BD Player Price Rise: Thanks End of Format War!
March 13, 2008

After knocking out HD DVD, the Blu-ray manufactuers haven't done much terribly aggressive price slashing since the start of the year. This is according to Gizmodo snagging some Pricegrabber.com research, which tallies weekly retail pricing for various. In this case, BD pricing trends were compared in January-February for latest models from Sharp, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony. LG's dual format player was also included. 
It looks like the averge price for straight BD players is $400, just about where things stood at the end of last year. Certain models have even notched up their tags from week to week. You could argue that if HD DVD was still kicking, we might be seeing more price cuts. 
But many retailers are utilizing that stiff pricing to help them look generous and wonderful when selling these high-def product suites. It's like, "Well heck, sir, I'll throw in this $399 Sharp player for free if you buy the $1800 high-def TV!"
Also, despite my probably lame attempt at sarcasm in titling this post, I think if BD manufacturers chill for the moment on pricing, that's probably OK. We don't want to bankrupt these guys before we even get the format off the ground! After so much back-and-forth with last year's HD DVD/Blu-ray price wars, I can't imagine these manufacturers are making a whole lot with these current prices. These are lower than what they would have been if HD DVD never existed at all.
But hopefully these players will be getting reduced in the next couple of months or so, when manufacturers' new models start debuting in the spring and summer. Companies would score a one-two marketing punch. They advertise the new lows on current models, and also hype their new souped-up versions, like Sony's upcoming BD-Live models.    

Posted by Susanne Ault on March 13, 2008 | Comments (0)