With
Toshiba slashing the price of their HD DVD players in time for the holiday season, Blu-ray fans have been looking to Sony, and other
Blu-ray backers, expecting them to do the same. In a recent talk with TWICE, Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics, indicated that price cuts are on the way. The company plans to
cut the price of their $499 player to about $399 but doesn't expect to go much lower than that.
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.”
While its good to see that Sony is finally dropping the price of their players, they're going to need to
do more if they want to compete with Toshiba. I really can't see the average consumer jumping on the Blu-ray bandwagon this holiday
season when they can get an HD DVD player for $200-$300 less. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here.
