Free Record Shop, the Netherlands's largest home entertainment retailer, has announced that they have officially endorsed Blu-ray as the successor to DVD. Since Blu-ray has launched in the Netherlands, it has outsold HD DVD on an average of 4-to-1, showing business owners that the buying public is demanding high definition content, and they want that content on Blu-ray.
Nice! Blu-ray is obviously THE format of choice in Europe. Earlier it was reported that Blu-ray was outselling HD DVD by 4 to 1 in the UK, and now the Netherlands too, and its largest home entertainment retailer going BLU is a very nice sign of things to come :-)
This is great news. It's all about the global effort for Blu-ray. Ultimately it will be the stores that will
decide the format war. If you can't buy the titles you can't claim victory. Japan and Europe are
leading the way, and America will soon catch on to what the rest of the world is doing. Studios won't
deny their global sales, they are just as important.
i Couldn't help but notice blu-rayfan101 you said small retailers are adopting, this is the biggest home entertainment retailer in the Netherlands, just a heads up. But this is geat news, also is the 40gb ps3 coming to the us? if it is, for christmas?
Now all we need to do is standardise the Blu-ray format so that movies like Fantastic Four Rise of The Silver Surfer and Superman Returns play properly and do not require firmware updates.
They should make it so that if a movie required a firmware update that the movie itself has a firmware update on it so that it updates and plays all in one. Anyoen else think this is a good idea??
So why they still keep those 49 HD DVDs on their website? 91 BDs is still not a lot of choice either. Publishers in the benelux are kinda slow compared to those in the UK.
Free Record Shop is also huge in Norway. But the HD war newer really started in Europe. Blu have been dominating since the release of the PS3. I have problems even finding a HD DVD in stores (not that I need one).
I live in the Netherlands, so for me this is old news already. It was announced on September 12. And I have the same experience as kman72 with the format war that never started.
When advertising for HDTV started here, the only thing you heard and saw was that there was Blu Ray and a format war (HD-DVD was then mentioned on a sidenote), but since HD-DVD wasn't available for some time, while Blu Ray was (yes, thats right, that actually happened over here) they only demonstrated or told about all the glory of HD on Blu.
A couple of months ago, I was in my local Free Record Shop, looking for how blu ray was catching on. And there were like 70 Blu Ray discs and a miserable 5 HD-DVD's. And when I looked at other stores, I saw the same thing. Tomorrow, when the PS3 price is lowered... I'm getting one. I have been waiting for this (and not buying DVD's) for a while now. I'm going Blu.
Yes, the 40GB PS3 is slated for a holiday release - they have announced it in Europe (oct 28) and Japan (Nov 11; black and 'ceramic white'), and everyone has seen the FCC SKU and the "get 5 Blu-Rays free" coupon that includes the new PS3 part number on it (CECHG01) for here in the US.
Check out Kotaku, engadgetHD, others for more details on the hardware...
Free Record Shop, the Netherlands's largest home entertainment retailer, has announced that they have officially endorsed Blu-ray as the successor to DVD. Since Blu-ray has launched in the Netherlands, it has outsold HD DVD on an average of 4-to-1, showing business owners that the buying public is demanding high definition content, and they want that content on Blu-ray. 
