a huge portion of the HD-ready 720p TV sets sold so far don't come with a HDMI port which also limits their use for watching HD DVD or Bluray movies.
So there is no real big selling point for HD in Europe yet besides HD events like the Soccer Worldcup 2006 or the Olympic Games 2008 (especially in traditionally huge free-to-air broadcast regions like Germany). This limits the sales potential the Xbox 360 or PS3 could have in Europe if they would be able to exploit their HD features in more households.
While the HD capabilities of a console might be a big selling point in the US in the next years it won't really matter in Europe until the next generation of consoles arrive in 2011-2013.
