Happy birthday, Blu-ray Disc! It seemed like only yesterday that we were arguing the merits of the format versus its former competitor, HD DVD. However, the winner of the high def format war just celebrated its fifth birthday, and wow, things things have certainly changed over the years.
Of course, the biggest driving force then (and now) has to be content. The very first Blu-ray Disc titles were released June 20, 2006. Unsurprisingly, all of them were Sony Pictures titles, as Sony was one of the inventors of Blu-ray Disc technology and a huge proponent of the format. Early adopters were clamoring for those first releases, which included Adam Sandler's 50 First Dates, the sci-fi cult classic The Fifth Element, Will Smith's Hitch, martial arts masterpiece House of Flying Daggers, Underworld: Evolution (also known as "Underworld 2"), and the Vin Diesel-helmed xXx. Our Editor Chris Boylan was on-hand for Sony's launch of the format at the Home Entertainment Expo in 2006.
In addition to the software, Sony was showing off their first player, the BDP-S1. It lacked network connectivity, was super slow to load discs and sold for a cool thousand dollars. These days you can get a fully wireless networked player that loads discs in a few seconds and provides access to a wealth of streaming services to boot, all for well under $200. What a difference a few years makes!
According to the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), by the end of 2006, there were 248 Blu-ray titles available. That number has increased by more than an order of magnitude. Currently, there are more than 4500 movies available on Blu-ray Disc. The amount of options has led to a healthy increase in sales as well. In the format's first year, an impressive 6 million discs sold in the U.S. Today, the Blu-ray Disc industry is generating 119 million units sold in the U.S. annually. About 3.5 million of those are in the Blu-ray 3D format.
The total numbers are even more impressive. According to recent data, the total number of Blu-rays sold since the technology's launch are somewhere in the neighborhood of 354 million units worldwide, which has generated approximately $9.5 billion over the years. That's one crowded neighborhood! How many have you contributed to those sales numbers?
Of course, we've needed some hardware to play all of that software. In 2006, the industry was hopeful about Blu-ray, thanks to sales of 9 million players. Today, over 100 million players have been sold worldwide.
According to Screen Digest, packaged media accounted for 88 percent of total consumer content consumption in 2010, with Blu-ray being the fastest-growing segment. That means it beat out digital downloads, media streaming, and more. The BDA also says that consumers have actually adopted the Blu-ray format faster than DVD, which had been considered fastest growing video content distribution segment to date.
Will the format continue to thrive as consumers move toward streaming media and portability? Time will tell. But for now, Blu-ray continues to reign supreme for those who care about audio and video quality as well as unique interactive extras.
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