While sales of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc package content slowly edges its way up the sales meter when new titles are released, in Europe (to a higher degree than in North America), standard DVDs still dwarf next-gen sales, leaving the latter formats in the low single-digit category when considering percentages.
Even with a blockbuster title like “300,” a movie based on a graphic novel and often cited by critics and gamers as closely resembling a video game, standard discs still rule the day in the United Kingdom. Such subject matter as “300” might be considered an especially major attraction for HD DVD and Blu-ray purchasers, because all owners of Sony’s PlayStation 3 game consoles have internal Blu-ray drives, and HD DVD drives are easily accessible (and increasingly affordable) as add-ons for owners of Microsoft’s Xbox 360.
Yet in the first full week last summer that “300” was on sale across the U.K., 438,000 standard discs were sold—compared to a mere 5,000 HD DVDs, and about 13,000 Blu-rays, according to sales figures obtained by The Guardian.
