Bill Hunt said it best....

[Switched2BD]

I dont know how many times I have heard some of my customers say that they would NOT pay $30 for a movie. So dropping the price of a player is going to change thier minds? Nope! This desperation move isnt going to help them. Sorry HD DVD its going to be all over but the crying.

[atomik kinder]

I have very big doubts that this will have any effect on the sale of Disney BDs this coming week. Ratatouille is doing very well on Amazon and Cars is starting to make a move. I don't think that the Pixar Shorts will do as well, but I am sure it will sell a few, its not a movie, so is not as desireable to some people. I think Ratatouille could outdo Transformers.

[xtop]

Originally Posted by Sigmar_X

Any smart consumer will see that $100 bucks for a new technology is either a) a crappy product
or
b) a desperate marketing ploy.

Either way it's lose-lose. When I was pricing out my home theatre I went to Advance and Futureshop. Futureshop's salesmen was desperate and was almost willing to give away some horrible speakers. His desperation was one of the main reasons I went with advance.

HD needs to respect the customers and not insult us with cheap tricks.

I also find the $99 price funny.

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...0088561&catid=

Same price, same quailty as HD-DVD I hear.

haha. you just explained the exact reason why if blu-ray needs to worry, its because of that. if they sell a crappy product to you, fine. but if they make you think that prices on something are so low that they must be crap, then you'll think to yourself, well if things are this cheap..it wouldn't hurt to look at something a bit more expensive...

anyone else see what could be happening?

[radagast]

Originally Posted by spam.curitiba

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

Bill Hunt hit the middle of the bull's eye with that one.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by spam.curitiba

Well the thing is there aren't that many of these 99 dollar players out there. At most I heard was 50,000. Now say I am a customer and don't get one am I going to go and spend 150 bucks more for the newer model? No I am going to remember that here in a couple of months they will have another firesale and they will just wait for that. I honestly think this is going to backfire for toshiba b/c everyone won't want to fork out 250-300 dollars for one of their players once they see the 99 dollar price

Another Bull's eye.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by xtop

would also like to get a confirmation. the hd dvd people are saying there are 2 million

Only goes to show you that no one is buying them, so they had to drop the price.

[dpomp]

I might buy an HD-DUD player. So I can have it as a collectable when they are non-existant. might be worth more than 98 dollars 40 years from now

[oscar_in_fw]

Originally Posted by dpompeo

I might buy an HD-DUD player. So I can have it as a collectable when they are non-existant. might be worth more than 98 dollars 40 years from now

Hey, that's a great excuse for getting one of these. I might actually make a go of it at 8Am tomorrow....

I'm actually worried how many of these A2s Wal-Mart might be able to sell at $98, but I'm also worried about how many A3s Wal-mart can sell at $149-199 price points. If it's in the millions, Blu-ray has a very tough challenge to deal with. The only saving grace at this point would be Wal-Mart's inability to maintain $14.99 prices for ALL HD DVD movies. We shall see.

[mystiksuicide]

My only take is this, great now you have a fake next generation player (1080i).
Now lets go buy a movie. Hey mom lets buy cars, sorry sweetie it's not available on hd dvd. That's ok mom let's buy spiderman series. sorry sweetie that not available on hd dvd either. Ok I guess, lets get FF i am sorry sweetie that's not available either.

Damn mom what the hell did you buy? There is nothing available for the piece of crap. You think we can get our money back and get a blu-ray player instead?

[Blu As Hell]

Originally Posted by Switched2BD

I dont know how many times I have heard some of my customers say that they would NOT pay $30 for a movie. So dropping the price of a player is going to change thier minds? Nope! This desperation move isnt going to help them. Sorry HD DVD its going to be all over but the crying.

Exactly!!! And I've been saying what Bill said in his article since this whole thing started. A 98 dollar player is nothing without movies, and the movies they have cost almost as much as the player. The average customer that will buy this player ain't payin' 30 dollars for a movie, the average customer is not going to stick an ethernet cable in the back of it so they can update firmware to get the movies to play. Like I've said before...CHEAP PLAYERS WILL NOT WIN A WAR...MOVIES WILL!!!!! and the one thing HD DVD doesn't have is movies.

[Apollo 18]

What a great article. There is; however, one way to still make money of HD-DVD. Short Sell Toshiba's stock. First they gave $150M to Paramount and now they selling their hardware at 1/3 of cost. They are definitly going to be in the Red the 4th quarter. I almost feel bad for their shareholders...

[jcdDigix]

Another reason to stop buying M$ products.

[oldmike]

he is sooo RIGHT

[maconomics]

Bill made some very valid and logical points! The whole promotion is clearly an act of desperation. If this fails for them Warner will go Blu and Paramount will sh!t in their pants for making a premature idiotic deal!

[kjack]

"Is it any accident that Toshiba didn't wait for Black Friday to sell their $99 players, instead carefully planning the 3-day sale for the weekend before Disney and Pixar release Cars, Ratatouille and the Pixar Short Films Collection on Blu-ray?"

Poor timing by HD DVD. There would still be time to return the HD DVD players once people realize it won't play those movies.

[onanie]

Originally Posted by kjack

"Is it any accident that Toshiba didn't wait for Black Friday to sell their $99 players, instead carefully planning the 3-day sale for the weekend before Disney and Pixar release Cars, Ratatouille and the Pixar Short Films Collection on Blu-ray?"

Poor timing by HD DVD. There would still be time to return the HD DVD players once people realize it won't play those movies.

LOL, I didn't see it that way (I'm sure neither did Toshiba).

[Maxell]

Keep in mind, contrary to the opinions of some online, we don't think HD-DVD is a bad format at all. If it were the only HD format around, we'd be all over it here at The Bits. But Toshiba is effectively paying studios to support it, and now they're practically giving the hardware and software away. Do you suppose we'll see free HD-DVD player offers in Cracker Jacks and cereal boxes next? $50 players? $25 players? 2 for 1 players?

ROFL

[Maxell]

Originally Posted by kjack

"Is it any accident that Toshiba didn't wait for Black Friday to sell their $99 players, instead carefully planning the 3-day sale for the weekend before Disney and Pixar release Cars, Ratatouille and the Pixar Short Films Collection on Blu-ray?"

Poor timing by HD DVD. There would still be time to return the HD DVD players once people realize it won't play those movies.

To me it seems more like a ploy against the debut of the 40GB $400 PS3. As well as a Transformers failure response.

[aluni2230]

Originally Posted by Whytewash

quite frankly... HDDVD is coming up for their last breath of air before the format dies all together

Didn't Sony and Toshiba both announce quarterly numbers recently? Curious how the respective divisions that manage Blu Ray and HD DVD hardware did in terms of profitability. That more than anything, should shed light on which side is losing more on hardware. Bill Hunt should have used some hard numbers to show how Toshiba is losing money. For instance, it IS a fact that Blu Ray is outselling HD DVD by 2:1 and the numbers prove it. Here too he should have used numbers.

Anyone have links to Sony and Toshibas earnings reports?

[bdrex28]

Originally Posted by mystiksuicide

My only take is this, great now you have a fake next generation player (1080i).
Now lets go buy a movie. Hey mom lets buy cars, sorry sweetie it's not available on hd dvd. That's ok mom let's buy spiderman series. sorry sweetie that not available on hd dvd either. Ok I guess, lets get FF i am sorry sweetie that's not available either.

Damn mom what the hell did you buy? There is nothing available for the piece of crap. You think we can get our money back and get a blu-ray player instead?

Exactly. The sad part is most of these buyers wont have any idea. They'll just think it makes all movies High Definition.