Sony Builds Blu-Ray Coffin, Says it Will Not Undercut $399 PS3 This Christmas

[Jeremy Charette]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.tvpredictions.com/sonyprice110107.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.tvpredictions.com/sonyprice110107.htm</a><br /><br /></div><i>'Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow says Blu-ray player prices will likely not fall under $399 this holiday season. “(The player will be) in the $399 range...I don’t expect it to go much lower than that," Glasgow said today, according to TWICE Magazine. Glasgow made his comment today following an announcement from Wal-Mart that it will sell the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player for $98 as a special pre "Black Friday" sale starting tomorrow."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/399ps3400.jpg" /><br /><br />Apparently Sony does not want to undercut sales of the PS3 by flooding the market with cheaper Blu-Ray players. I can understand the logic, as Sony needs to sell as many PS3s as possible to stop bleeding money and keep game publishers from fleeing to the Xbox 360 and Wii. But with HD DVD players selling for under $100 this holiday season, HD DVD hardware will outsell Blu-Ray by a mile. Glasgow says that there are more Blu-Ray titles available in stores, and my recent trips to most of the big box vendors show that indeed, the Blu-Ray sections are bigger than the HD DVD sections. But the size of the shelf space isn't going to matter if Santa brings thousands of HD DVD players home for Christmas.<br /><br />Sony should really get into the coffin business. They sure know how to build 'em.

[Felix Torres]

I wouldn't put all the blame on Sony; their fanboys are quickly earning a pretty unsavory reputation in AV circles.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/21598441
Vaguely familiar, at that...

Of course, given Sony's unsavory history online, those "fanboys" may in fact be paid stooges.

Biggest problem Sony faces is that they tried to take over the market through backroom deals instead of fair and open competition and now the various compromises they made to seal the deal (BD+, premium pricing, tying BD to PS3, endless spec revisions, etc) are getting in the way of competing with an underdog opponent that has literally nothing to lose. Add to that that with every attempt Sony makes to foreclose HD-DVD's market access (the Blockbuster deal, the target deal) and to prop up the high end pricing for BD results in HD-DVD gains. (E.g.; Target going BD-exclusive surely played a part in walmart --and K-mart--going full-tilt HD-DVD.)

Speaking of which; have you guys seen this ad?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcfpJDcmq5M

Interesting approach...

[RichL]

I'm disappointed with this sites HD-DVD bias. :(

Let's face it, both formats are going to lose. :D

[Felix Torres]

Let's face it, both formats are going to lose. :D

Not necessarily.
We could end up with a compromise solution like with recordable DVDs; dual-format players.
That would be fine by me.
We are, in fact, very close to a tipping point, I think, where BD loses by not winning. Which isn't to say that BD vanishes; just that HD-DVD *doesn't*. What does die at that point is the anti-consumer aspects of BD; high-priced/under-performing hardware, over-priced content, onerous DRM...

In a multi-format world, true power would devolve where it belongs: with consumers.
Just hang in there; a true stalemate is not far off.

[Jeremy Charette]

Let's face it, both formats are going to lose. :D

Whether it's HD DVD that wins outright, or a stalemate as Felix suggests, I think HD will overtake DVD within 2 years, possibly 1. It's been a slow adoption, but with $100 players flooding the market and $15 disc prices, HD is finally competitive with DVD on price. Consumers won't have a good reason not to make the switch.

If you're going to suggest that HD on demand or downloadable HD content will kill off the disc format entirely, not so fast young jedi. Witness the world of MP3s, where compact discs still outsell MP3 sales by 20 to 1. People (especially in America) like to own their content, not rent it. That's not going to change anytime soon.

[RichL]

I just don't see why HD-DVD and BluRay will succeed when DVD-A and SACD have failed so spectacularly. History is repeating itself.

[Felix Torres]

I just don't see why HD-DVD and BluRay will succeed when DVD-A and SACD have failed so spectacularly. History is repeating itself.

It might.
In fact, its pretty much a given that the HD on media business will be a much smaller business than the DVD business. (The disk-rental aspect is going away--witness Blockbuster's investment in online distribution.)

But, I don't think so...

Unlike the "super" audio formats which served little purpose--folks wanting maximum quality prefer vinyl and despise digital--and were released as a good portion of the market was embracing portable DAPs, HD on disk does serve a purpose (a tangible delivery of high-quality video) and is being released in sync with the evolution of TV in North America into the HD realm.

There is a *lot* of money at stake here, even in a reduced market.
DVD sells hundreds of millions of disks a year; even if the HD versions only reach 10% of that market, you're talking billions of dollars in hardware and content sales.

Other parts of the world will follow different schedules but in NorthAm there is a driving force (the Feb 09 broadcasting changeover) behind HDTV adoption. And enough consumers have embraced the idea of *owning* a physical copy of their favorite content that they can watch over and over, lend out, or trade, that there will be room for at least one physical-distribution medium.

Personally, I prefer *two* formats for the near and mid-term because that is the only way that DVD will be *fully* displaced in a reasonable time period *for new releases*. If there were only one HD format, regardless of which one, studios would be tempted to price the HD version higher (as originally intended by the BD gang) and keep the DVD releases around longer than they would if both HD and BD survive and--in their fight--drive HD video pricing to DVD levels.

Which is what I want to see: HD content at SD prices, which obviates the need for DVD releases. And this only happens in the heat of a protracted format war with two viable contenders. I want a consumer victory not a consortium victory. So fight on, guys! :-)

Now, I like video D/Ls a lot.
Especially (and mostly) for rentals.

But video D/Ls aren't something I can lend out to my friends or circulate among my mother and siblings. So if I'm *buying* video (or audio for that matter--I'm on record saying my prefered audio format is CD) I prefer a disk. And I don't think I'm alone.

There is a long-term business there; it may be BD or HD-DVD or it might be holographic but there will long be room for some form of physical media video in the market. Too much money in it to ignore.

[Jeremy Charette]

I'm disappointed with this sites HD-DVD bias. :(

Hey Rich, I hear your sentiments, and understand. Yes, we are HD DVD biased. It's less expensive, less restrictive to consumers, and the backwards compatibility is there (the spec has been solid since the first player was released to the public). So that makes me curious.

What exactly do you like better about Blu-Ray?

[ShinKen]

I wouldn't put all the blame on Sony; their fanboys are quickly earning a pretty unsavory reputation in AV circles.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/21598441
Vaguely familiar, at that...

Of course, given Sony's unsavory history online, those "fanboys" may in fact be paid stooges.


I would say that the fanboys on both sides have earned unsavory reputations. As both the hd dvd and blu-ray boys have turned most online AV forums into crap.

[Felix Torres]

I would say that the fanboys on both sides have earned unsavory reputations.

Sorry, but the Sony crew is head-and-shoulders over everybody else in this area; the whole PSP "fanboy" site debacle of past XMAS and the Halo Wikipedia entry shenanigans were just pathetic.
To say nothing of the whiny online petitions and spam campaigns.
They're actually worse than the OS2 fanboys of decades past. :-)
(Just ask the good folks at CNBC.) :twisted:

[Jeremy Charette]

Makes sense. HD DVD consumers are largely buying on price. They aren't going to be as passionate about the technical details as people who are supporters of the Blu-Ray approach.

Odd thing is though, that the "real world" technical specifications are identical. So it's all coming down to price. :roll:

[Felix Torres]

Odd thing is though, that the "real world" technical specifications are identical. So it's all coming down to price. :roll:

Well, not *that* odd when you consider how BD has...evolved...
The underlying tech for current releases for the two camps has a *lot* of overlap. And where they don't overlap, its in extra high-end headroom that isn't really being used on most BD releases and that even if it were being used it wouldn't be visible on current displays anyway. (Or useful with current audio systems.)

BTW, check the updated BD specs, as of Nov 07:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_high_definition_optical_disc_formats

As you can see, the *disk* specs aren't all that different as to the content encoding: BD offers higher peak bit-rates in some aspects, HD-DVD in others, but in general, they run comparable to each other. Furthermore, once the bulk of the BD releases started coming out in VC1, the bit-rate differences (and video quality differences) pretty much vanish.
If anything, HD-DVD has been a more demanding spec in the early days, offering consumers more high-end mandatory support for high-quality features which BD has been slowly incorporating.

At this point, the real differences in the formats are more in the area of the hardware than in the media. (And in the interactivity, but I honestly don't see *that* making a difference in the mass market.)

Lost in all the posturing from both camps on the Spec-manship is that the majority of the installed base of displays and audio systems can't keep up with the high end features they tout.

To me, that is the real significance of the price gap on the players: the $199 1080i A2/A3 players from Toshiba are in fact a good match for the plethora of sub-$800 displays that are going to be sold this Xmas in North America. And most of those are going to be combined with (existing?) sub $300 sound systems, mostly 5.1 style. Hardly state of the future hardware; Don't really think there are going to be too many HDMI 1.3a, deep-color displays, or TrueHD receivers in *that* mix. :-)

This is really a fight for Joe and Joan six-pack (not really comfortable with that dated term, but...) more than the home theater crowd. And with Wal-mart and K-Mart/Sears in the lead (and BB, CC, and Amazon not far behind) we are about to see if people really care about HD on disk or not. The answer could still be "no".
But I wouldn't bet on it. :wink: