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Best Buy's Insignia Hits $199 Sweet Spot
October 20, 2008

Over the weekend, Best Buy was advertising its Insignia Blu-ray for $199, that holy grail sub-$200 price tag that format analysts predicted would massively spur adoption.
Many of the first basic Blu-ray models, including last year's Sony's BD-S300, can now be had for about that amount now. But the Insignia launched this June at about $350 and represented a respectably advanced player with picture-in-picture interactivity. This Profile 1.1 Insignia model doesn't playback Web-enabled interactivity.
Now at $199, Insignia might be experiencing the quickest price decline we've seen yet on a Blu-ray player. That should spell great news for Black Friday deal fans. 
In about four months Insignia's price has plummeted 43% if I've done my math correctly. 
Besides gunning for holiday shoppers, there has to be some competition fueling the price moves. Best Buy started hyping the $199 Insignia at the same time that Target bowed its own exclusive model, an Olevia-branded Profile 1.1 model, for $229-$250, depending on the store.
Up until now, the Insignia was selling for $229 at Best Buy.

Posted by Susanne Ault on October 20, 2008 | Comments (1)