Toshiba INCREASES HD DVD Marketing

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admin

Audioholics Robot
Staff member
Toshiba today announced that it is stepping up its successful marketing campaign for HD DVD as it experienced record-breaking unit sales in the fourth quarter of 2007. Major initiatives, include joint advertising campaigns with studios and drastic price cuts which will begin in mid- January. HD DVD will also tout their focus on quality DVD upconversion and continued customer support. It seems Toshiba isn't ready to give up the ghost just yet.


Discuss "Toshiba INCREASES HD DVD Marketing" here. Read the article.
 
GlocksRock

GlocksRock

Audioholic Spartan
They just need to give it up already, they are a day late and a dollar short. They knew they were falling behind blu ray overall, especially since HD DVD has fewer studios supporting them so they should have been focusing on these things from the beginning. At this point it would make much more sense to get a cheap A3 or A30 for the discs that are out there, and if you are looking for a great upconverting player. But most people were only considering upconverting players to hold them over till the format war was over, and now that it looks like it is, there really is no good reason to invest in a player for a dying format.
 
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Buckeye_Nut

Audioholic Field Marshall
Record sales? I guess it may have been a record quarter for HD-DVD, but Blu-ray still smoked them in the 4th quarter by a 65:35 sales ratio.
(if you exclude the 3:1 ratio in Europe and 9:1 in Japan)

I wouldn't expect them to surrender just yet considering the large investment involved. Regardless of Toshiba's desperate efforts, they'll continue to lose ground to Blu-ray in 2008. It will be interesting to see just how much ground Toshiba loses in the 1st quarter while they still have the benefit of WB releases. It will be downhill after that.....
 
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alexsound

Audioholic
Toshiba today announced that it is stepping up its successful marketing campaign for HD DVD as it experienced record-breaking unit sales in the fourth quarter of 2007. Major initiatives, include joint advertising campaigns with studios and drastic price cuts which will begin in mid- January. HD DVD will also tout their focus on quality DVD upconversion and continued customer support. It seems Toshiba isn't ready to give up the ghost just yet.


Discuss "Toshiba INCREASES HD DVD Marketing" here. Read the article.
Stupid move. Not unexpected, but stupid nonetheless. As with the initial reports that WB was going Blu exclusively, Universal and Paramount will more than likely follow suit, even though both of them have "officially" denied that they will be abandoning HD-DVD. This was also the case with WB when rumors started flying around that they will be abandoning HD-DVD and they "officially" denied it and then look what happened with them. Regardless of which side is taken in this format war, it's seems to me that it's fairly obvious who's going to win at this point, regardless of who has the superior format.
 
stratman

stratman

Audioholic Ninja
They should rethink their marketing strategy to: "We'll include a free player with you first HD DVD movie purchase." Maybe that'll give them a leg up on Bluray.

I say they really should stop throwing away good money after bad (advertising a dead horse) and start production on their version of a Bluray player.:D
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
It doesn't really matte what they do if the studios drop support. They are going to increase marketing to make sure they get rid of existing players and movies. Of course they are not going to mention that they are on their last leg...
 
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alexsound

Audioholic
It doesn't really matte what they do if the studios drop support. They are going to increase marketing to make sure they get rid of existing players and movies. Of course they are not going to mention that they are on their last leg...
Good point. After seeing their sales temporarily go through the roof, hardwarewise, during the holidays, they may have ramped up to much production and are basically have a "fire sale" without actually saying it to get rid of remaining inventory.
 
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allargon

Audioholic General
It is a bit too little too late unless they convince Paramount or Universal to release a high profile release on HD-DVD (combo or hybrid) only without a DVD version.

Towards the 4th quarter that lead was more like 58:42 if you look at releases available on both formats (e.g. Harry Potter and Blade Runner).
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
Toshiba isn't about to drop the ball on a format war that will cost them billions, and I don't think Microsoft will either. Toshiba wants the market confused so that either HD DVD owns a piece of the HD market, or that nobody buys in and keeps buying DVDs which they get significant royalties from annually.

Microsoft wants the market confused long enough for HDDL to become the norm. If people skip the next generation of disc based optical hardware, and instead wait it out a bit longer, then the download market will be ripe for their taking. "Hey look! Don't buy even more hardware, your solution is right there on your desktop and has a name.... Vista!"

No, I think Toshiba is willing to subsidize players, if they aren't already, to try to maintain or increase market share.

It should be noted, that at CES, Toshiba put up a slide that did NOT include PS3 consoles, which indicated that the current stand alone player sales belonged 49% to HD DVD, and 51% to Blu-ray. This is a significant slide, especially from Toshiba, as it indicates that despite rock bottom pricing, they still have not actually managed to outsell the competition even with a huge number of the competitors using PS3 and not stand alone units.

Toshiba isn't stupid, they likely know that HD DVD isn't going to get much further here. But, for them, there must be some other piece that they gain by continuing to fight this format war that they began.
 
GlocksRock

GlocksRock

Audioholic Spartan
I think Toshiba is trying to hold out as long as possible to help minimize their losses as much as they can.
 
Seth=L

Seth=L

Audioholic Overlord
It's not stupid. If the marketing helps them to get rid of what they already made or are still obligated to make (Discs, players) and sell them, wouldn't that help prevent Toshiba from loosing money, at least anymore than they already have, on players mostly.
 
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Buckeye_Nut

Audioholic Field Marshall
Towards the 4th quarter that lead was more like 58:42 if you look at releases available on both formats (e.g. Harry Potter and Blade Runner).
No they weren't....

Nielson's confirms it.... One of HD-DVDs better weeks of the 4th quarter was week ending december 2nd. In that week, HD-dvd accomplished 58-42 loss to Blu-ray, but a quarter it doesn't make. The HD people are clearly in denial.
 
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Buckeye_Nut

Audioholic Field Marshall
It should be noted, that at CES, Toshiba put up a slide that did NOT include PS3 consoles, which indicated that the current stand alone player sales belonged 49% to HD DVD, and 51% to Blu-ray.
LOL....that's like Mitsubishi claiming they sell more cars than Toyota providing they exclude the Camry and Corolla.
 
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BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
LOL....that's like Mitsubishi claiming they sell more cars than Toyota in the USA providing they don't include the Camry and Corolla numbers.
Very true - but it's worse - It's like Mitsubishi saying that despite NOT including Camry and Corolla - they STILL weren't able to outsell Toyota.

HD DVD supporters, and most BD supporters have believed that HD DVD stand alone units have been outselling Blu-ray stand alone units (not including PS3/X360 add-on) for the past year solidly.

The truth appears that despite sub $200 players, Toshiba hasn't managed to outsell their competition.

That's one of those things that's gotta really hurt.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
I think Toshiba is trying to hold out as long as possible to help minimize their losses as much as they can.
DiVX anyone? Does this sound familiar? They are going to try to sell off what is on shelves and in production right now while they try to figure out what they will do next.
 
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markw

Audioholic Overlord
This kinda reminds me of Studebaker pressing forward with the Avanti when everyone (including them) knew they were knock, knock, knockin' on Heavens door.

Too little too late. It's the software availabity that makes or breaks a format.

The announcements are a nice way to push sales of existing inventory, though. Their dealers love this stuff...
 
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alexsound

Audioholic
Toshiba isn't about to drop the ball on a format war that will cost them billions, and I don't think Microsoft will either. Toshiba wants the market confused so that either HD DVD owns a piece of the HD market, or that nobody buys in and keeps buying DVDs which they get significant royalties from annually.

Microsoft wants the market confused long enough for HDDL to become the norm. If people skip the next generation of disc based optical hardware, and instead wait it out a bit longer, then the download market will be ripe for their taking. "Hey look! Don't buy even more hardware, your solution is right there on your desktop and has a name.... Vista!"

No, I think Toshiba is willing to subsidize players, if they aren't already, to try to maintain or increase market share.

It should be noted, that at CES, Toshiba put up a slide that did NOT include PS3 consoles, which indicated that the current stand alone player sales belonged 49% to HD DVD, and 51% to Blu-ray. This is a significant slide, especially from Toshiba, as it indicates that despite rock bottom pricing, they still have not actually managed to outsell the competition even with a huge number of the competitors using PS3 and not stand alone units.

Toshiba isn't stupid, they likely know that HD DVD isn't going to get much further here. But, for them, there must be some other piece that they gain by continuing to fight this format war that they began.
You may have a good point on Toshiba not wanting to loose the billions they've put in, or that Microsoft wants the HD disc formats to fail until HDDL can actually compete, but there may be another reason Toshiba is still pushing along. Pride. Sony did it with the Betamax in the early eighties. They fought with VHS even after JVC's VHS format had clearly won over the general public. And Beta was a superior format, at least picture wise.

Phillips pushed the Digital compact cassette as the next major consumer audio recording format to replace analog cassette. Only Technics backed them up. That endevour lasted about a year longer that it should have. Eventually, Phillips DCC recorders were being sold at 75-80% off MSRP just about everywhere. And I really like the mention in this thread of DIVX DVD that Circuit City tried to push down the public's throat with the support of many of the major sudios. It didn't fly, but it did cost RCA/PROSCAN a boatload of money because the DIVX players were expensive, and they were the only ones on the market. They were stuck with massive inventory of DIVX DVD players that CC had to get rid of basically at a loss on every unit. Guess who paid for most of that loss? RCA-PROSCAN. Thompson, the parent company of Proscan, basically killed the Proscan line after that.
 
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D.R. Payne

Audioholic
Without studio support, without the support of more CE manufacturers, Toshiba's strategy is (and has been) to deliver a "knock out punch", they have never been set up for a long battle. Their marketing is now saying what a great upconverter for DVDs their HD-DVD players are. This is true, but reading between the lines it's sounding like damage control for when they drop out.

It's interesting that the studios LEAST successful in recent years (cough Universal cough) are the ones clinging to HD-DVD. They have the most to gain by opening up new markets.
 
aberkowitz

aberkowitz

Audioholic Field Marshall
So how low would the price of an A30 or A35 have to drop before somebody picks one up these days to use as an upscaler and to take advantage of dirt cheap HD movies. Being that I already have a PS3, I'd probably wait until one of them hits the $99 mark and pounce.

Edit: One thing that I just noticed looking at Amazon is that they've drastically cut the "List Prices" down respectively on the A30 and A35. Just last week I believe the A35's list price was well over $400 and the A30 had to be around $350.
 
Tomorrow

Tomorrow

Audioholic Ninja
LOL....that's like Mitsubishi claiming they sell more cars than Toyota providing they exclude the Camry and Corolla.
Not that it will make any difference...but remember that Tosh will be coming out with PC and notebook HD-DVD drives this year.
 

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