HD DVD Price Drops to Come From Universal

[Damion Chaplin]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Universal/DVD_Marketing/HD_DVD_Price_Drops_to_Come_From_Universal/103' target='_blank'>http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Universal/DVD_Marketing/HD_DVD_Price_Drops_to_Come_From_Universal/103</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Though the HD DVD format launched less than two months ago, Universal Studios Home Entertainment has announced it will already be dropping the list price of all its current and upcoming releases on the format. The studio will slash the price of its entire HD DVD library to $29.95; most current releases from the studio retail for $34.95. The only Universal HD DVD titles not to be affected by the new pricing tier will be the studio's upcoming HD DVD/DVD hybrid discs. The first two titles announced earlier today, 'National Lampoon's Animal House' and 'Unleashed,' will retail for $34.95."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/HDDVDtitles.jpg" /> <br /><br />While Sony's delaying and cancelling some Blu-ray movies that have yet to be released, here's Universal already lowering their prices! It's never been more obvious to me who is going to win here. Blu-ray, meet UMD, Minidisc, Memory Stick and Betamax. Don't feel bad, you're just the next one in a long line of familial failures. :wink:

[jizmo]

HD-DVD certainly seems to be doing the same to Blu-Ray that x360 is doing to PS3. Offering the same experience for less money.

The price cut in nice, but I'll still get only the hybrid HD-DVD disks, since they are the only thing that make *any* sense in this format war at this point from consumers' point of view.

You know, someone from either camp will be sitting on their huge pile of obsolete format discs in a few years and that someone isn't going to be me.

[alese]

I don't like Sony's "formats" just as much as the next guy here, but how is the news about price cut 2 months after launch a good sign.

I don't know about you, but typically price cuts are a sign of slow sales and/or competition. Since the competition (the real one) is late, I would guess that HD DVDs are not selling particulary good.

So it may be a good news for consumers, but I'm not sure if in the format war this is really a good news.

[Damion Chaplin]

I don't know about you, but typically price cuts are a sign of slow sales and/or competition. Since the competition (the real one) is late, I would guess that HD DVDs are not selling particulary good.

Actually, I find this kind of price drop to be expected, and not necessarily a sign of slow sales. DVDs were originally astronomically priced, now they can be had for $10, and it's not due to slow sales...

Hybrid discs are definitely the way to go at the moment. We might buy an HD-DVD player soon, but when will you replace the one in the bedroom? Most of us will go through a transitional period where we have both types of DVD players in active use.

[Chris Gohlke]

The hybrids are OK if you already have an HD player, but I don't see buying a hybrid of newer movies just to be able to play it on my current player now and be future-proofed for my next player. I would expect it would be cheaper to buy the regular DVD now and bank on prices going down by the time I am ready to buy HD.

[Damion Chaplin]

Oh, yes, I agree. Didn't mean to imply that you or I should run right out there and buy hybrids. I guess the statement was aimed at the early adopters who might already have (or are intending to buy soon) an HD-DVD player.

[Chris Gohlke]

I think a slick marketing idea would be to release some new movies as hybrids so they don't cost anymore than a regular DVD would. In fact the release should only be a hybrid disk. Then, by defalut many users would have a number of HD DVDs in their collection already making their decision of which player to buy even easier.