Sales of Blu-ray discs in the first quarter nearly doubled those of the same period last year, according to a recent report from Adams Research — 9 million units from January to March vs. 4.8 million in Q1 2008. On top of that, Adams Research also reported that there are now 10.5 million U.S. households with a Blu-ray player — a PlayStation 3 or a set-top model.

Good news, right? Well, sure. 

But look at those two figures again — 9 million Blu-rays for 10.5 million homes. That means that in the first three months of the year, less than one Blu-ray release was bought per household that has a Blu-ray player.

So what’s going on? It’s the PlayStation 3 owners. They represent about 8 million of those U.S. Blu-ray households. Figuring that the 2.5 million or so people who have set-top Blu-ray players bought them specifically to play Blu-ray discs, the PS3 owners clearly aren’t holding up their end of the bargain. They’re mostly just gaming.

So while the Blu-ray Press Office (an industry group created recently to promote media coverage of the format) is trumpeting the positive Q1 news, Blu-ray backers should be more concerned about the latest proof that most people who have a Blu-ray player  – a PlayStation 3 — aren’t actually buying Blu-ray releases.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 9:41 am and is filed under DVDs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.