Last night, I was looking at Circuit City and BB ads and noticed something very, very interesting. With several HDTV purchases, the stores were GIVING AWAY BR players with the TVs, and they were being counted towards the BR sales total! I was gonna get up and comment on it last night, but BetaNews beat me to the punch.
A report from NPD Group claimed Blu-ray standalone player sales accounted for 93 percent of the high-def market for the week ending January 12, but NPD itself won't stand behind the numbers, saying they were leaked and that weekly sales data is not a long-term indicator. According to Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD, the data "came from an NPD subscriber" and "wasn't approved for release from NPD." He added that the firm typically sees big fluctuations in sales volumes each week, and never makes long-term judgements based on weekly data.
