Blu-ray Price Cuts On The Way

[Ian]

Sony apparently plans to cut the price of their low end Blu-ray player for the holiday season. Unfortunately, the new price is only $399. Given, the actual street price will be considerably less, but its still a far cry from Toshiba's HD DVD player.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6496408. ... c=topstory

That was some of the news to come out of a twice-a-year media roundtable hosted by Sony this morning with Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics, and Jay Vandenbree, president of the Sony Electronics Consumer Sales Company, held at the Sony building, here.

When asked about Blu-ray player pricing from Sony for the holiday season, Glasgow said it should be “in the $399 range ... I don’t expect it to go much lower than that.”

When asked where the industry is in the format battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD, he noted, “It continues. I still find it curious that there are 170 companies backing [Blu-ray] and two companies behind [HD DVD]. I find some abnormality in that. Hopefully when all the [movie] titles reach the market this season and the beginning of 2008, [consumers] will see the [difference] in performance.”

[vinnie97]

uh, the PS3 is already $400...virtually not news and certainly won't capture the crowd that Toshiba is pulling in this month.

[Ian]

uh, the PS3 is already $400...virtually not news and certainly won't capture the crowd that Toshiba is pulling in this month.

Yeah, I think the PS3 is what is holding them back. They seem to think that the PS3 needs to be the low cost Blu-ray player. Uh no.. its a game machine too. A standalone Blu-ray player should be considerably less.

[vinnie97]

which would then anger the Panasonics and Samsungs of this world. Oh, what a pickle the BDA is in.

[CowboySlim]

And now the Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD player for $199 at Best Buy:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 6003898783

and Blu-ray is cutting too little and too late.

[dolphinius_rex]

I suspect Samsung, Sharp, and Panasonic will drop their prices accordingly. I'm not overly concerned.