NPD says Blu-ray going mainstream next year

26 September 2009 14:33 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 9 comments

According to a new NPD analysis, Blu-ray will finally break into the mainstream in 2010, especially as prices continue to drop.

The company researched consumers using Blu-ray set-top boxes (not including the PS3) in February 2008 and in August of this year, and the figures clearly showed that BD is out of the "early adopter" phase and into the "dreamers" phase which is the group that wants the new technology but are "deterred by price."

Regardless, NPD says falling prices, strong holiday sales, and a slowing uptrending economy will finally push Blu-ray from "niche" technology to "mainstream."

In the 2008 study, over 64 percent of users were early adopters, which only account for 20 percent of the entire market. By August however, the number had been reduced to 38 percent, and replaced by "dreamers" and "sensibles," a group full of middle aged families who like the technology but waited some time before investing. Those two groups account for over 40 percent of the entire market.

“In the last year, we have made great strides toward becoming mainstream, but we’re not quite there yet,” ntoes NPD analyst Russ Crupnick, via VB. “But going into the holiday season, we are seeing a combination of fairly reasonable price points on hardware and a lot of content. By February, after the holidays, it’s going to quickly look more and more mainstream. We are on that path.”

There are however still a decent amount of "late adopters" who do not care for the technology or are neutral. Neutral consumers are at 17 percent while "anti-tech" (users that frankly hate Blu-ray) are at 7 percent.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/19614.cfm

_________________________________________

I hope their right......if it DOES......do you think it will have ANY EFFECT on Ps3 Sales?

It may but I'm starting to see good quality Blu-ray players for around 140$ here in Sweden.

The PS3 costs us around 3000 SEK ( 428$)

Maybe a little, but not that much, since Blu-ray players can be gotten for a little over a $100 at the moment

Blu rays are awesome who needs dvds?

It won't help in as much as cheaper BR players are aroud, but it will help position PS3 as the choice to go with an HD TV if you want to play HD titles and watch HD movies vs 360.

As for the Wii, hard to tell. It's survived not even playing DVDs so I have to imagine it won't touch it's image much.

Now that Blu-Ray has no competition in the HD space, it's a no brainer that it will eventually take over... it just needs to be priced near DVD prices, then there's no reason for people not to (slowly) adopt it, as they buy new movies.

Wii proves that all this hangup on convergence and high storage discs etc, is just pointless, people are less concerned with features, all they care about is will it do what they want (not what they say they want, but what they actually want) at a good value.

of course this will help the playstation 3, its will give people more of a reason to get one

Only if they are looking for a game machine that plays blu-ray, but if they are, they'd already be interested in the PS3.

people who don't game won't get it, since blu-ray standalone is cheaper, people who game but don't want blu-ray could choose a 360 or a Wii depending on their gaming preferences, and those who want the PS3 would get it regardless of the mainstreamness of blu-ray

Playstation 3 was ahead of its Time!

...but time is catching up now :D