Blockbuster, Video Ezy Pledge Continued Blu-ray Support

Franchise Entertainment Group, owners of Blockbuster and Video Ezy in Australia, said that they are only supporting Blu-ray (and not rival HD DVD) for high definition content. Citing HD DVD's failure to capture market penetration and disregard for the territory as the main issues, the rival format was said to have "missed the boat" in Australia.

Market research by GfK shows that 2241 stand-alone Blu-ray players have been sold in the country, vice only 609 stand-alone HD DVD players. More telling, Sony has sold over 100,000 PS3s in Australia, compared to only 2461 HD DVD add-ons for Xbox 360. This results in an over 30-to-1 install base advantage for Blu-ray.

The HD DVD group responded by claiming the group was "just making a generalized point without really knowing the future and the direction that this format is going to take." Franchise Entertainment responded that they would consider the format once delays in title releases were rectified and more attention was given to their region of the world.

In more of a back-handed comment, they claimed their might not be enough room for HD DVD kiosks in their stores due to the Blu-ray kiosks being so large.

"We're not saying that we won't support HD DVD, that's for sure, but they've got a lot of catch-up work."