Ask John: What’s the Rationale Behind BD/DVD Combo Packs?

Question:
While this question could pertain to any Blu-Ray released by U.S. distributors I will direct it towards the anime industry specifically. Why does the anime industry continue to package regular DVDs with Blu-Ray releases? It seems counter-intuitive to me in some ways. If I’m buying a Blu-Ray release I have no need for the DVD version. To me that’s just tacking on some additional cost for something I won’t use. On top of that I could potentially give away the DVDs to someone who wants the series and therefore the company might lose a sale on that particular release. I’ve heard the argument that companies do this to try to push people who still use DVDs to switch over to Blu-Ray. I might have believed this in the beginning when Blu-Rays were new but now that doesn’t seem likely anymore. What’s your take on it?

Answer:
I’m no longer directly employed in the home video licensing and distribution business, so I don’t have a professional insight into the rationale behind DVD/BD combo packs, but I do think I have enough experience and insight to pose some theories. To begin, exactly one month ago I purchased a handful of discs from the last remaining Blockbuster store in my area. The cashier asked me before ringing up my purchase, “Do you have a Blu-ray player?” In January 2014 a video store clerk was asking me, an average customer, if I was conscious of the difference between DVD and Blu-ray. Despite the fact that mass-market commercial Blu-ray media has now been available for 8 years, American consumer awareness of Blu-ray is still not ubiquitous. As of 2013, 83% of American households owned at least one DVD player, and that figure is down from a high of 91% in 2011. But as of last year, only 52% of American households own a Blu-ray player. So while traditionally tech-savvy anime otaku typically think in terms of “Blu-ray/DVD combo,” with the DVD disc being the redundant extra, roughly half of America is still purchasing DVD and perceives the Blu-ray as the unnecessary extra disc. So delivering a Blu-ray disc to DVD consumers is still a viable encouragement to convince these consumers to switch or upgrade to Blu-ray. Anime otaku tend to be young and technology-oriented; they’re typically Blu-ray early adopters. So while DVD seems like an already archaic technology to many otaku, DVD remains the home video format of choice for more than three-quarters of all Americans.

Otaku may be typically early adopters, but even that statistic only applies to a select percentage of otaku. AnimeNation doesn’t record specific format sales statistics, but anecdotal observation asserts that only within roughly the past year have domestic anime Blu-ray sales via AnimeNation begun to equal DVD sales. And that statistic has come about as a dual result of more customers purchasing Blu-ray and DVD sales declining. BD/DVD combo packs continue to offer consumers the greatest viewing flexibility. Portable Blu-ray players are not common, and with Blu-ray penetration only hovering around 50%, there’s no certainty that taking a Blu-ray disc to a friend’s house will prove fruitful, while DVDs remain eminently transferable. Furthermore, at current retail prices, the cost difference between a Blu-ray only release and a BD/DVD combo release or DVD release is about ten bucks. For distributors like FUNimation that routinely release BD/DVD combos instead of separate Blu-ray and DVD SKUs, the convenience of just one release that targets all consumers evidently seems to be worth the effort and investment. Certainly, FUNimation may lose a small number of sales to consumers that refuse to pay an extra few dollars for a redundant disc or discs, but the few potential lost sales to disgruntled consumers seem to be offset by the number of consumers who are satisfied to purchase one release that’s both compatible with all of their current hardware devices and compatible with any future set-top player they’re likely to purchase.

From a personal perspective, I try to purchase Blu-ray releases in order to “future-proof” my collection, except when Blu-ray releases are flawed or appreciably inferior to their DVD counterparts, such as the numerous defective Sentai Filmworks Blu-rays (audio flaws in World God Only Knows Season One, Bodacious Space Pirates volume 1, Another Complete Collection, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Girls Und Panzer, video resolution drop in Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere season 1 episode 7) and English dubbed only Blu-rays. However, for the relatively small difference in cost, I appreciate getting both DVD and Blu-ray format discs. When discs are available in BD only and BD/DVD combo releases (such as Sony’s release of Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist), I usually gravitate toward the BD/DVD combo to “cover all my bases” for a rather small increase in cost, especially since I happen to have a BD player in my bedroom, but only a DVD player in my living room.