first hd-dvdplayer at amazon for 499$

[mmmhome]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...onics&v=glance

[hmurchison]

Game over folks.

You know what happens to expensive formats. This battle is over if the PS3 doesn't ship in quantity and on time. Ouch.

[Alex Pallas]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Game over folks.

You know what happens to expensive formats. This battle is over if the PS3 doesn't ship in quantity and on time. Ouch.

what exactly does that thing play?...as far as i know HD discs aren't even in production

[hmurchison]

Paramount is announcing movies for HD DVD and I think one other studio.

The shocker though is the huge price discrepancy between the platforms. Methinks the BDA was a wee bit confident.

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by mmmhome

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...onics&v=glance

The web page gives no indication (as far as I could find) of when this thing might ship. It could be in two or three weeks, or it could be four or more months away.

Originally Posted by hmurchison

The shocker though is the huge price discrepancy between the platforms. Methinks the BDA was a wee bit confident.

What price discrepancy? I have not seen any prices quoted for BDA players -- just rumors based upon rumors. If this item actually ships before any BDA players are ready I doubt the BDA players will be much more expensive -- if only to keep them in line with this box.

[Gorkab]

This one is really big, sounds like a LaserDisc player !!! Anyone's got the dimensions of this monster ?

PS : 6 POUNDS !!!!

[hmurchison]

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060104/20060104005022.html?.v=1

Pioneer Blu Ray for the home $1800

Match Point

so far just about all major retailers are pre-ordering the Toshiba units

Amazon
Best Buy
Crutchfield

Blu Ray just got owned today folks. All I've gotten back today is weak rebuttals. We all know consumer will gravitate to the cheaper format regardless of studio support.

The best the Playstation can hope to do is match the $499 price. And the Chinese haven't started making players yet.

I expect that by Xmas 2006 HD DVD will be $399 by Xmas 2007 HD DVD will be $199.

Game over!

[zombieflanders]

I love how this doofus is all "Blu-Ray is PWN3D!!!1!eleventyone!!" on the first day of CES, when only a small fraction of companies have announced players and prices, uses the ultra-expensive Pioneer Elite as a baseline, and totally ignores content as being relevant (rumor is Universal will finally go Blu-Ray as well, giving them 100% studio coverage).

Yes, so far there have been one $800 and two $500 HD DVD players announced, while Blu-Ray has one at $1000 and one at $1800. Of course, that $1800 Pioneer Elite is also networked (with MCE!) and the only one to do 1080p, and that Samsung is independently developed. Meanwhile, four studios announce 40+ Blu-Ray titles to HD DVD's 11, the lead time gives other companies a chance to lower prices, and the PS3 (a sure-fire top seller) is still coming down the pike.

[hmurchison]

Funny how I'm the Doofus yet you cannot dispute that

1. $499 buys you a HD DVD player but doesn't get you close to Blu Ray

Yet I'm supposed to base things off of "rumor" and some mythical players coming that you haven't a clue about.

Well let's see

Pioneer computer drive $995 (Recorder)
Pioneer Player - $1800
Samsung Player- $1000

Now I might not be a genius but that's a whole heck of a lot more than $499 and the Playstation pricing isn't even ready to be announced.

No you're trying to play the 1080p card. Save that for a rookie. There are plenty of scalers that'll take a 1080i signal and bump it to 1080p. Do you really think peope give a rip about the extra bug ridden stuff in the Pioneer?

Meanwhile, four studios announce 40+ Blu-Ray titles to HD DVD's 11, the lead time gives other companies a chance to lower prices, and the PS3 (a sure-fire top seller) is still coming down the pike.

What's the pricing. You don't know do you? So you're trying to sell me on a format that's 2x more expensive and you don't even know the pricing of the media. Sure that'll go over well with consumers.

Keep looking down the pike punchy...Blu Ray fans are getting used to it. I'm buying a PS3 myself but I've warned that Blu Ray was going to be expensive and now we're seeing that.

You all know what I know...the cheaper format usually prevails. If HD DVD is $499 now...ask yourself what happens when the Chinese start making them?

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060104/20060104005022.html?.v=1

Pioneer Blu Ray for the home $1800

Match Point

so far just about all major retailers are pre-ordering the Toshiba units

Amazon
Best Buy
Crutchfield

Blu Ray just got owned today folks. All I've gotten back today is weak rebuttals. We all know consumer will gravitate to the cheaper format regardless of studio support.

The best the Playstation can hope to do is match the $499 price. And the Chinese haven't started making players yet.

I expect that by Xmas 2006 HD DVD will be $399 by Xmas 2007 HD DVD will be $199.

Game over!

IF the Toshiba box ships in the not too distant future and no BDA member ships a player near $500 before June then you may be right.

Clearly Toshiba (assuming this player ships relatively soon) is treating this player as a loss leader, much like Microsoft and Sony lose money on every game machine they ship for the first year or so. It just remains to be seen if the BDA members will be willing to stoop to the same tactics. If they don't the average consumer may not care and buy tons of HD-DVD players instead. This may in turn force studios and OEM to support HD-DVD when they had not originally planned to.

However, studio and OEM support is a huge factor. Even if Sony had sold Beta machines for half the cost of JVC and other's VHS machines once the studios (and Blockbuster, etc.) were clearly behind VHS then Beta's days as a consumer format were numbered. It's simple: I can buy a player for X dollars and have Y disks to play on it -- or -- I can buy a player for 3 times X dollars and have 50 times Y disks to play on it. Many consumers, but not all, consumers will go for the more costly player with the greater diversity.

An analogy might be made to Windows versus Linux. One can go to HP or Dell and pay a reasonable price for a PC with Windows and buy MS Office for an inflated price and buy Adobe Photoshop for big $$ -- or -- they can go to the local shop and have them put together a Linux machine with open (free) software on it. As has been conclusively shown 90% of people will go with the more expensive solution because it supports what they want (tons of games, office productivity software, specialty software, etc.).

Another analogy can be made with regard to Apple's Macs versus Wintel machines. Since the early 90s there has been much, much more software available for Wintel machines than Macs. When the PowerPC G3 came out it was much, much faster than the Intel or AMD chips of that time. To use your terminology, the PowerPC G3 "owned" the Pentium and other x86 chips. However, virtually no one was buying Macs. Why? Because for every word processor on the Mac there were 10 for the Windows PCs; for every game on the Mac there were 100 for the Windows PCs. This is true even today. It can be conclusively shown that the top end Dell machines and the top end Apple machines are similarly priced. However, with Windows having the support of 10 times more software the choice for most people is simple: buy Dell and not Apple.

Content matters.