Posted Tue Oct 18, 2011 at 10:00 AM PDT by Dick Ward
Physical media was also up for the first time in a while thanks to the pair of releases.
It's not that Blu-ray is struggling, the format is actually selling quite nicely. It's just that Blu-ray isn't doing what investors and backers would like to see, they want it to absolutely dominate the market. (What's new, right?) In September, that's just what it did.
The researchers over at iSuppli show that in the week that 'Star Wars' and 'Thor' were released on Blu-ray, sales of the format were up 131 percent over the year before. Keep in mind, 'Star Wars' was released on a Friday, so it only got to contribute a bit. The next week, Blu-ray sales were up 156 percent compared to last year.
There's no question about the reason for the increase, but there is something significant to be looked at in terms of the rerelease of those blockbuster titles. If sales of Blu-ray players increased likewise with the Blu-ray disc sales, big catalog releases could mean very good things for the industry.
It should also be noted that physical media as a whole - DVDs and Blu-ray Discs - was up one percent in the third week of September. It may not sound like much, but that's the first time the number has been positive in quite a while.
Source: iSuppli
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