$150 Blu-ray players incoming for the holidays
By Mike Ferro
After the epic battle over hi-def supremacy, Blu-ray came out on top as the victor. Ever since then, Manufacturers have been extremely slow to lower the price of the players. With the economic meltdown in progress, manufacturers may finally be forced into lowering the price of the Blu-ray player to as low as $150 this holiday season.
Currently, Blu-ray holds a monopoly on the hi-def market. Others may say that digital downloads is a contender but that is actually false. There are no other conventional means of delivering 1080p content as of right now, except via Blu-ray. Also, since one of the largest movie studios in the world, Sony Pictures, has a vested interest in Blu-ray I really don’t see the company backing any other format.
Manufactures theoretically could charge double the price of what a Blu-ray player cost and get away with it. However, there is one thing that can change all of this: the economy. Currently with the economic crisis, manufactures will be forced to lower the price of a standard Blu-ray player.
According to the LA Times, analysts have indicated that manufacturers will reduce the price of Blu-ray players to as low as $150. The holiday season is normally when formats are pushed the most. DVDs had a spectacular holiday season and pushed into mainstream by the release of the Matrix many years ago.
Many analysts are speculating that The Dark Knight will be the title that will push Blu-ray into mainstream this year. However, as I have mentioned above, there are several factors that need to be considered, such as the state of the economy. If prices are not at the level they need to be, Blu-ray may miss the opportunity to hit the limelight this holiday season.
However, considering the obligatory studio support the format has garnered, it is not a matter of if Blu-ray will hit mainstream but when. That is, unless Sony goes bankrupt and loses its 40% market-share of all the movies ever made in the world.
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Stumble It!
November 24th, 2008
“However, considering the obligatory studio support the format has garnered, it is not a matter of if Blu-ray will hit mainstream but when.”
Oh dear Mike.
Talk about blind fanboy.
Blu-ray has a tiny catalogue and even smaller sales numbers.
Blu-ray sales (despite the dodgy Nielson numbers) is not even in fact posting a true 2% of DVD numbers, anywhere.
DVD sells 1.7 billion discs in the USA alone.
http://www.dvdinformation.com/industryData/index.cfm
Global DVD sales are almost 20 billion units
http://www.contentdeliveryandstorage.org/stats/stat-replication_worldwide.html
When you have people like Warner publicly saying
“this is a do-or-die time for Blu-ray”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/21dvd.html?_r=2&hp
the chances of Blu-ray surviving at all are a relevant question.
What if Sony remains the only studio producing Blu-ray?
How long would the format have then?
Not that I expect Mike has been able to take off his Blu-colored glasses & see beyond his ludicrous adoration for all things Sony.
November 24th, 2008
The truth the Blu-ray fanclub refuses to admit is that even without a credit crash and deep prolonged recession HD DVD already proved nothing happens until player prices get to $99 and the cost of movies is the same as DVD.
$99 players & movies at the same price as DVD.
Do you seriously think the CE corps are going to embrace that and just swallow their (huge) losses?
Of course not.
They are going to chase as high a profit margin as they can.
The net consequence of this, coupled with the credit crash & the prolonged & deep recession, is that Blu-ray has never and will never now get cheap enough fast enough to gain mass-market adoption.
The end game for Blu-ray is as a high margin niche, mainly aimed at PS3 owners
(ie ludicrous, trashy, shallow & effects filled movies aimed at single adolescent males).
It may well be that Sony’s studios do end up alone producing that cr@p for their PS3 gang for a few years after everyone else gives up & finally embraces a world of improved DVD upscaling and HD on TV, digital downloads and flash drives.