Circuit City Puts CLEARANCE tags on HD DVD player

[radagast]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

I love the delusional responses in that thread.

Yeah, like talk about "gen 4 players". Wow. There is no one so blind as one who will not see.

[CAB]

Originally Posted by bkbluray

This makes Universal and Paramount look dumber and dumber every day. They can't be very happy about a 15% market share and clearanced-out players.

Oh well, if they don't want my money, they're not going to get it.

Not sure Uni looks so dumb. They've always been Red and can easily say at the end of this, "The consumer chose."

[Amel]

do they have any deals listed for blurays?

I could go pick up some blurays and look into this...

[Fozziwig]

Originally Posted by CAB

Not sure Uni looks so dumb. They've always been Red and can easily say at the end of this, "The consumer chose."

I've always seen Universal as dumb for sticking with HD DVD for so long.

Paramount/DW are definitely dumber, because they were selling more units of Blu-ray when they went HD DVD exclusive. I know they did get $150 million but now that it looks like they will be forced to switch back to Blu-ray soon, how much of that will they miss out on? All things considered, it was a pretty brainless decision. Motivated by pure greed.

[xtop]

hmm..unless we start seeing proof in the way of pictures, i bet its just a local thing..but who knows. hopefully they're putting up a flag

[aristotles]

Here is what I think happened.

Scenario A:
Toshiba was going to announce the 3rd Generation players earlier in 2007 but found that they had an overstock of 2nd generation players sitting in their warehouses so they decided to discount their players to an insanely low level and push back the 3rd gen to CES 2008. Toshiba started hearing rumours about Warner possibly switching exclusive to one of the formats based on sales that year so Toshiba decided to release the 3rd generation in a desperate move to boost sales enough to either prevent the switch to blu-ray or push them over to the HD DVD side. This decision created a glut in the market of HD DVD players and consumer confusion as to which one to buy and it also left Toshiba without any players to announce at CES 2008. Because the 3rd generation were announced and launched only a few months before CES 2008, plans to launch 4th generation players were scrapped.

Scenario B:
Toshiba was going to announce 3rd generation players at CES 2008 all along but heard that Warner was going to switch to Blu-ray because of disc sales and the announcement of a new generation of Blu-ray players by several CEs. This caused Toshiba to move up their announcement to August for sale in September/October 2007. This move left Toshiba without players to announce. With the growth of both PS3 sales and blu-ray standalone units combined with the software lead for blu-ray continuing into the end 2007, Toshiba realized that Warner was going to side with Blu-ray. Given this desperate situation, Toshiba realized that releasing a 4th generation so soon would be counter productive and they would try to sell as many 3rd generation HD DVDs through a firesale before shutting down HD DVD hardware production as they knew that Blu-ray had won the war.

Toshiba is stuck trying to put on a brave face for the buying public so they can unload their current stock while already knowing that they have lost.

One only need look at the tearful speech by that woman at CES 08 to know that Toshiba employees are well aware that the end is near for their format.

[Guinness7]

Those prices are very cheap now. If I was an HDDVD supporter I would buy an extra one just to have as a bakcup.

[RV4BLU]

One guy even posted how Toshiba never had a good relationship with CC. Just looking for a reason to say HD DUD isn't going to die.

[aristotles]

Originally Posted by Guinness7

Those prices are very cheap now. If I was an HDDVD supporter I would buy an extra one just to have as a bakcup.

But what does that do to their precious attach rates?

[AKM74]

I hope BDA have a “village idiot special” 150M license fee for Paramount for rejoin
Be easy on Ken guys. After all he manages to fly from LA to Vegas for just 12+ hours. Losing 2 high salary jobs all together really hard.

[overdrive00]

Some of these HD-DVD guys on that tread remind me of the string quartet that kept playing when the Titanic was going under

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by BlueNeon

If the palyers are listed on clerance, what else is left?

Dollar stores?

[gvortex7]

Originally Posted by aristotles

But what does that do to their precious attach rates?

Well, Toshiba is starting to sell their players so cheap that the way attach rates are calculated maybe a thing of the past. Instead of movies, now you can consider players themselves be part of the attach rate.

[crystal_sun]

I saw a sign at one of those electronic disposable place "We accept HD-DVD players".

[cartman781]

Originally Posted by Jumong

I saw a sign at one of those electronic disposable place "We accept HD-DVD players".

lol

[meckel]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Toshiba bribed their way into CC, they didnt; carry them before they offered them a ludicrous pricing structure just to try to support HD DVD

Close. We carry there laptops. We did carry some CE in the past. in order to pick up there HD player we had to pick up their TVs and DVD players as well. If you remember at the launch of HDDVD we (CC) only had the RCA player on the web site as coming soon (not sure if we ever got it). We had to bring Toshiba in to carry HDDVD in the stores. Our cost is just as crappy as others, it is possible we were paid back-end money. This I think is unlikley as at the time we would have need to carry both formats in '06. I do not work on the Video team so I can not be 100% sure on this.

I have worked for CC for over 12 years in both the stores and now in the corporate office in Richmond.

Some have wondered if it is a store or corporate direction. All product selection is at the corporate level. As far as if they are on clearance as long a I remember I can check Monday at work. I have family in town and things are a little crazy. If some one PMs me Monday it will help. I will post after work for home. I may try and stop in a local store just to see (my Mom wants a movie anyway)

Anyway I will see if there is anything to find out

[tqlla]

"Could mean that 4G players are on the horizon"..... hahahaha =)

Wake me when discs are on clearance for $2.00 each.

[PaulGo]

Toshiba is missing a golden oppournity, buy a HD-DVD movie get a HD-DVD player free!

[unreal1080p]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

Toshiba is missing a golden oppournity, buy a HD-DVD movie get a HD-DVD player free!

Two negatives don't make a positive

[cartman781]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

Toshiba is missing a golden oppournity, buy a HD-DVD movie get a HD-DVD player free!

No No, Buy a DVD and get an upconverter for free