Will falling Blu-Ray and HD-DVD player prices decide a winner?
By Jonathan Schlaffer
Many consumers have just stayed away from the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war, partly because of high prices and partly because some do not have a high-def TV to take advantage of it. Those with high-def TVs are still abstaining from siding with one over the other pending an uncontested champion.
For a brief time during November 2007, Toshiba made its model HDA2 HD-DVD player available for $100 for a short time. The newest models, the HDA3 and HDA30 are priced at $249 and $299, respectively. The Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on can be purchased for around $170.
Current Blu-Ray player prices start at $300 and go up to $600, which puts it in closer but not quite equal competition with HD-DVD. The Register thinks an upcoming price war will decide the winner.
Most people will buy whatever is cheaper and right now that looks like HD-DVD but prices of both players will no doubt drop in the coming months leaving the decision to the consumer as to which will win based on sales of the players. There can only be one.
There’s also the slight problem with Blu-Ray in that the feature set has not been finalized yet and different revisions keep coming out with Sony having to add an update to its PS3 firmware in order to keep up with it. HD-DVD is finalized, HD-DVDs made today will be compatible with your current player and a player made five years from now.
There is still no clear winner though personally I’m hoping that HD-DVD comes out the champion.
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December 22nd, 2007
Falling prices wont decide a winner. HD-DVD has been pretty cheap for a while now but worldwide no one is really interested in it. I think the winner has already been decided and its BluRay.
Why on earth would you want Toshiba to have a monopoly on the HD disc format? BluRay isn’t owned by any single company and it has more manufacturer support. While a few other companies make HD-DVD players it is 100% owned by Toshiba.
Also how the hell do you know that all HD-DVDs made toady will be compatible in 5 years? Because they say so? They said they sold 190k copies of Transformers in one week but that was a total lie. I very much doubt anyone will still be making HD-DVD players in 5 years time so good luck with that one lol.
The simple fact is that Warner want the format war to end because when it does people will start buying loads of new players and buy loads of their films all over again in a new format. They have simply been waiting for a format to become dominant and BluRay has done so all over the world both in sales and public awareness.
If Warner went with HD-DVD it would split the library about 50/50 which wouldn’t help anyone but its looking increasingly likely that they will go exclusively BluRay early next year and that will give BluRay exclusivity on over 70% of the film industry’s DVD back catalogue which will effectively kill off HD-DVD because no one would want a format that has less than 30% of films on it. Universal will start releasing on BluRay and Paramount would go back to BluRay after their exclusivity deal runs out.
Including the PS3 there are now over 8.5m BluRay players in homes worldwide and that figure will over 20m by the end of 2008. On the other hand industry analysts recently predicted that there would only be around 2m HD-DVD players in homes by that time.
There is absolutely nothing at all pointing towards a win for HD-DVD and they would switch places with BluRay in a second.
December 22nd, 2007
“blu ray is not owned by a company”
i want what ever he as been smoking.blu ray is sony the technolodgy to produce these discs is sonys the coding that all other studios will have to use are sony also sony have a large base in movies and music called sony entertainment.
now if thats not a monopoly what is!
why would warner want to support its competitor.
i think you may need to do a bit more research.
i own both formats and truthuly have had less problems with hd dvd i also feel that sony has jumped the gun again with technology that is not ready and are getting a little bit to up there own backside.yet the only ones who will disagree are ps3 fans and that is exactly what they want.
can other blu ray and hd dvd owners please come forward and tell us your opinion.
December 22nd, 2007
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=3654
Sony owns the logo, but, like CD and SACD, it was developed with Philips.
Contributing to the development of the format were/are Matsushita, Pioneer, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp and Samsung.
The current Board of Directors is comprised of:
Apple
Dell
HP
Hitachi
LG
Mitsubishi Electric
Panasonic
Pioneer
Philips
Samsung
Sharp
Sony
Sun Microsystems
TDK
Thomson
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney
Warner Bros.
Sony does not “own” Blu-ray.
December 22nd, 2007
ljbanner: the blu-ray disc association is the “pope” of blu-ray. they make the final decision. not Sony. Besides, Sony and Panasonic, together, were the major contributors. how’s that for research?
December 22nd, 2007
Here comes the end.
The news is in.
HD DVD Harry Potter sold more copies than the Blu-ray version, a straight ‘like-for-like’ fight and even with at least a 10:1+ advantage in total players Blu-ray lost.
Warner said they would be watching closely what happened at the end of Q4 2007 and this is the answer.
HD DVD shifts movies, PS3/Blu-ray despite a huge numerical advatage in players does not.
Then we have the $100 Chinese HD DVD players coming in a couple of months (all based on the most recent gen 3 reference design).
HD DVD will win this by mid-2008.
Blu-ray will merely be a game console format with wilting studio support as the studios start to bail to go for the easier to author, cheaper and more profitable format, HD DVD.
Hard lines Blu-ray…….but after the lying spiteful campaign you & your idiot shills fought on this one it’s nothing less than what you deserve.
December 23rd, 2007
DaveBG why don’t you stop lying to the people reading this site, Harry Potter has sold far better on Blu-ray unless you count the box sets that “somehow” have HD-DVD’s in them when they are Blu-ray boxsets. Your format is dying, deal with it.
December 23rd, 2007
Let me start off by saying that I think that it is hilarious so many people are getting so angry and up in arms about who’s player is better is and who’s is worse. I have taken the time to research this a bit. I am not saying that I know more than anyone else, but as far as personal opinion goes I would have to say that I prefer HD-DVD. What I think is interesting is that no one has mentioned a few things that I thought were great about the HD-DVD player. As far as I know and have seen HD-DVD’s are far more interactive than blu-ray. When I watch a movie on my HD-DVD player I can pull up the menu and change scenes or play special features without ever leaving the movie. I can also connect my HD-DVD player up to the internet and get web updates and web enabled features. Both of these options are something Blu-Ray does not do to my knowledge. Not to mention the overall cost. Why am I going to pay $400.00 on a Blu-Ray player when I can go on Amazon.com and get an HD-DVD player for $100.00 and I got 10 free HD-DVD’s for free. What do I get if I buy a Blu-Ray player? Spiderman 3… whoopie. I think it will be interesting to see who wins in the end. I also think that both sides are doing a fair bit of lying. Although at the end of the day it seems to me that Sony may have to face that they have another failed technology on their hands.
December 23rd, 2007
For the poster above me, yes you can go to Amazon and get a $100 player with free movies, but then again, your only getting a 1080i picture. I currently have a home theater with a 52in Sharp Aquos LCD that displays 1080P, so therefore, I would have to spend more on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray regardless to get the most out of my TV. For $399 I get a PS3, that doubles as a Blu-Ray player and gaming machine that can connect to the internet using Wi-Fi, it does Profile 1.1, as well as play games, and I also get free movies as well. So, while it is great that you got a player your happy with, and I feel the same way as you but for Blu Ray because it has more movies that I personally like.
But on a real note, I don’t care about being able to go online to get more content, I just want to watch the movie. So both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray offer something that I truly believe not too many people care for.
December 23rd, 2007
The one thing that will matter is cost…cost..cost.
who will buy 299 or 399 for a “player” when a good dvd player can be bought at 30 bucks…
when either blueray or hd comes out with a RECORDER at a good price, then wait and see who wins.
December 24th, 2007
Only ten responses to this article should tell everyone here how little people outside of videophiles care about the format war. But, I will say that Blu Ray cheerleaders seem infinitely more annoying than HDDVD ones.
December 24th, 2007
Blu Ray cheerleaders seem infinitely more annoying than HDDVD ones.
December 25th, 2007
“Blu Ray cheerleaders seem infinitely more annoying than HDDVD ones.”
The one thats annoying here is you, posting it twice…
December 26th, 2007
We all really have gaming being responsible for dealing with this nonsense. Sony wanted to best Microsoft’s 360 with a higher capacity disk format. Microsoft immediately backed Toshiba to halt this advance. I think both formats are marginaly better than dvd.
I work at Best Buy and I honestly tell people, buy at your own risk. For some unexplainable reason other than my frustration with Sony and the PS3 debacle, I want HDDVD to win. Sony is relying too much on it’s name for products and is starting to seriously fall behind more innovative brands. Samsung has already eclipsed them in TVs, Microsoft and Nintendo in game consoles. I was a bit shocked when we dropped prices on BluRay players to 299. Just when HDDVD was really rolling too. Go figure. It would appear that despite player and disc cost, Sony is determined to go bankrupt.
As i’m writing this, I have also realized that Samsung was the first below 300 for BluRay, and has a dual format player as well. Perhaps Samsung (Sony’s main rival in TVs) is trying to lure Sony into a trap by dropping prices and forcing them to join them so they run even further into the red. lol… The things you write at 5:30 in the morning.
December 26th, 2007
I forgot something.
When the history is written on this subject, the realization may very well be that Sony was lazy with development of the PS3 and with a strong Xbox 360 competitor, dumped a costly, not ready for prime time technology on its console to one up Microsoft, thus hurdling themselves into a quiet format war that will now cause many consumers alot of headaches when choosing which marginally better format to choose. I think that neither format was truly ready, but because of the fierce competition in a huge gaming industry, it had to be, quick, and the cheapest/easiest to develop will win, as always.
Apologies for the major runon sentences. ;)
January 3rd, 2008
Hey, I have an MBA research work on this, thus, I have read widely on this issue on the internet and the business implication on text books. Presently, SONY is facing the war decently and Toshiba is playing really dirty; from bribery to faulty shipping of bluray box by warner brs and so forth spurns every reasonable person to know that HD DVD might be drowning. SONY has it figures right and Toshiba is trying to manipulate consumers perception by hammering on sales of more HD DVD players than SONY. The big question is ‘who sold more HD disc? SONY. Who is far more suported by content providers ? SONY. who pays attention to premium copyright for content? SONY. Who delibrately supported HD DVD because of it limited copyright security? Microsoft. Who is the ultimate monopoly driven organisation? Microsoft. So having looked at the facts above. You might as well have a rethink on how to invest your money further. We consumers should not get emotional because we are going to gain or loose value for money invested in a player. You might as well loose more if you don’t reseach rightly now. The big decider which was Harry potter movies was faulty because of foul play here and there. Have’nt you really asked your selfs if you need any of this two disruptive technologies! because the DVD is still a beloved picture quality technology. These organisations need to reseach on what consumers truly crave for before leaping.
January 3rd, 2008
Someone mentioned competitive pricing for the hardware? Not sure why this didn’t get more attention but last week I was able to purchase a Sony BDP-300 for under $200 at the Sony Style website. It was on sale for $299 plus an additional $100 off if you applied and purchased it with a Sony Visa – this is a no annual fee credit card which I don’t plan on using again once I pay off the balance for the BDP-300. This deal also included no interest for 12 months, free shipping and the five free movies by mail.
January 10th, 2008
I prefer HD-DVD over Blu-Ray because HD-DVD has better picture quality. Blu-Ray looks more compressed. I want HD-DVD to win the High-Def format war but Blu-Ray is mostly likely to win because they have more Movie Studios backing them up and a larger movie selection. But it’s not over until it’s over. When HD-DVD loses Paramount or Universal, then, I’ll say it’s over.
Even though Warner Bros. sold more Blu-Ray disc compared to their HD-DVD, did WB really make more money because of the volume of disc sold on Blu-Ray. Remember it’s cheaper to mass produce HD-DVD disc.