Sony's PlayStation 3 Could Plug The HD Content Gap
At the recent Understanding & Solutions 'High Definition in Europe' event in Barcelona some forecasts have predicted that Sony's PlayStation 3 could fill the content gap between the massive rise of HDTV ownership and the correspondingly slow one of HDTV broadcast.This news arrives on the day that Spain announces 20 channels of HDTV including content from the BBC, Discovery, ProSieben, Sky, Premiere, Canal Sat and Anixe. Also a day after the UK broadcasters behind Freeview HD announced very positive reaction to their London-based trial.
U&S predict that by 2010 there will be 115 million HD Ready sets in Europe but only 17 million of them will be showing any high definition content. They also believe that by 2010 28 million PS3s will be sold all with HD Bluray players on-board. This figure is huge and makes-up over 50pc of all high definition DVD players including Xbox 360 & PC sales.
This large take-up of the PS3 will itself ignite the Bluray disc market and U&S believe that by 2010 there will be sales of 215 HD title sales (HD DVDs included).
They also think that by 2010 all high definition DVDs players including PS3 will bottom out at around €300.
The conclusion is that people buy HDTVs because they are flat and can fit in places your CRT couldn't. That's fine for a while but then owners will want to get hold of some HD content and the demand will grow.
pdf of analysis