Yeah None, the data there is imperfect for a lot of reasons but I don't doubt anyone would disagree with the bigger picture (although, we didn't need graphs to tell us that). Firstly, your 2004/6 results probably show lower than real life, because no one really was searching for "2004 dvd", they would have just entered "star wars dvd", just like people aren't googling "Star Wars blu ray 2011" but simply "star wars blu ray." You get a distortion here though, since "star wars dvd" included the very popular PT DVDs at that time; the BD picture has the same distortion, but because the Clone Wars BDs aren't nearly as hot sellers they won't distort the picture as much.
But you have to keep in mind market penetration. In 2003 and 2004, VHS was effectively dead, and so DVD had about 95% of the market. There were 127.3 million DVD players sold by the end of 2004. http://www.dvdinformation.com/news/press/CES010807.htm
By contrast, Blu Ray has to compete with DVD which continues to dominate, so it's still a niche market, albeit a large and growing one. BD sales represent only 13.4 percent of all home video sales and rentals in 2009, and in 2009 there were only 17 million total playback units (which includes many PS3s, in which case a significant amount of people won't and cannot use them for BDs). http://www.dvdinformation Reports from this year indicate that 3 million more players had been sold as of september, which will probably at least double by Christmas and boxing day, which ought to bring the total units ending 2010 at about 25 million and maybe 23% of the market since it hovers at about 20% now.
If we project a growth of 100% compared to 2010 sales through the year of 2011, which isn't unrealistic, then BDs ought to have something in the range of 40 million player units in households by the time the SW BDs hit streets, with maybe a 35% market share. Compared to the 127 million DVD players of 2004, that's only 1/3 the sales capabilities. So of course only 1/3 the amount of people would have any practical interest in them.
The DVDs were also released at the height of the SW craziness during the prequel era, and also featured new restoration efforts and extra footage in the films themselves.
So, I guess what I am getting at is, if you take what the DVDs did, subtract 15% to account for hype, and then cut that number in three, that's what is reasonable to expect from Star Wars Blu Ray.
For a comparison, the 2004 set did about $100 million on the first day. This year, Avatar sold 1.2 BD units, which if we average it at about $25 a unit, is $30 million, about 1/3 the 2004 figures. The new BDs will cost at least twice that much, will will make sales figures easier but also the price will scare away some people. With the increase in household units and market share into 2011 though, I still think the proportional figures of 1/3 2004 will hold true.
Trust me, if an idiot like me can put together these figures, I'm sure those accountants at LFL have looked at this logically. Relative to the market, the BDs will do the same as the DVDs, and without Lowry work or new transfers or new SE changes will only cost them a fraction of the production price, even with new docs and deleted scenes.
