Not the best way to go mainstream

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From digitaltrends.com:


HD DVD Dies, Blu-ray Prices Rise

By Christopher Nickson
Staff Writer, Digital Trends News

As HD DVD bit the dust, the average prices on Blu-ray players rose last month.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. Just last month Toshiba gave up the good fight on behalf of HD DVD. Since then the average price of Blu-ray high definition DVD players – now the only game in town – have risen between $20 and $50.

Information Week checked prices on comparison site Price Grabber and discovered that in January the average price of the top 10 Blu-ray players stood at $467. A month later it was $604. Whoa! What’s going on there?

It turns out that some of it is a blip, due to new players with better features arriving on the market. But even factoring those out, the average price on Blu-ray players still rose between $20 and $50 last month.

Darren Davis, VP of marketing for Price Grabber, suggested that manufacturers would do themselves a favor by keeping prices low.

"Consumers are not going to jump into the market yet. The demise of HD DVD, if anything, is going to delay Blu-ray adoption, given the increase in prices."

That statement echoes the finding of a survey the company carried out, where 56% of respondents said they’d buy a Blu-ray player if prices were lower.