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There are now statistics out that indicate that the Blu-ray high definition DVD format is pulling ahead of its rival, HD-DVD, in terms of number of discs sold. Just before Christmas, sales of Blu-rays discs had pulled ahead of HD-DVD discs by twenty percent and by the end of the first quarter of this year, analysts expect that there will be three times as many Blu-ray discs as HD-DVD discs being sold. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this. For example, someone left a comment on one website claiming to have sold seventy thousand Blu-ray discs in one week and anticipating sales of the discs to double over the next week. While this does seem somewhat overly optimistic (maybe even part of a propaganda scheme), if it does have any inkling of truth, then it's pretty impressive.

One effect of Blu-ray having a lead in sales of over twenty percent is that movie studios are feeling more confident in the Blu-ray format and are increasing the number of movie titles that are being released in the format. This in turn should lead to greater confidence among consumers which will encourage more consumers to invest in the technology. Getting consumers to buy high definition DVD players has been a problem for both formats because of fear among consumers of being left with the technology that doesn't catch on.

There are a number of things that Sony has attributed to the success of the Blu-ray format. Primarily, Sony says that it owes its greater sales of Blu-ray discs to the fact that its newest video game platform, the Play Station 3 has a Blu-ray drive and functions as a high definition DVD player. This supposedly led a lot of people who wanted the Play Station 3 for the video gaming experience to buy it and then discover the qualities of the Blu-ray HD movie viewing experience and then by more movies on Blu-ray disc.

There a number of things that are impressive about Blu-ray's success. First of all, there have been supply chain and promotional problems with the Play Station 3 that made it so that there weren't enough units to meet demand when they were first released, and now they're sitting on shelve unsold. Another thing that's really impressive about the success of the Blu-ray format is the fact that the average Blu-ray player (with the exception of the Play Station 3 costs about twice as much as average. All of these factors should indicate that the Blu-ray format would be less commercially successful than HD-DVD.

However, not everything in the consumer electronics industry is about price. The fact it that in many ways the Blu-ray format is superior to the HD-DVD format. While things like picture quality and sound quality are clearly subjective and therefore up for debate, there are some very measurable advantages that Blu-ray has over HD-DVD. The clearest advantage is that an Blu-ray disc can store significantly more data than an HD-DVD. To be precise, a Blu-ray disc can store up to fifty gigabytes of data if both sides are used. An HD-DVD can only store about thirty on both sides. That makes for a significant difference in what can be done with the two formats.