CHATSWORTH, Calif. - Anabolic Digital is planning day & date releases of selected titles in three formats: Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and standard, beginning with Girlgasmic, expected to be in stores by Friday, Dec. 14.
"We’re going to be what I believe is the first adult company to release all three formats simultaneously," Anabolic general manager Dan M. told AVN.
The day & date release will only be used periodically for the time being. The next simultaneous title will come out in about 90 days and will be in a different genre than the all-girl Girlgasmic, which features 15 girls, five in each of three scenes.
The company is also coming out with a counter-top display box that holds five copies of each of the three formats, to be placed next to a store’s cash register. "We’re going to ship it to the stores with the product in there, ready to go," Dan said. The idea is to "give product awareness to the end consumer before the holiday season."
Anabolic is banking on the proposition that big holiday sales of Hi-Definition hardware will send consumers in search of new adult software.
"We feel that the hardware to support this movie is going to be a big holiday gift, what with the price reductions on HD DVD players to $99, and with the 40-gig Playstation 3 that came out cheaper at $399. The Xbox, the Playstation 3s [which play Blu-Ray discs], the cheap HD players, even HD TV [receivers], all of that is going to be involved in this holiday season, plus gift certificates to Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry’s.
"After the holiday season, that’s when we feel sales [of the HD formats] are really going to skyrocket.” That’s why he’s urging stores to get the three-format displays in sight before year’s end.
"It’s difficult to get the consumer to spend another $60 to get a title he already has. So getting the product placed in stores is key not only to the success of this format, but also to getting the end consumer back into the stores rather than looking for product to download off the Internet.
"The one thing that the stores have to keep in mind is that this quality—1080p, the highest resolution now available—is not available on the Internet, as far as streaming and downloading. One of the things that’s going to get the end consumer back into the store is the fact that this is a product only available in the stores. True, it’s available to be ordered from retail sites, but they have to have the physical product to get the quality that this product provides."
Dan has been making in-person presentations to local distributors this week and says the reaction has been positive but a bit wary.
"Everybody is excited by the fact that there is a new product to sell. But again, just like when DVDs came out, it’s hard to convince the storeowners to spend extra money on a product that they’re not 100% sure is going to work for them. In a market that’s actually slowing down, it’s going to be harder to get them to support this product at a higher price.
"But it’s in the stores’ best interest to support the product, because if anybody wants to see an adult title on HD or Blu-Ray, they have to buy the DVD. They can’t stream true 1080p High Definition footage on their computer. If you have a 1080p HD monitor, you’re still not going to be able to get the resolution from the stream.
"So people are excited but they’re also a little nervous. It is an expensive product and not something they have a big track history on. Basically our goal is to get the stores to give it a fair shot.
"We’re asking the stores to be patient because we don’t think it’s going to sell as well before the holiday season as after the holiday season. We want to have the product with a great placement, because everybody has to go to the cash register, and they’ll know where to get it once they get their hardware.
"We want customers to know that the adult industry, especially Anabolic, is going to be doing the same thing the mainstream industry is doing to drive sales to the new formats."
As to which HD format will eventually come out on top, Dan says he’s fairly confident that both will do well, with HD-DVD perhaps doing a little better because of the price of the HD players.
And he’s absolutely sure of one thing: "Sooner or later, the standard DVD format is going to go by the wayside."
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