What is Holding Up Blu-Ray Adoption?

It's hard to know precisely what message consumers are sending about HD DVD players these days. There no longer is a

format war, as Blu-ray has won its fight with HD DVD. But sales haven't exploded.

In fact, a recent Harris Interactive poll suggests that 93 percent of Americans are not likely to buy a Blu-ray player within the next year, up from the 91 percent who said last year that they were not likely to buy one.

But what that means isn't clear, yet, for several reasons. Popular consumer electronics adoption never seems to hit an inflection point until about 10 percent penetration of households.

About seven percent of U.S. households may already own a Blu-ray device, so we would be, by historical standards, about three percentage points away from any serious test of Blu-ray demand. Price points for both players and physical media seem high, by historical standards, as well.

In the past, no consumer innovation seems to take off until retail prices for devices get to about $300. So far, Blu-ray has failed to hit those levels, and some of us would therefore not expect much change in the adoption curve until that price point is reached.

Many speculate that a shift to digital media also is playing a part in depressing initial demand. It could be that consumers are using more pay-per-view methods or downloading to satisfy some needs Blu-ray was intended to address.

But it also is possible that consumers are wary of buying into yet one more playback technology when they've already been through VHS and DVD physical media. Some may simply be unwilling to shift to yet another format, despite the advantages.

Some 83 percent of U.S. homes own DVD players, and consumers might simply be signaling that image and sound quality is "good enough" on those DVD players, for the intended purposes. Consumers might also be waiting to buy Blu-ray as a replacement device, when their current DVD players stop working.

Whatever the reasons, Blu-ray is in a slowish adoption mode at the moment. Precisely why is hard to determine, as there are any number of reasons why an adoption tipping point has not been reached.