Infinity and Beyond

As we mentioned earlier Microsoft is expecting big numbers for ‘Halo 3′
when it hits shelves on September 25. Just how big you ask? How about
the biggest opening* of any media product in the history of consumable
media? The previous record holder belongs to this year’s ‘Spider-Man 3′
which brought in $151mil over its opening weekend and $59.84mil in its
first 24 hours. Looking back a few years we have ‘Halo 2′ which raked in
$125mil and now flash forward to September and Microsoft is quietly
predicting an opening day of $155mil. Not even the 270,000 iPhones sold
in the first 30 hours made that much money for Apple.

MS isn’t just hoping for ‘Halo 3′ to be a big success, they are also
hoping that the exclusivity will drive console sales as well. Attempting
to dominate the market the Xbox is banking that the high price and lack
of franchise games the PS3 won’t hold its own this holiday season.

This goes beyond Redmond and the console wars. Hollywood has also gained a stake in the gaming business because these next-gen devices double as High-Def players. With Blockbuster and Target going Blu-Ray an increase
in Xbox sales could also add up to an increase in HD DVD sales.
Currently the playing field has remained somewhat even overall. HD DVD
players have outsold Blu-Ray, but when gaming consoles are figured in
more Blu-Ray enabled devices exist in American homes than HD DVD which
also accounts for the higher sales of Blu-Ray discs by a margin of 2 to
1.

This all comes on the wake of today’s announcement from Paramount
Pictures that they will be dropping support for Sony’s Blu-Ray format in
favor of Microsoft’s HD-DVD. Paramount and its subsidiaries (DreamWorks,
Nickelodeon, MTV) will join Universal on the HD-DVD side of the battle.
Currently Warner Bros. has yet to make a decision and straddles the
fence releasing in both formats. Blu-Ray has the support of Sony, 20 th
Century Fox and the Walt Disney Co. Strangely enough you’ll still be
able to see a high-def version of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ on your
Xbox 360 where Disney started selling movies via Xbox Live on August 14
th.

It seems Disney and Warner Bros. don’t want to miss out on any
opportunity for the consumer to have access to their products. A wise
move as this developing format has yet to go main-stream in the American
conscious and only a year into the fight the odds change everyday.

Looking ahead the picture doesn’t become any clearer. So far over
halfway through 2007 the box office market share is somewhat divided.
Paramount leads the way with 18.1% but the dual-format Warner Bros., and
Buena Vista are second and third with Sony following closely behind in
4th. This makes taking bets on holiday hi-def DVD sales a little tricky.
The year’s #1 movie so far is ‘Spider-Man 3′ which was produced by Sony,
‘Shrek the Third’ is giving DreamWorks a second place spot while ‘POTC:
AWE’ bring Disney into the top 3. With the year of the third taking
hold, maybe ‘Halo 3′ is the secret weapon that could turn the tide back
in favor of HD DVD. Up until today I would have bet on Blu-Ray to win in
the long run, now I’m going to see what Apple does. That’s right, I’m
predicting that the next Mac product will have an HD player built in and
whoever they go with is who I’m putting my money behind.

*The first 24 hours is what MS is considering the opening #’s for ‘Halo
3’. Film openings either refer to the first day or weekend.

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