Captain Obvious has
swooped in to bring us the latest sales bit from the world of high-definition players, and the results are nothing short of unsurprising. According to data gathered since the recent rash of price cuts -- particularly on standalone HD DVD players -- HD disc players have seen noticeable jumps in sales. Citing Sony's recently slashed
BDP-S1 and Toshiba's
bargain-priced HD-A2, various analysts and company spokespeople were unanimously upbeat by the recent (and unseasonal) uptick in sales. Notably, Universal Studios' Ken Graffeo claimed that he "realized over the last couple of months that the audience was not perceiving $499 as a great value, but the $299 to $399 range really hit the
sweet spot." Maybe so, but get these suckas below the
magical $200 point and watch the mayhem
really begin.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TheGuy @ Jun 22nd 2007 9:31AM
OMG!!! So price cuts = more sales. This news is revolutionary, and will change the business world FOREVER!!! (runs outside naked to proclaim the good news).
Fredster @ Jun 22nd 2007 10:13AM
ROFLMAO!!!!!
Paul Fernandez @ Jun 22nd 2007 11:59AM
Combine this news with the recent "78 percent want HD" post, the awesome slew of HD releases from both camps, and ever-dropping LCD prices and you're talkin' more fireworks than the Fourth of July. Blockbuster shenanigans be damned!
Michael @ Jun 22nd 2007 2:14PM
Has the price of the movies dropped any or are they still way more expensive than a normal dvd?
They can drop the hardware all they want but the movie side needs to drop as well.
Anthony @ Jun 22nd 2007 5:46PM
The prices of the movies have come down some, Amazon.com is selling some HD DVD's at $17.99. I don't know if this is the same for Blu Ray. Fry's was selling HD DVD's at a shocking $13 each at the beginning of the month, they have since went back up to $19.99 each.
marius @ Jun 24th 2007 8:06AM
More titles, 20 gigs more storage, 5 to 1 more players in the market, more advanced technology, can contain a regular DVD layer, plus a HD layer (which means you can buy HD movies, play them on a regular DVD player and use the same DVD when you upgrade your equipment to HD) Therefore I would only buy blu-ray
A HD DVD player will look great next to the old betamax player, as unfortunately only one format can win.
Chris K. @ Jun 25th 2007 3:39AM
"The only thing bluray has is titles, and they don't have all of them."
No not all, just 95% of them.
marius @ Jun 25th 2007 6:00AM
Blu-ray outnumbers HD DVD players 5 to 1 at the moment. HD-DVD player is loosing the format war (CEO of pansonic already said t blue ray as already won). Therefore this price reduction was put through.
HD-DVD says our technology isn't as good, but we are cheaper. I would not buy any HD DVD products.
Go for the blue-rays as they have almost double the capacity and more potential for the future.
andy @ Jun 23rd 2007 11:28AM
That's true, bluray does have far more DRM than HDDVD, and region coding to boot. It's far more advanced.
Grow up. Blu-ray has a little more capacity but the beta version players that they're selling now combined with ridiculous anti-consumer measures just really don't appeal to me. The only thing bluray has is titles, and they don't have all of them.
Broo @ Jun 26th 2007 9:25AM
lol- I just realized that Sony is probably paying people to post blog comments pro for Blu-Ray; they are desperate to get at least one of their licensed formats to catch on...
5 to 1? how many of those are PS3 systems that will never see a Blu-Ray movie in their drive (save for the free Taledaga Nights)? if there are 500% more Blu-Ray players, why are the Blu-Ray sales only about 60% of the HD movies sales- shouldn't this be more like 84%?
Which-ever format makes it to $150 first will win the format war for the masses; and when 100 million+ players (of either format) are installed the studios will change stance and sell in the winning format- none of them can stand to lose millions of disc sales (not even Sony).