Early holiday sales data from Nielsen VideoScan indicates more than 72 percent of next-gen discs purchased by consumers were the Blu-ray Disc format. It’s unclear exactly what content the “discs” represent, but apparently they include both videogame and motion picture titles.
The Nielsen data, however, may be unintentionally skewed towards Blu-ray because the numbers do not include sales at Wal-Mart, which America’s largest big-box retailer said represents about 40 percent of all disc sales.
Wal-Mart generally caters to shoppers seeking lower prices, and HD DVD products sell for less than Blu-ray items. In recent weeks, very low-cost HD DVD players have been featured at Wal-Mart, but none of the sales numbers for titles purchased by new HD DVD users were included, according to published reports.
