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Costco: A Disguised, Cheaper Sony Blu-ray Player?
July 29, 2008

Geez, as if it's not complicated enough having to sort through the new picture-in-picture and BD-Live capable Blu-ray players from the older gen models. But it appears Costco is selling Sony's latest under an exclusive model name. Thanks to some shopping by Format War Central's Tyler Pruitt, it looks like this Costco version, sold under the model name BDP-BX1 is mainly a slightly cheaper version of Sony's just streeted BDP-S350. Each essentially seem to hold the same features.  
The BDP-BX1, also seen at Sam's Club, is selling at $379.99, marking a $20 price drop from the widely available $399 BDP-S350. These models mark Sony's first BD-Live ready set-tops, where users will be able to access Web-based content once a firmware upgrade is made available sometime later in the year.
Selective pricing is also happening with Funai's players at Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Best Buy's Insignia-branded version is $329.99 (the last time I checked) and Wal-Mart's Magnavox-labeled one is $298. But it's the same machinery for both.
I swear the manufacturers are pushing people to just buy a Playstation 3 for their Blu-ray needs.  You don't have to keep track of pricing, model names, and store availability differences. It's just $399 and it's sold everywhere at that price...no real exceptions. 

Posted by Susanne Ault on July 29, 2008 | Comments (2)