During these unprecedented economic times, not every category of the economy is completely stinking it up. Hollywood studios and large electronics companies have put a major push to make Blu-ray get up and dance on its own as an HD audio-video format and early signs show that in 2009, the format is gaining some significant traction despite the gloom and doom economic conditions during the holiday season this year.

A study released today by the NPD Group and DisplaySearch show a 300 percent increase in Blu-ray player sales in the week after Thanksgiving from 2007 to 2008. It is important to note that the competing HD disc format, HD DVD, was still viable this time last year. In fact many argue as of Black Friday 2007 that the Toshiba-Microsoft backed HD DVD format was winning the format war with $99 players and Xbox 360 backwards compatibility. Today the HD disc format war is long over and consumers looking to get the most out of their 1080p flat HDTVs are looking to Blu-ray for their movie content. These Blu-ray sales numbers exclude sales of Sony Playstation 3 gaming console which is Blu-ray based and still very popular.

Blu-ray software broke sales records this fall with over 2,000,000 discs sold in October 2008 according to the Red Hill Group. Sales picked up significantly after that as well with the week ending December 6, 2008 showing 1.7 million discs sold. The blockbuster title The Dark Knight, sold over 1.7 million titles by December 9, 2008 on Blu-ray alone. No numbers were released on the volume of returns because of the need for firmware updates to players that couldn't play the feature-laden disc. Other titles such as Wall-E, the Chronicles of Narnia and Iron Man helped power Blu-ray disc sales to these new heights. Also more affordable players opened up new markets as Blu-ray players are no longer $1,000 per unit. Some players are as affordable as $200 today with signs pointing towards them getting even lower.

Players still have a long way to go to command the kind of 90 plus percent marketshare seen by VHS and DVD-Video however. Blu-ray players are still slow to load and often become obsolete or difficult to upgrade via firmware thus needing professional installation or repair in order to play the latest discs. As players get less and less expensive, they also need to include network connectivity so that upgrading firmware and software is simple for even the most tech-challenged end users.