When we brought the news last week about Blu-ray player sales being down 40%, we thought, well, disc sales might still be up. People are still buying more PlayStation 3’s, which don’t count as a Blu-ray player sale. But when we see numbers like these, an over 7% drop in Blu-ray disc sales, you have to question what’s going on.

As far as I know, the week before wasn’t anything special. No reason for the sales being higher that week. So at this point, with HD-DVD out of the race, your numbers shouldn’t be going down. They should be up.

I still stand by my point, Blu-ray has a long way to go. The benefit is too low for the average consumer to pay a premium for it. I think the only way for Blu-ray to take over, is waiting for the prices to drop to DVD level. At that point it would be like choosing between an old and a new model with the same price. If you are smart enough, you will take the new model.

It will be interesting to see how it develops. If it will take off. Because video-on-demand is also ready to become the number one movie provider.

It will take at least another 12 to 18 months before the market will really turn its head to Blu-ray. That is, if video-on-demand didn’t catch up I suppose. A study by ABI Research shows how high prices, low inventory and limited capabilities keep the consumer from buying Blu-ray discs.

”This is good for the market because most current players do not support all the functions that studios place on the discs,” Steve Wilson from ABI Research said. “Lacking support for—or upgradability to—BD Live! or Bonus View (picture in picture), consumers cannot utilize all the available options. Manufacturers would rather sell more fully-featured models.”

So essentially, Blu-ray and the Blu-ray players were rushed to the market to compete with HD-DVD. If you bought an HD-DVD player you now have a useless piece of electronic junk. And if you bought a Blu-ray player, you will have a useless piece of junk in a year or so.

Glad I wasn’t an early adopter with that one.