Posted Wed Mar 14, 2007 at 01:51 AM PDT by
In another high-def first, the Blu-ray edition of 'Casino Royale' cracked the top ten on Amazon's DVD top sellers list upon its release Tuesday, peaking late in the evening at #8.
Updated hourly, the Amazon list tracks all video disc sales at Amazon, including standard-def DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD. And while the top of the list is usually dominated by standard-def DVD releases, some early adopters have made sport out of tracking how next-gen releases on both formats stack up in Amazon's overall rankings, spawning at least two frequently updated head-to-head charts (at HdGameDb and eProductWars ), and countless posts on our own Smackdown Forum.
The strong performance for 'Casino Royale' at Amazon would seem to back up predictions that the latest Bond flick would score record-breaking overall first-week sales for a next-gen disc. The current record holder is the Blu-ray edition of 'The Departed,' which as we reported last week is said to have sold a total of 20,000 units in its first week out last month.
Lest anyone misunderstand this news and start sounding the death knell for standard-def DVD, it should be noted that two other editions of 'Casino Royale' (both standard-def DVD) also cracked the top ten yesterday -- the wide screen two-disc version (at #1) and the full screen two-disc version (at #10).
Still, it is a milestone, and the forums are already abuzz with predictions of which next-gen title might be next to meet or beat 'Royale' on the Amazon chart.
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