HD-DVD vs Blu-ray war heating up with the holidays
By Sean P. Aune
It appears the war of HD-DVD vs Blu-ray will be a major battleground this holiday season, and both sides are firing fresh salvos.
Recently, Wal-Mart and Best Buy had a promotion for the, now discontinued, Toshiba HD-A2 HD-VD player. The price was a surprising $100, but everyone paying attention to the high definition format war should have expected that would be the only shot this shopping season.
Besides the traditional Black Friday sales at major retailers around the United States, Wal-Mart will be having “secret sales” on Saturday, and one of the sale items has been revealed. The 80GB version of Sony’s Playstation 3 will be $499, but with an instant bonus of 10 free Blu-ray movies. These instant rewards will be in addition to the current promotion of 5 films you can receive via mail-in rebate. All told, buyers will receive fifteen free films in Sony’s proprietary high definition format.
Meanwhile, over at Amazon, they are trying their second annual “Customers Vote” sale. The Internet retailer presents products in rounds for the customers to vote on at significantly reduced prices. The winning item of each round will be presented on a specified day at the sale price, and randomly selected customers will be allowed to purchase the winning item. In the round between a Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray player (sale price of $149), a Toshiba HD-A35 HD-DVD player (sale price of $149), and a HD TiVo (sale price of $89), the Toshiba player is winning with 44% of the vote currently. The TiVo is at 32% and the Blu-ray at 24%. Does this say something to consumer preference? (Which every item wins, the sale will be limited to 500 units)
With such significant sales this early in the season, and possibly more to come, could we see this be the sales period that finally determines the winner in the format war?
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Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
Stumble It!
November 21st, 2007
These stats are totally irrelevant because the people who own PS3’s already will not choose the Blue Ray Format because they have it out the Box. XBOX360 owners can still choose the HDDVD format because they don’t have it out of the box so to display this article is a total waste of time. And I am almost sure that HD TiVo is more popular then both formats.
November 21st, 2007
SLim_Brooklyn23 – You make it sound like everyone has a PS3. I don’t think the numbers are as high as Sony has planned. Also, did you use your old PS2 for a DVD player or did you have a DVD player as well as a PS2?
November 22nd, 2007
Actually the blu-ray player on the ps3 rivals the high end standalones its of fantastic quality and is future proof with updates. so me being a ps3 owner have no need for seperate player, unless i had a HDTV in another room of course, which i dont.
November 26th, 2007
I have a PS3 and nearly all my friends have one too. I use it all the time to play Blu ray movies and for this reason I dont plan to purchase a player. Best buy is having awesome deals right now on the sony player. Too good to resist!
Go BluRay! Down with HD DVD
November 27th, 2007
Well where i live i know of 1 person who owns a PS3 and about 15-20 people who have an xbox 360. AS far as i know i am the only person who has a hd dvd player but the sales people at bestbuy, futureshop etc have said that people don’t buy the blu ray because it is not cheap enough. If you think about it many people are buying and HDTV and HD DVD player.(most peoplpe buy hd dvd than bluray here) the movie sales are more equal but there is more shelf space at walmart.
December 16th, 2007
No doubt the PS3 is a great machine. Problem is that the PS3 seems to be the ONLY way to watch blu-ray movies cheaply. It is cannibalizing sales of other blu-ray standalones and actually hurts adoption as a movie player. (for those not wanting the games console)
Why force PS3 to those of us who have no use for a game console? Where are the $99-$199 blu-ray BD 2.0 profile ready players?
Until that time I’m happy with my HD-DVD, Fast and Furious, and Matrix Movie Sets :)