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Thursday March 13, 2008
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We all saw this one coming, right? In the battle of the next-generation high-definition format, Toshiba's HD DVD's primary selling point was always its relative affordability. Now that HD DVD is out of the running, that whole free-market thing isn't doing much to drive down the price of Blu-ray players. The inevitable march toward disk ubiquity seems to mean that Sony can charge whatever it wants.
As a result, Blu-ray drives are now at the most expensive they've been all year, according to TG Daily. Where competition had driven Blu-ray player prices down to near $300, the site is now reporting $400 as the average price for a player. Prices are up across the board since February, when Sony was looking to deliver the death blow to Toshiba's format (already weakened by Warner's pre-CES pullout).
Matters are further complicated by the fact that Sony plans to release disks with advanced issues toward year's end. Good news, except that since there are no players on the market with Internet capabilities save for the PS3, users with older units will not be able to take advantage of the features fully --or get firmware upgrades for their devices.
It's almost enough to make you miss HD DVD.
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March 14, 2008 8:23 AM
So "Sony plans to release disks with advanced features..." So they are raising the prices while at the same time the players won't be able to use disks planned for release this year. So why should you buy one? I would have thought Sony would want people to buy the drives/players, but it sounds like they've decided they can charge more. Doesn't sound like a good sales strategy.
March 14, 2008 1:23 PM
Sony always does stupid sales strategy like this. Remember their flawed PS3 strategy? Blu-ray wouldn't be popular unless they would bring down the price to a decent price. They might not be competing with HD-DVD anymore but regular DVD remains a good option, especially if they are continually scaring everybody with $400 player and similary expensive discs. I am sticking with my plain, old, reliable DVD until SONY comes to their senses.
March 14, 2008 2:48 PM
This is a very misleading article. Reporting like this is what caused me to cancel my PC magazine subscription.
Sony has not razed the MSRP on any blu-ray players. Also there are several other manufacturers of blu-ray hardware besides Sony and none of them have razed MSRP either.
If you read the original report from TG Daily you would see that their analysis is flawed. They are comparing prices during after Christmas sales against non sale prices now. Wow big surprise, the sales are over and the price is back at MSRP. What a scoop.
Furthermore the new blu-ray disc profile does not make any player obsolete. And it is entirely possible to upgrade firmware without connecting to the Internet. It seems like you are really reaching to find something to get upset about.
March 14, 2008 2:59 PM
Think about it:
One blank Blu-ray disk (1 layer/25GB) cost about $20.
So to get 500GB worth of storage you have to spend $400.
At the same time you can get 500GB hard drive for $100 + external cheap enclosure for $20 and record hours and haurs of HD video. Add a hard drive based HiDef media player for a couple of hundreds of $$ and ask your self do you really need to support Sony's shareholders with your money?
Few more points:
hard drives are rewritable and way more reliable than Blu-ray media.
In six month 500GB will cost you $60-70
March 16, 2008 9:31 AM
I am simply telling everyone, just avoid blu-ray and jump directly to digital downloading of movies and television content. We need to force digital providers to give us a means to transfer this media to physical formats such as standard DVD. However, I do agree that this is bad reporting and PC Magazine is notorious for it. I think they need to enforce some journalistic integrity and ethics, like reporting the whole story. I think they do misleading stories like this for cheap webhits.