Circuit City's Panasonic 'Truthiness'
May 27, 2008

Technically, it is true that Panasonic's DMP-BD30 represents 'the final spec' Blu-ray player, as called out on page 9 in this week's Circuit City ad. After Oct. 31 of last year, all BD players must include the minimum ability of playing back picture-in-picture - a key feature of the BD30.
But using the word 'final' makes it seem as if there's no where else for these Blu-ray players to go. And come July, Panasonic will be launching its first BD-Live player, containing both picture-in-picture AND Web functionality. I just wonder how Circuit City will be describing these upcoming BD-Live models. Sony launches its own in July as well.
Maybe it will be: 'BD-Live: The final spec Blu-ray player. Seriously, we're not kidding around this time!" 
I don't know if I have a better way to market these players . But I think it's misleading when you call any hardware product 'final' - There's always something better, sleeker and more powerful down the road for the consumer. It also just seems like you're setting yourself up for disaster if you're looking to launch a next generation model down the road. But that's just me!
If anything, Joe Consumer is unlikely to even get what the phrase 'final spec' really means. But that probably won't matter too much. When speaking with the retailers, their main problem is just getting in any Blu-ray product at all. Demand for Blu-ray is high enough, stores say, that people would be snapping up any player they could get their hands on, regardless of the advanced features.

Posted by Susanne Ault on May 27, 2008 | Comments (0)