Toshiba cuts HD DVD player prices
Toshiba may have taken a huge hit recently, but the HD DVD supporter is striking back.
Barely a week after Warner Bros. announced it would no longer put out movies on the HD DVD format, of which Toshiba is a primary supporter, the company announced it is lowering the prices on all three models of next-generation DVD players.
Toshiba will now sell its entry-level HD DVD player for $149.99.
(Credit: CNET Networks)The entry-level model, the HD-A3, now goes for $149.99, the HD-A30 for $199.99, and the HD-A35 for $299.99. That's about $150 to $200 worth of discounts on all models.
The new pricing from Toshiba is well-timed, according to Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research for The NPD Group. Holiday promotional pricing is essentially over for all the major manufacturers of rival disc format Blu-ray, as well as other HD DVD makers.
"For them to drop MSRPs now couldn't come at a better time," he said. "It was a gap Blu-ray was able to close down upon during holiday sales."
In the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray, HD DVD's primary advantage from the very beginning had been cheaper prices on players. But Blu-ray has responded, lowering its prices and offering popular promotions, like Wal-Mart's giveaway of 10 Blu-ray titles with the purchase of a Sony PlayStation 3 this past holiday. But preferences over one format or the other aside, price is and probably always will be the determining factor in sales.
"The larger challenge for both camps is twofold: getting the hardware into people's homes. Toshiba did very well selling $99 and $199 players (during the holidays), but that didn't necessarily translate into a big jump in movie (sales)," said Erickson. "Unless there are serious promotions going on...people aren't going out and buying in explosive numbers on the Blu-ray side either."
"Even if we promote a single format...people are still not going to pay three to four times as much for a player, they're not going to pay double the price for movies," Erickson said, "just because they're accustomed to much cheaper pricing on standard-def DVD."
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Anyone take into account that with every PS3 sold they were giving away anywhere from 1-10 BR discs for FREE.
I wonder how many of Sony's numbers are from actual sales and not discs moved. Remember the initial PS3 sales figures were over inflated by PS3 units sold to retailers, not purchased from them.
The number of BR discs that were actually SOLD are probably alot less then the number of HD DVD's sold.
It's a shame that Sony had the deep pockets to push BR into our homes and buy the numbers to convince WB and all those other publishers.
Sony may have crap manufacturing, customer service, customer loyalty, and lack any sort of remorse for the faulty products that they rush through the door. What Sony does better than anyone else is MARKETING, Sony gets people to love the crap that they produce untill they push out the competition so you are stuck with dealing with bad products.
I'm sad to see the better format in my opinion die out. The powers that be in the HD-DVD camp were dopes. If the technology was very similiar to DVD, prices should have reflected it. The HD discs should have always been $5-$10 cheaper than bluray discs. That wasnt the case. And when the $400 PS3 system came out, the Xbox HD add on should have been dropped to $100 at most. I mean, it is an add on...useless by itself. Would it have killed them to take a slight loss on the player at $100 sale price, and yet maybe won the war? The HD camp was just not competitive with prices when they should have been and now its too late.
I don't own either player. I'm not a Sony fan at all but I'll be buying the winner, which means I'll probably be waiting for quite some time. HD, BR, same 1080p output. The difference is in the extras which I really don't care for.
Price on both player and movies will win this war.
Yeah, this is an obvious attempt to unload inventory before HD DVD goes bye-bye for good. Best Buy is already having clearance sales on the obsolete HD DVD players.
Warner Bros. has gone Blu-ray exclusive, Paramount and Universal will be following suit sometime this year.
The war is over, Blu-ray has won.
For those of you who think that Blu-Ray will lower their prices if HD folds, you're so wrong. Competition doesn't work that way. I doube they will raise their price but they will NOT lower it. They'd have reason to lower prices on anything.
HD and BR should just get together and combine their efforts so that the consumers can begin to buy their products.
All these people who say that HD-DVD will still win it please get a reality check. Paramount is regretting their decision and their exclusivity was based on Warner remaining impartial. That hurdle has gone. We will very soon be in a position where Blu-ray has every major film studio, and HD-DVD will have Universal and some indie-movies. Executives at Universal will soon be asking themselves some very tough questions. This is not a debate about which is the better medium, who is ripping who off; if you ain?t got the movies you are in trouble ? plain and simple.
The irresponsibility comes to play when Toshiba eventually obsoletes HD-DVD, which will realistically happen when all that is out for it are indie-movies from wannabe directors. All devices breakdown over time, and whilst your discs might last forever, you will have trouble finding a player for them. I am on my 4th or 5th DVD player by the way, and I lost track of how many VHS machines I went through.
Go and buy this HD-DVD player if you want to, the fault lies not with those that fall for it. Toshiba should know better, or perhaps they are off-loading stock / recouping development costs whilst they still can. The people that will pay will be the people left with discs that they can?t play. If you know better, don?t fall for it.
On a side note, Toshiba's failure was to NOT RECOGNIZE the PS3s out there as Blu Ray players. I understand they did this to give themselves a chance from a PR standpoint, but they were only ignoring the problem instead of addressing it. Now it's too late.
But for the remainding 239 million people or so in USA, lower price HD-DVD is a better choice, at $149 maybe then they can save the rest to finally afford an HD TV to use it with.
Lower prices will always sell more, plain and simple, go back to economics class if you don't agree.
Free market competition is what we stand for. Let the masses decide, not the early adaptors!
Plus, HD-DVD is a cheaper disc to manufacture, so who cares if Warner doesn't sell it's movies on it, since when pornos finally become available from small independant manufactures that's when you'll see sales take off, like it did for the internet and vhs rentals.
Plus without Toshiba fighting hard, BluRay players would be much more expensive still along with new disc format.
I would have liked one format from beginning, sure, but I think Sony was Greedy to not settle with current DVD forum, and want to be in charge and not pay further royalties to Toshiba to begin with. So give it another year, and if HD-DVD players and discs still haven't surpassed bluray's then economics will have decided. It is so early in the game.
Either way I have 30 HD-DVD's to date, 300 DVD's and the Toshiba player plays both beautifully and will continue for many years. And like the -R and +R battle in the end players will read both in future as standard for the losing discs. So nothing will be obsolete, no fears people.
The Masses are common working men with familys to support on shrinking middle class wages.
Also with ression in sight, $99 HD-DVD player will be available and selling well by then.
Let's wait and see till the actual Masses have spoken. OK?
You do the math.
This could be the beginin of HD piracy, if studios only support BR, someone coud burn BR movies into HDDVD format and sell it cheaper. The demand of HDDVD players will increase and Toshiba players will survive!
Piracy is a fact, and Piracy may take the roll in the HD War.
- Piracy may takes the roll
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by jose_ams
January 26, 2008 11:05 AM PST
- Can I Borrow a BR movie and copy with a HD DVD Burner from a friend to view in my cheap HD DVD Player?
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See all 22 Comments >>This could be the beginin of HD piracy, if studios only support BR, someone coud burn BR movies into HDDVD format and sell it cheaper. The demand of HDDVD players will increase and Toshiba players will survive!
Piracy is a fact, and Piracy may take the roll in the HD War.