I work at Best Buy and I know that we were giving away Bluray players like they were Happy Meals. Even to people who didn't want them. It's pretty easy to hit those kind of numbers when you give away $500 machines for free. Especially when you have three different manufactures doing it all while giving away 10 free movies. At Best Buy anyway, it was the 5 free by mail of course, followed by any 5 of your choice out of the store for free.
Why would you buy a device for $150 or $200 when you could get something that costs $500 that does the same thing for free? To J6P, more expensive means better. And to top it off it's free and comes with a basket of free movies.
Throwing the whole format thing aside, why would anyone buy a $150 or $200 DVD player when they can get a $500 one for free and it comes with 10 free movies?
If the WB announcement would have never happened and things remained as they were post announcement and this sale happened, the numbers would still be somewhere around 80-85% to 20-15%.
Of COURSE sales are going to be down that much! What do you expect?
Yes I know HDDVD sales were down 88%, I have come to terms with that. My point is that the fact BR was giving away free players has a significant impact on that 88%.
If Super America offered to fill up your gas tank for free, while the BP station right across the road was offering 50% off per gallon, don't you think that Super America is going to steal business away from that BP station?
If you think that the free BR players didn't contribute to that 88%, you need to take a class in business or at least be slapped with some common sense.
The price cut came after the drop to 7%, not before. In fact there was a price increase (since the $100 price cut on the A3 was deemed a "rebate" that expired on the 5th).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ben @ Jan 25th 2008 10:52AM
Wow, I have to say you guys are really making yourself look like fanboys.
Let pretend for a second that Blu-ray sales were flat that week, that doesn't change the fact that despite HD DVD slashing prices, they were down 88%!
Godfa7h3r @ Jan 25th 2008 11:01AM
Ben, give it a rest man...
I work at Best Buy and I know that we were giving away Bluray players like they were Happy Meals. Even to people who didn't want them. It's pretty easy to hit those kind of numbers when you give away $500 machines for free. Especially when you have three different manufactures doing it all while giving away 10 free movies. At Best Buy anyway, it was the 5 free by mail of course, followed by any 5 of your choice out of the store for free.
Why would you buy a device for $150 or $200 when you could get something that costs $500 that does the same thing for free? To J6P, more expensive means better. And to top it off it's free and comes with a basket of free movies.
Throwing the whole format thing aside, why would anyone buy a $150 or $200 DVD player when they can get a $500 one for free and it comes with 10 free movies?
If the WB announcement would have never happened and things remained as they were post announcement and this sale happened, the numbers would still be somewhere around 80-85% to 20-15%.
Of COURSE sales are going to be down that much! What do you expect?
Vidikron (FU) @ Jan 25th 2008 11:18AM
@Godfa7h3r
Spin it how you want... HD DVD sales were down 88% regardless of what BR did that week. No way around that.
Godfa7h3r @ Jan 25th 2008 12:32PM
@Vidikron (FU)
Yes I know HDDVD sales were down 88%, I have come to terms with that. My point is that the fact BR was giving away free players has a significant impact on that 88%.
If Super America offered to fill up your gas tank for free, while the BP station right across the road was offering 50% off per gallon, don't you think that Super America is going to steal business away from that BP station?
If you think that the free BR players didn't contribute to that 88%, you need to take a class in business or at least be slapped with some common sense.
h0mi @ Jan 25th 2008 1:19PM
The price cut came after the drop to 7%, not before.
In fact there was a price increase (since the $100 price cut on the A3 was deemed a "rebate" that expired on the 5th).