Retailers already forgetting HD DVD
Even without an official announcement, it appears the world is moving on without HD DVD. At the Fifth Avenue Best Buy, HD DVD hardware is already special order only, while its disappeared entirely from this week's Circuit City advertisement. The only people still picking up HD DVD players seem to be value shoppers looking for to deep discounts when retailers clear out movies. Red put up a good fight, but with retail support rapidly following the studios, its clear what time it is.
Filed under: HD DVD
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kimbo Slice @ Feb 17th 2008 9:32PM
They had the HD-A3 advertised in this weeks Circuit City Ad.
anon @ Feb 17th 2008 9:59PM
And it was 2 players. I don't know how that's "disappeared entirely". I wonder if they even looked at the ad. That sounds about right for the reporting "quality" of EngadgetHD these days....
Juice @ Feb 17th 2008 9:38PM
How many times are we going to see this put up, we get it, the format is dead, lets move on. So whats new on the Blu Ray horizon, will we see players stop going down in price (for the moment anyways) letting some manufactures make some money, will the price of the media start dropping or will they continue to be overpriced, will Blu Ray kill DVD or will we have a split market (bad for us, no drop in prices if this happens). Can movie downloads kill the HD market, people dont seem to mind losing quality for the easy access of downloading. Come on editors I know this is the slow season but we need some new topics, if you want some credibility stop beating the dead horse.
Jeff @ Feb 17th 2008 9:48PM
Won't happen, engadgethd is so infatuated with the death of hddvd, that if blu ray fell off the face of the earth, it wouldn't matter because hd dvd is dying
Mitchell @ Feb 17th 2008 9:49PM
i wouldn't expect much out of Blu on lowering prices for some time. When the format was was head on they never did, what incentive do they have now?
Ultimately the end of the war is good/bad for customers. On one side it good that when we invest in new hardware its good for 10 yrs at least. on the other hand prices will stay high.
For me i refuse to go blu unless the player is 200 or less.
Mitchell
MI @ Feb 17th 2008 10:48PM
I'm inclined to agree to some extent. I think they need to report thing (though I too see two HDVD players in my 'local' presidents day ad) but I think they need to be conscious of the 'dead horse factor' as they do. We've got a lot of fences to mend in this thing...
Rich @ Feb 18th 2008 12:30AM
At the moment there isn't any incentive for the BR camp to lower the hardware prices. Their only competitor has essentially been cut out of the market. The prices probably won't drop until later this year, when the next round of Black Friday deals kick in. Can't have Sony and gang losing out on any patent royalties, or a brief chance to recoup some of their investments into the BR format can we?
As far as the software prices, don't expect those to drop anytime soon. Again, another way for the BR camp to eek out a bit more royalty money from the consumers. As for purchasing software, buy online where the prices are usually a bit less than retail...amazon, walmart, dvd planet, etc. Now we get to pay for the perceived 'value' of BR media. Yay!
Mark @ Feb 18th 2008 6:55AM
The incentive for lowering prices should be obvious - competition. I assume that Sony, Panasonic, Phillps, Samsung, and even Toshiba would very much like if you parted with your cash and gave it to them. For that to happen they'll have to compete with each other on prices and features. As Blu Ray enters the mainstream the economies of scale kick in.
This really is no different from when DVD was starting. I don't understand why people think Blu Ray will be any different.
Andrew @ Feb 18th 2008 8:43AM
Uhh... he was talking about Circuit City Jay, hence using "CC", not "Best Buy". ;)
Andrew @ Feb 18th 2008 8:44AM
I hate engadget's commenting system placing my comments wherever it wants rather than where I clicked reply.
Xyzzy @ Feb 17th 2008 9:46PM
fogetting?
Proofread much? :)
Xyzzy @ Feb 17th 2008 9:50PM
Here in the Twin Cities, the Circuit City ad showed both the A3 and the A30. There's no Blu-Ray players advertised...
Jeff @ Feb 17th 2008 10:07PM
Same here in Jax, Fl
MrGuru @ Feb 17th 2008 10:38PM
cc makes their ads at least 2 3 weeks in advance. i think though may be the last ad you see for hd dvd.
SimbaDogg @ Feb 18th 2008 1:19AM
i know best buys make their adds about 1 week in advance...but even as of 3 weeks ago (as far as news) why wouldn't CC wanna advertise any blu ray players? maybe this is the same reason they're been rapidly losing marketshare and closing down an incredible amount of stores...poor mgmt.
Jay @ Feb 18th 2008 8:38AM
@SimbaDogg
Wow, maybe you should study finance a little more. Best Buy is one of the healthiest electronic big box retailers out there. They did very well in 2007 and have always been ahead of the curve on sales trends. You want to see poor management? Look at Circuit City.
Andrew @ Feb 18th 2008 8:44AM
Lets try this again, maybe this time it will post in the right place
--------------
Uhh... he was talking about Circuit City Jay, hence using "CC", not "Best Buy". ;)
Jay @ Feb 18th 2008 9:10AM
Sorry, I did miss the CC in there!
cheese head @ Feb 17th 2008 9:54PM
Eh? No reason to lower prices with HD DVD dead? Pretty sure now that HD DVD is over they have an even bigger fight with DVD to win.
If HD DVD most of the tards complaining would love to read those articles all day long. Go away if you don't want to read it.
Jove @ Feb 18th 2008 12:27AM
hey cheese head, what is that picture in ur avatar????
HD4ME @ Feb 18th 2008 3:28AM
Cheese head please, the war is over, enough with the rhetoric.
As if BR is going to take on DVD, IMO they don't want to. They have a nice fat niche market ripe for the plundering now, they wont be taking on DVD anytime soon.
Besides, DVDs can hook up to ANY TV, BR can only be hooked up to HD, so by the time HD TVs penetration is high enough, and blu ray players prices low enough, downloading will be the norm.
BR will never be more than a niche market, typical sony.
JayHDDVD @ Feb 17th 2008 9:56PM
Wow
The HD-A30 disappeared from Futureshop here in Canada on Saturday as well... the website that is.
Fiddlesworth @ Feb 17th 2008 10:11PM
Hahaha, next the bitter HD DVD fans here will be accusing the BDA of paying off Engadget! If they haven't already.
"Between your faith and my Glock nine millimeter, Ill take the Glock."
hotfstop @ Feb 17th 2008 10:17PM
what we need are some new blu players to hit the market. the current batch all seem to be compromised at the moment (PS3 not dealing with DTS-MA, panasonic 30 with its LFE issues, and the samsung 1400 being profile 1.0). of course, a larger selection of films would help as well.
Michial @ Feb 17th 2008 10:28PM
I think the poster acidentally said the CC add didnt have any hddvd content when it was the BB that didnt. Why would any retailer want to mislead a consumer? It will come back to bite the store they are representing. Thats why Toshiba would get props if they posted their sales for what they are -fire sales-let the buyer know what they are getting into-they will then not turn off consumers and can allow the stores to stock their stuff.
ProfWho @ Feb 17th 2008 10:51PM
What is HD-DVD?
WebDev511 @ Feb 17th 2008 11:33PM
It's the format that provided the benchmark for interactive content and forced Blu-Ray to be released early, go through multiple iterations and spend a ton of money on marketing and payola, I mean incentives.
Oh and the players are on sale in this week's Circuit City ad.
Weekly ads are planned about 14 days ahead of time and printed the week of distribution, so yeah, BB had planned on pushing blu a couple of weeks ago.
Killer @ Feb 17th 2008 11:00PM
Jesus Christ, Can we done with this already?! Seriously, I thought we would have heard the last part of HD DVD dying after the "Toshiba to drop HD DVD". Is this going to be regular occurrence with this down the road when HD DVD isn't found anywhere and it's a slow News day? HD DVD DEAD, WE KNOW! I think the most depressing thing about this format war being over, is the fact that EngadgetHD really won't have alot to cover. I mean 50% of the articles (on EngadgetHD) were based on the data, arguments, and which format was going to win. I mean do we expect the DVD group to have comebacks for the BDA. Oh wait they're the same companies. Maybe if we get lucky one company will might go Bipolar and keep this entertaining. Samsung, I'm looking at you. Good luck with that class action lawsuit.
LordZargon @ Feb 18th 2008 4:05AM
The topic is here because "officially" HD DVD isn't dead yet; but retailers are quick to dispose of the format in their stores.
Once its "officially" dead. any topics of this sort you can blaspheme your anger out on - but not just yet. Be patient :P.
mntwister @ Feb 17th 2008 11:48PM
I noticed that the Best Buy ad this week did not show an American Gangster hd-dvd next to the regular dvd as they always have for a new release. Wow.
I started with blu-ray and stayed with Blu, but I have to say Toshiba did a decent job, and had a good product. I am not sure why everyone was slamming each other, they are both good formats. hd-dvd deserves praise because you could buy a player and it was finalized, that was a big plus. Had there not been a format war, we would never have seen hd-dvd players hitting $150 yet, that's for sure.
My hats off Toshiba on a good try, when a team loses, those who have any decency shake the hands of the loser and wish them well. Too bad there's others on here who have to be so negative.
I think the official Toshiba release will be either Monday or Tuesday, and then we can expect Paramount to first make a move, very soon in fact. I did not expect things to fall this fast for hd-dvd, obviously Warner had alot of power in this situation!
Jake @ Feb 18th 2008 1:51AM
Yeah I work on the product flow team at a circuit city store and we have been pulling large quantities of hd dvds off the shelf to send back. I think we are keeping a few just to sell through them then thats it. I foresee a planogram change in the near future for the home entertainment blu-ray/hd dvd section. I'm glad to see blu-ray win. I feel the pure fact that it has a higher capacity than hd dvd is enough on its own to win the war. higher quality content, i.e. picture and sound, takes more space so from a future ability standpoint I back blu-ray, apparently I'm not alone lol.
CassilineKnight @ Feb 18th 2008 10:00AM
This doesn't surprise me in the least...
And just so we're CLEAR HD DVD fanboys whats going here is a FIRESALE!
I know it pissed you guys off a few weeks ago when Bluray fanboys kept saying it but you're gonna have to face reality and realize that companies (both brick & mortar AND online) are clearing out their inventories of HD DVD stuff and preparing to stock Bluray ONLY.
The Fture is Blu...
Eddie @ Feb 18th 2008 4:30PM
It appears that with all the latest news from Engadget that we know who they've been pulling for all along, even when things appeared even in the war, Engadget writers clearly favored Blu-ray. I agree HD-DVD is a goner, but it's sad, it's a good format, that had tons of potential and at lower costs then Blu-ray which was good for consumers. No Blu-ray for me, I'll wait for the super servers that Comcast and others will use for VOD. I'll just keep buying standard DVD's and get those bargain basement HD-DVDs. Say what they want, this site and all of the other nitwits that backed one camp are complicit with it's demise. Screw Sony..