Following the recently launch of the PS3 in Europe, the leading HD format has quickly swung over to Blu-ray like what happened in the US. Up until the EU PS3 launch, HD DVD lead the EU market. In the first week after this PS3 launch, Blu-ray disc sales rocked to the point where they accounted for 87% of all HD disc sales that week.
Going by this Gamesdog report, Blu-ray sales are still going very strong and are currently outselling sell HD DVD 3 to 1. What is interesting is that even though the PS3 was only available since March 23rd, it was enough to make Blu-ray software sales account for 64% of the total next gen. disc sales during the first 4 months of this year.
While the inclusion of Blu-ray in the PS3 delayed its launch and added a significant hike to its selling price, I'm sure Sony and the Blu-ray backers are delighted with how well this is pushing the Blu-ray format. On the other hand, it's bad news for those who bought a HD DVD drive, especially with the other problems HD DVD are facing, such as not being backed by several big movie studios and its copy protection issues potentially being a factor in whether these studios ever back HD DVD later on. Even though the Planet Earth HD DVD series is still in Amazon's Top 10 at #9, there are now two Blu-ray titles back in Amazon's Top 10 selling movies - "Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest" at #8 and "Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl" at #10 at this time of writing.
