HD DVDs demise seem to push Blu-ray prices up

teamerickson

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New data shows that the price of Blu-ray players has a upward trend after HD DVDs demise.

The data comes from pricegrabber.com that can show the average price of a given player on a given time.

TG Daily collected the data which shows a upward trend for Blu-ray players.

On January 1st 2008 (Before Warner chose Blu-ray) the average price of a Panasonice DMP-BD30K player was $401. On March 2nd it was up at $495. The Sony BDP-S300 shows a similar trend with a January price of $307 and a March price of $386. Many of the players were also sold with free Blu-ray movies in January but these offers has ended as well.

The only Blu-ray players that seems to have fallen in price in the period are DUO (Plays HD DVD and Blu-ray discs) players from Samsung and LG.

Source: TG Daily, Pricegrabber.com

HD DVDs demise seem to push Blu-ray prices up - DVDTOWN.com

How can they do that? They have to lower prices or risk becoming a niche format. :rolleyes:
 
I'm not saying I agree with this, and I have noticed that prices seem to be higher on discs too, about which I am none too happy (and yes, feel free to say "I told you so"). But does anyone think you would have seen any $98 HD-DVD players with 7 free movies on shelves today if BD had been the one to drop out?

I think if you give it some time to normalize, prices will start to come down again after 2.0 players are fairly commonplace.
 
I'm not saying I agree with this, and I have noticed that prices seem to be higher on discs too, about which I am none too happy (and yes, feel free to say "I told you so"). But does anyone think you would have seen any $98 HD-DVD players with 7 free movies on shelves today if BD had been the one to drop out?

I think if you give it some time to normalize, prices will start to come down again after 2.0 players are fairly commonplace.

Nope, I think the players and software on HD-DVD would have gone up as well, but consider the jump from say $98 to maybe $150 compared to the jump from $301 to $398..... One puts the price out of consumers reach the other does not.

Like I said the saving factor for BD at all right now is the PS3 has competition from the 360 and is getting spanked by the Wii.

If Sony was in dominance in the gaming area right now they would discontinue the low end SKUs.
 
I told you. I told you. The consumer lost in this war.

They didn't lose entirely. Without HD DVD to compete with early on, Blu-Ray players would still be $1500 and most transfers would look like The House of Flying Daggers with no remorse. The movies would probably be $35 or more as well.
 
The prices have simply gone back to MSRP. They have not raised prices, they just pulled back on the sale prices.

As more manufacturers come into play and more players hit the street, the prices will fall. The fact is that right now there are still only a handful of players on the market. Its just a matter of time before we start seeing cheaper players, but the current generation will stay at the MSRP.

$150 BD players by Christmas, guaranteed. I'm sure they won't be the best players at that price, with all the bells and whistles, but there will be players at that price.
 
Player manufacturers are in no hurry to get the price down. BD has many players available because there is not someone dumping players on the market. Prices will come down naturally as new chips come out and lower the overall cost. I expect in 3 years there will a variety of 2.0 players under $100. It takes a year or 2 to get the functionality all reduced to a single chip.
 
Nope, I think the players and software on HD-DVD would have gone up as well, but consider the jump from say $98 to maybe $150 compared to the jump from $301 to $398..... One puts the price out of consumers reach the other does not.

Like I said the saving factor for BD at all right now is the PS3 has competition from the 360 and is getting spanked by the Wii.

If Sony was in dominance in the gaming area right now they would discontinue the low end SKUs.

I don't disagree... but I still think most consumers are at least 6 months from getting into this market anyway, so I'm not sure how much it matters at the moment. Then again, maybe if prices were lower, they wouldn't be 6 months away from getting in....

I doubt Sony would get rid of the 40 GB models, even if they were dominant, but I still think their biggest problem is not having an exit strategy for the PS2. There are still more new games coming out for that than for the PS3, it seems.... Thing is, they act like they don't care. By taking BC out of the PS3 it seems they are trying to get everyone to buy both, which seems both exceedingly arrogant and exceedingly stupid.
 
Standalone BD player prices will be <$300 by Christmas this year and <$200 by Christmas '09.
 
which seems both exceedingly arrogant and exceedingly stupid.


Exactly the problem I have with Sony's video game strategy. They got this way by dominating the last 2 generations of video gaming.

Witch they deserved mind you. The PS and the PS2 were both great products.

But like what happened to Nintendo after the SNES (they refused to move to optical media)

Companies get like this after a while. They get way to big for their britches and it takes a few hits to the head to straighten out.

Fortunately or maybe unfortunately for Sony though they are multi vested in many areas and can take a hit like this without flinching.

I say unfortunately because it may be a while before they stop doing stupid things since they can take the hits.

Well all I can say is at least I don't have to own 4 PS3's to keep my family entertained. LOL

2 of my 360s are in the shop. So I had to pick up a 4th now so the kids can play in the other room :p
 
Does anyone know if that is a normal cycle or whether this is an aberration?
 
Does anyone know if that is a normal cycle or whether this is an aberration?

Prices on just about everything seem to have a normal seasonal shift. Heavy discounts for the holidays and after holiday sales; prices swing back up immediately after; will likely start to drop in late spring; come back up in summer; drop in late summer early fall; and then down again for the holidays. I don't think anyone can say "I told you so" based on a 1-2 week trend in mid/late winter.
 
Now the truth comes out, as I said before BD now has no incentive to lower prices. All the BD manufacturers lost money during the war and will try to recoup that money back well into 2009. I wonder how long it'll be before some BD fanboy attacks this article as bias, slanted, or improperly written.
 
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Nope, I think the players and software on HD-DVD would have gone up as well, but consider the jump from say $98 to maybe $150 compared to the jump from $301 to $398..... One puts the price out of consumers reach the other does not.

The HD-DVD player went down to $150 when Warner Bros. dropped HD for Blu. Before that, the lowest priced HD-DVD player was $299 compared to the Sony for $301.
 
The HD-DVD player went down to $150 when Warner Bros. dropped HD for Blu. Before that, the lowest priced HD-DVD player was $299 compared to the Sony for $301.

The player was a lot less than $299 even before WB dropped HD-DVD.
 
The HD-DVD player went down to $150 when Warner Bros. dropped HD for Blu. Before that, the lowest priced HD-DVD player was $299 compared to the Sony for $301.

$301? When the heck was any Sony Blu-Ray player even $301 street much less list. The BDP-S300 is still $499 list. (down $100 from introduction) The lowest price HD DVD player (the A3) was initially $299 list.
 

What will happen to Blu-ray hardware sales in 2008?

There's no such thing as an HD-DVD player (according to Best Buy)

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