HD-DVDs hit the magical price point

[cavalierlwt]

They finally officially dropped HD-DVD players to $299 and less, actually $249 at Costco, and voila--a fivefold to tenfold increase in sales.
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6447181.html

Wait till they hit $199 at someplace like Walmart, thats when it turns from a river of sales into a flood. Blu-Ray has nearly everything going for it but price, and it could well be on it's way to being the next Betamax if it doesn't get something going at $299 soon.

I can't wait for this retarded format war to be over so I can buy something!

[TChicken]

Yeah I dont know, I saw a full-featured dvd player at futureshop recently for $30... still a lot further down to go.

[SavageParrot]

if they hit £199 and they still play old dvds it's worth buying. The worst that'll happen is you have a pricey regular dvd player even if the format dies...

[cavalierlwt]

Yeah, that's the beauty of that price point, it's the amount people are willing to part with spontaneously, at the store, in a kind of 'Oh fuck it, I'll buy it' type moment. Myself, I'll probably just buy the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on and just attach it to my living room computer. $199 get's you in the HD-DVD game that way. Right now there aren't enough titles, and there probably won't be until the stupid format war ends.

[Wesley]

Whats that cheap the Toshiba POS in a box that displays 1080i at best?

EDIT:
yeah POS
quote from amazon.com
"Video Output: 1080i/720p/480p/480i "

[cavalierlwt]

And now the pricing pressure is pushing Blu-Ray to drop prices as well. $499--not cheap--but it's a pretty good player.
http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/consumer/home_audio_video/blu-ray_disc/release/30408.html

[Wesley]

If Blue-Ray would get their player prices down this battle would probably be over, but alas they are still way too high for joe consumer.

[cavalierlwt]

Yeah, Blu-Ray has everything but price. The funny thing is, they could wind up losing because of price. HD-DVDs are selling at $249 at Costco, if they get to $199 by Xmas they could wind up selling a shitload of them. If HD-DVD players wind up outnumbering Blu-Ray players (and I don't count the PS3/Xbox players here) by ten to one, the other companies will cave in and start putting their movies on HD-DVD--except for Sony of course. The Blu-Ray backers would be smart to take it on the chin and just drop down to $199, you're right, the war would be over by Xmas. If HD-DVD wins, it would take at minimum a couple of years even if they hit $199 by Xmas.

[Slaughter2]

Blu Ray is butt, so hello to the new beta max

[SavageParrot]

To be honest I never liked blu-rays chances due to it being too closely linked to the one company. If they think they are going to lose though things might get really interesting pricewise. After all at the momment the price is based on the expense of producing the format but if they look like getting wiped out they are gonna work out that it's better to recoup the money slowly at a lower price than to risk holding their price and losing it all.

[cavalierlwt]

Well, I didn't see it coming, but it's starting to look like Blu-Ray is going to win the format war. Blockbuster is abandoning HD-DVD and now Best Buy is saying that HD-DVD sales are tailing off and Blu-Ray is picking up. As I see it, if Blu-Ray can get it's price down to $299 by Xmas, they might be able to pull it off. I am surprised, but I will still be glad to see it over as soon as possible. Until the dust settles, the studios are not going to crank out the back catalogue (along with the new movies).

[CodeRed68]

I think someday not too far away.. DVD's themselves are going to be a thing of the past as hard drives get bigger and bigger and people store thier movie collections digitally. What's a movie? 2 gigs at most? I saw a 500 gig external hard drive at Target the other day for like 100-200 bucks.
Kinda like what's happening with music CD's. Imagine boxing up and storing away that bookcase sized DVD collection and having it all on one little hard drive.

[Sabres]

Imagine boxing up and storing away that bookcase sized DVD collection and having it all on one little hard drive.

I'd love it.

[cavalierlwt]

I already do that, I have a computer set up as an home theater PC, HTPC for short. It beats the hell out of searching through your DVDs. The funny thing is M$ creates products for HTPC (Windows Media Center) and many companies like HP make full blown ready made HTPCs, but the movie industry is still pissing and moaning about people ripping DVDs (still a gray area legally in much of the world), in spite of this new industry.

[SavageParrot]

I like the collection personally. Plus when your pc goes tits up as lets face it they do...you don't lose everything.