Our study shows that an increasing amount of the online consumer buzz attributed to the Playstation 3 is about the Blu-ray functionality. What is really interesting is that the xbox generates relatively little commentary about the competitive HD DVD platform. We monitored thousands of articles in blogs over May and June and the results make for interesting reading. The data showed that just over the last month there has been a three fold increase in references to Blu-ray in connection to the Playstation platform.
In early May when the Playstation 3 was discussed there was a 3-4% chance that Blu-Ray would be mentioned, now this number is trending at around 10%. We also noticed an increasing number of gamers highlighting the better performance of the xbox but suggesting the Playstation 3 is really an ideal platform for watching Blu-ray DVDs. Driving the increase in recent buzz is the announcement that Sony will offer a cheaper Blu-ray enabled DVD player designed to target consumers in this growing market. Some of the feedback centered around the price only being $100 less than the PS3 and that the PS3 offers Blu-ray playback.
In terms of raw sentiment the popularity of Wii is very high across the board. Xbox appears favoured by hard core gamers, so is Playstation falling into an unattractive gap?