Blu-ray Player Prices Hit 2008 Highs 318
An anonymous reader writes "HD DVD is almost gone and Blu-ray prices are already on their way up. TG Daily went through average retail prices of some of the popular Blu-ray players and found that you should expect to pay at least $400 for an entry-level Blu-ray player, while you could get a player for less than $330 in February. It really should not be a surprise for all of us, but it is interesting to see how quickly retail adjusted to the new situation and increased prices."
PS3 (Score:5, Interesting)
$400 for an entry-level player, or $400 for the PS3?
And the winner is... (Score:-1, Interesting)
Not so fast.. HD VMD the next contender? (Score:0, Interesting)
From article: A new system that is incompatible with Blu-ray, called HD VMD, for versatile multilayer disc, is trying to find a niche. New Medium Enterprises, the London company behind HD VMD, says its system's quality is equal to Blu-ray's but it costs less. By undercutting the competition in production, replication and hardware costs, it thinks it can find a market among consumers with less disposable income, particularly outside the United States.
I have my doubts, but it would be interesting to see what it could possibly bring (and a jab at Sony is always a "check plus" in my book)
So much for rapid adoption (Score:5, Interesting)
Still competing with DVD (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait till the spec shakes out (Score:5, Interesting)
Blu-Ray recently add the "Profile 1.1" and "Profile 2.0" specs to their list (and yes, to all you HD-DVD supporters playing at home, Profile 2.0 does FINALLY bring Blu-Ray to feature parity with HD-DVD). Also, as we've been reminded time and again (especially by posters on
Once the specs have settled a little, and as HDTV adoption increases, I'd expect to see economies of scale kick in (as opposed to the price war going on between the BD camp and the HD-DVD camp).
Something else to keep in mind though, is that the PS3 is probably going to be leading the charge in the price war for the next few years.
If $400 is the average price for a BD player, then the $400 PS3, as a current "Profile 1.1" and guaranteed future "Profile 2.0" player (according to Sony's press release from last years E3), makes it a steal as the best priced (and more "future-proof") unit. On the other hand, so long as the PS3 is competing with the XBox 360, they can not keep the price that much higher than their competitor, and they MUST include the Blu-Ray Drive, since PS3 games are shipped on BDs.
It'll be interesting to follow the market as a whole as the PS3 ages into its life cycle, the price drops, and HDTV adoption increases.
(I know at least 5 people in the past week that have finally decided to look into HDTVs that didn't know anything about it. Yes this is anecdotal evidence, but its more people than I have personally seen looking at getting an HDTV at a given time.)
Re:Great- no more format war! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, because we all know this evil DVD monopoly drove DVD player
prices to insane heights...
Seriously, this is basic supply and demand at work (more would-'ve-bought HD-DVD
buyers now go for BluRay) and will certainly improve over a probably rather short time.
hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
What if by declaring hd-dvd dead it causes hd-dvd to become more popular than blu-ray?
By this I mean, the prices of drives are dropping because they are getting rid of them. The movies, too. At the same time, blu-ray is going up.
Will a lot of people even know that hd-dvd is dead? They will just see how cheap it is.
If this were timed right, hd-dvd could hit a critical mass very quickly. Yes they'd lose a bunch of money on the current supplies, but that's going to happen anyway. If at the right time they could resurect it and keep the prices way below blu-ray they could make a comeback. In the mean time they don't really have to waste money on advertising etc.
Myself, I would buy an hd-dvd burner and media right now if the prices were really low, just for storage purposes. They should continue to sell them for pcs for storage purposes.
Just a crazy idea. And what a coup it would be...
What about the media? (Score:4, Interesting)
I find it hard to buy titles like "No Country for Old Men" for $26.00-29.99 on Blu-Ray when the same title can be picked up for less than $14 at Target on DVD. Another gripe is high prices on back-catalog titles I already own on DVD. Sorry, I will not buy a $26+ BR title when I have already purchased the same title on DVD two or more years ago.
When retailers start aggressively pricing media again, I'll go back to buying the format. Otherwise upscaled DVD looks quite good on my PS3.
I'm making out like gangbusters (Score:2, Interesting)
One thing that has been observed since Toshiba's decision is that sales of players and movies have SKYROCKETED, and Toshiba has been reported to be reconsidering their decision.
This war may not be over just yet...
Re:Great- no more format war! (Score:5, Interesting)
If your statement is true, and I'm going to assume it is, this means we also won't see a huge blu-ray adoption. The VHS to DVD format adoption is easily the fastest I've ever seen. Faster than LPs to tape, faster than tape to CD. in fact, I remember buying my first CD player in about 1989. CDs had been mainstream since what, 82, but seven years later a good player was still $300? It took a long time for the CD to completely take over the market, mostly because the players were expensive.
If the studios are smart, and I think they are, the prices of blu-ray players will only be high for the next 6 months or so. After that, the studios will subsidize their production. The only way people are going to buy ANOTHER new copy of that old movie they love is if the player is cheap. The best way for the studios to make money is to get those players in the hands of the end users.
Re:hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
I just despise Sony and their formats...
Re:hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Am I happy that my format of choice lost the war? No. But I'm not particularly upset about it either. In fact I think I'm getting a pretty good deal out of this situation.
Re:Look how quickly I adjust too (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. I'll adjust by using my normal $70 DVD player, probably for years to come.
Perhaps this is an opportunity for HD-DVD (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Look how quickly I adjust too (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't rocket science. You move the player to the bedroom or the kid's playroom or you give it to your Mom and you get a new one if you want the features so bad. If you don't, well then your player isn't obsolete, is it?.
I still have and use a DVD player I got in 1999. It still works perfectly fine.
It is attitudes like this that contribute to our garbage ridden throwaway society.
Average != lowest (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still competing with DVD (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, I agree that HD is tangibly better than standard DVD. But for me (and a whole bunch of other people), it is not nearly enough better to justify switching media formats (and, necessarily, upgrading hardware that is already paid for and working perfectly well).
And while I have no gripe with Blu-ray peacefully coexisting with DVD, what I fear is that Blu-ray gets enough penetration that the industry can start ignoring the DVD format (VHS started dying off seriously when tapes stopped being distributed for new movies). When a studio is able to justify releasing a "Blu-ray exclusive" title, DVD will be toast quickly. Then I'll be stuck with an unsupported format that will continue to be "good enough" (for me, anyway) for years and years to come. I really, really don't want to deal with new un-rippable, premium-priced discs that will force me to buy a new player at minimum (and a new TV to see any benefit at all).
Sure, this won't happen for awhile yet (heck, DVD may yet outlast Blu-ray in the market), but the swift end to the HD format war means that Blu-ray has much more of a chance of supplanting DVD.
Re:Great- no more format war! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Still competing with DVD (Score:3, Interesting)
DVD movies had the bonus in the early DVD days that often movies were held back from retail release (gotta artificially create those "rental windows" for Blockbuster and the like) were released on DVD right away.
Blu Ray might eventually supplant DVD, but it won't happen until the players come down in price a lot as well as movie prices drop. The players eventually will, remember that DVD players remained pretty expensive for the first year (or two) after the format first came out, then dropped fairly rapidly. Disney pushing it's library out on BR only might have a big part to do with it.. if they take that risk and do it. Wouldn't surprise me at all though, they love getting people to buy their stuff again, and using crap like "we're only opening the vault for this short time" to scare parents into buying a movie so their kids can have it.
The biggest hurdle that Blu Ray is really going to have, is convincing people that it's worth changing. It was a no-brainer from VHS to DVD.. no rewinding, better video quality, no degradation of the quality over time, chapters, etc. Blu Ray is more of a evolutionary step vs the revolutionary step that DVD was.
For the curious.. I have both HD and BR. I have a PS3 and a 360 with the add on. I preferred BR from my first experience with it (several months after I'd already had the HD add-on). Yes it's anecdotal, but I've had numerous issues with HD playback, HDi content and discs damaged to unplayable out of the case, vs nothing but flawless playback and features on the BR side. Not to mention 2 failed 360s already (not 1st run, one was an elite).. but that's a different rant.
Oh, and I only buy the BR copies of things that I care to see/hear in HD, I still overwhelmingly buy DVD.
Re:Look how quickly I adjust too (Score:5, Interesting)
Last I checked some movie studios were approximately decadipping at this point:
Yay, I'm forced to watch previews on a movie I paid for. Or I can't skip the FBI warning. Or I can't skip the stupid menu animations.
The alternative is to download a DVD rip DRM unencumbered, no FBI warning, no forced previews - hell, no previews. No user prohibited actions. I could store it easily on any media I choose - such as carry it to a friend's house on a thumb drive. I could fast forward and rewind more easily than a DVD. I could store it on a big fat network drive with thousands of others. I could stream it anywhere I have the bandwidth to watch it. It's easily transferred from media to media - as fast as you can copy files.
Tell me again why I should buy DVD or blu-ray discs? They couldn't compete even if they were free.
Looks bogus to me. (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought I would check one of the high marks they are using as Evidence:
I looked at the Sharp BDHP20U listed as having jumped to $440. I checked amazon where it is show a LIST PRICE of $399 and selling price of $350. Only $90 different? Maybe Amazon is an outlier? Dell $329, Every retailer I have heard of was under $400.
The only number higher were listing of something called "storefront"? with a price of $100 more than list??
Anyway even if the graph was correct, it looks like a whole lot of nothing, but to top it, the data itself seems suspect. Have a look for yourself.
Bottom line nothing to see here. Just another attempt to stir up the dead war for TG page hits.
Re:PS3 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"anti-PS3 crowd" (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of my time is still playing PC games but I also have an Xbox and have no interest in a PS3 even for the BluRay. I have a lot of interest in BluRay but not through a PS3 or the "new" pricing scheme that they've seemed to now drop on consumers for stand-alone players. I'll bid my time and hopefully Microsoft releases a BD player at some point in the upcoming months as has been the rumor.
Re:Still competing with DVD (Score:2, Interesting)
Throughout this "war" , I asked people around me if they'd ever heard of blu-ray or HD DVD, not only had the majority not heard of them, but a lot of thought blu-ray was blue tooth.
I'm back in Japan now and there's huge push for blu-ray at the electronic stores. They have two 42" HD Tvs next to each other, one plays blu-ray, the other plays "DVD". Both of them are recordings off of an HD channel. Even my wife, who has zero interest in technology walked in and said, "Wow, what super crap low quality setting did they record that DVD on?"
Personally, I think it's hallarious that the supposed advantage of this stuff is for the better quality but you can by HD DVD/VHS combo players.
Re:Look how quickly I adjust too (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Look how quickly I adjust too (Score:3, Interesting)