Whoop! $299 Sony BD Player Around the Corner
March 6, 2008

Sony Electronics president Stan Glasgow promised $299 Sony BD players sometime this year, during a press conference mainly focusing on product marketing strategies. Ad Age wrote about all that was said, including an upcoming blitz of comical TV ads showcasing outdated electronics that Sony will help you to recycle.
But Glasgow also talked about Sony needing to promote BD as hard as ever, as it still remains a niche business. 
Lowered pricing will certainly help break BD players out more into the mainstream. Relatively budget price tags helped HD DVD set-tops outsell BD set-tops during many weeks last year.
But I'll guess that $299 will be affixed to Sony's current model, the one that it will likely be hoping to push off shelves anyway to make room for its new BD Live models. Sony has estimated these BD Live players will cost between $400 to $500 when they launch this summer, essentially matching today's pricing for BD set-tops, and the PS3 with its built-in BD player.
But who knows? Maybe the 2008 holidays will usher in reduced pricing on these BD Live players.
Also, Glasgow says Sony players could hit a new low of $200 in 2009. That would meet pricing for Toshiba's economical entry-level players. 
By the end of 2008, manafacturers should sell 5 million standalone BD players. That would represent a nice leap over earlier BD set-top projections made during CES, in which studio executives estimated 2 million BD players would sell this year.
Yet at CES, the format war looked over. Glasgow is speaking in an environment where it really, really, is over. Any HD DVD player competition has been wiped out.

Posted by Susanne Ault on March 6, 2008 | Comments (1)