Sony says $200 Blu-ray players are still a year away

Iria · Mar 5, 2008, 10:41 PM

Despite discussion that the company needs to reduce prices in order to advance the format, Sony still seems to be mostly ignoring those calls.

Price continues to be the biggest argument against Blu-ray, even though it is no longer facing serious competition from HD DVD. It is no surprise that analysts and press have begun pressing for answers from the company on this issue.
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Source: BetaNews

Zelig · Mar 5, 2008, 11:09 PM

Sigh, and HD-DVD drives are going for $50 now.

Although I see PC blu-ray drives for $150.

mike2h · Mar 5, 2008, 11:53 PM

doesnt mean anything. the shills at sony never give away anything. they dont want peeps waiting to buy, got to get rid of inventory.
sony isnt only one making these decks either. we will have $200 decks within 6 mos.

Lowfat · Mar 6, 2008, 12:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike2h

doesnt mean anything. the shills at sony never give away anything. they dont want peeps waiting to buy, got to get rid of inventory.
sony isnt only one making these decks either. we will have $200 decks within 6 mos.

I don't know about that. With all the royalties that need to be paid on these players is making them expensive. Just the Blu-ray license itself is $50 a pop. Then add DTS-HD, Dolby True-HD, HDMI.......

slugbug · Mar 6, 2008, 02:03 AM

Suddenly Blu Ray doesn't look like the format of choice does it.

Lowfat · Mar 6, 2008, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slugbug

Suddenly Blu Ray doesn't look like the format of choice does it.

it never did to me lol.

Customgamer1 · Mar 6, 2008, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slugbug

Suddenly Blu Ray doesn't look like the format of choice does it.

Not at $400 lol.

Its Sony what does everyone expect?

They are known for making products at a high mark up. They are not the company that gives you a deal and no one should ever expect a decent price from a product that just comes out from them.

They price whatever they make as high as someone is willing to pay and wait until its no longer selling to drop the price.

They do it on the TV's, PS3, blu-ray etc. Sony ONLY cares about money and nothing else. Not even the quality of the products they release.

EcPercy · Mar 6, 2008, 01:20 PM

To all the people claiming prices would fall when Blue Ray won... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry I had to do it. Still no regrets here for buying into HD DVD. Sadly it lost, but I will still be picking up a few more movies before moving back to SD DVD.

mike2h · Mar 6, 2008, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EcPercy

To all the people claiming prices would fall when Blue Ray won... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry I had to do it. Still no regrets here for buying into HD DVD. Sadly it lost, but I will still be picking up a few more movies before moving back to SD DVD.

pretty pathetic. i dont recall anyone stating that prices would fall as soon as the bd consortium(some of u guys need to realise there r many more companies than sony involved) won.
what having one format does, is allow peeps on the fence to jump in & allow ramp up of production due to more peeps buying & more prod facilties being available. pretty basic economics....
i have no love for sony & consider most of their products overpriced crap. i also think they are quite capable of keeping prices artificially inflated IF it serves them economically. in this case it doesnt.
they need to make bd mainstrean as quickly as they can - for 2 reasons: streaming $$, more players = more peeps buying media, that is were the real $$ is. 2) they dont want the door left open for possible competitor. they need bd to be the defacto household hd standard within 18 months or the door could close on them. assuming they arent the ones with the next, latest, greatest....

EcPercy · Mar 6, 2008, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike2h

pretty pathetic. i dont recall anyone stating that prices would fall as soon as the bd consortium(some of u guys need to realise there r many more companies than sony involved) won.
what having one format does, is allow peeps on the fence to jump in & allow ramp up of production due to more peeps buying & more prod facilties being available. pretty basic economics....
i have no love for sony & consider most of their products overpriced crap. i also think they are quite capable of keeping prices artificially inflated IF it serves them economically. in this case it doesnt.
they need to make bd mainstrean as quickly as they can - for 2 reasons: streaming $$, more players = more peeps buying media, that is were the real $$ is. 2) they dont want the door left open for possible competitor. they need bd to be the defacto household hd standard within 18 months or the door could close on them. assuming they arent the ones with the next, latest, greatest....

I don't think it's pathetic. Actually, maybe it was. I look at some other A/V forums. On the other forums people were saying just that. (That as soon as the war was won the prices would go down.) Looks like the current prices are going to stay where they are for awhile considering "new" profile 2.0 players are coming out.

I have known since the beginning that Blue Ray was a joint effort with many companies involved. Because Sony was there pimping PS3 they have taken the brunt of the attacks.

I do agree that the prices need to fall to make this product mainstream. BR is still having to compete with SD DVD and at this point people don't see a reason to move from $25 DVD players and $15 DVD Movies. When you have $400-$500 BR players and $35 movies. Let's not forget there is still the "profile x.x confusion". Until price and a (reasonably cheap) final spec player comes out it will never beat SD DVD.

calidan · Mar 6, 2008, 09:19 PM

Does anyone remember what the prices were for DVD players after 2 years?

Vikingod · Mar 6, 2008, 09:48 PM

I don't know, it reeks of "don't hold back, get yourself a PS3 now" to me. And who can blame them, they have to take advantage of their market position. A lot of dough is wrapped up in the PS3, and it's not exactly been the biggest success as of yet. They have a corner on the High-Def market, and a huge shoe-in to gain back their market share in the gaming industry. Wise move, IMO.

Customgamer1 · Mar 6, 2008, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by calidan

Does anyone remember what the prices were for DVD players after 2 years?

Does it matter?

Yes DVD was expensive, but its not the same thing this time around.

Blu-ray has to compete with downloads, and standard dvd.

DVD was such an improvement over VHS in size,PQ,AQ.

Blu-ray really only has PQ and AQ on its side. The disk is the same etc. If they want it to catch on they MUST lower the price other people will just stick with DVD and call it good enough.

mike2h · Mar 6, 2008, 10:41 PM

bd does not have to compete with downloads. dvd is just starting to have some competition with downloading, but barely.
a lot of u guys seem to forget that us 'tech types' are a very small minority. the vast majority just wany t ogo buy/rent their movies in nice neat pkgs, end of story. the ydont have the means/desire/faintest clue on downloading movies & watching them on their main tvs. & contrary to popular belief around here, very few peeps watch movies on their comps

hd is still in its infancy, especially anything outside of cable/sat/broadcast. it took 5 yrs for dvd to really go mainstream. i will grant that bd doesnt have that much time, but considering that it has only been a year & we had the friggin 'war' jamming things up things arent looking to bad.
now if prices on bd hardware(movies already are - every bd movie at costco was under $30 & bb is under $30 on new release consistently) dont start dropping considerably in the next 6 months then somebody(s) up the food chain definetly have some screws loose.

Mar 5, 2008, 10:41 PM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 89	Sony says $200 Blu-ray players are still a year away Despite discussion that the company needs to reduce prices in order to advance the format, Sony still seems to be mostly ignoring those calls. Price continues to be the biggest argument against Blu-ray, even though it is no longer facing serious competition from HD DVD. It is no surprise that analysts and press have begun pressing for answers from the company on this issue. __________ Source: BetaNews

Mar 5, 2008, 11:09 PM	#2
Zelig HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 3,187 Rep Power: 71 System Specs	Sigh, and HD-DVD drives are going for $50 now. Although I see PC blu-ray drives for $150. __________________ --

Mar 5, 2008, 11:53 PM	#3
mike2h DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: norcal Posts: 6,483 Rep Power: 91 System Specs	doesnt mean anything. the shills at sony never give away anything. they dont want peeps waiting to buy, got to get rid of inventory. sony isnt only one making these decks either. we will have $200 decks within 6 mos. __________________

Mar 6, 2008, 09:19 PM	#11
calidan Frozen in Carbonite Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Kansas City, MO Posts: 1,409 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Does anyone remember what the prices were for DVD players after 2 years? __________________ Steam Community :: ID :: calidan "Don't try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie.... Study computers instead." - Jackie Chan

Mar 6, 2008, 10:41 PM	#14
mike2h DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: norcal Posts: 6,483 Rep Power: 91 System Specs	bd does not have to compete with downloads. dvd is just starting to have some competition with downloading, but barely. a lot of u guys seem to forget that us 'tech types' are a very small minority. the vast majority just wany t ogo buy/rent their movies in nice neat pkgs, end of story. the ydont have the means/desire/faintest clue on downloading movies & watching them on their main tvs. & contrary to popular belief around here, very few peeps watch movies on their comps hd is still in its infancy, especially anything outside of cable/sat/broadcast. it took 5 yrs for dvd to really go mainstream. i will grant that bd doesnt have that much time, but considering that it has only been a year & we had the friggin 'war' jamming things up things arent looking to bad. now if prices on bd hardware(movies already are - every bd movie at costco was under $30 & bb is under $30 on new release consistently) dont start dropping considerably in the next 6 months then somebody(s) up the food chain definetly have some screws loose. __________________

Mar 6, 2008, 02:03 AM	#5
slugbug Going Broke Saving Money Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 571 Rep Power: 70 System Specs	Suddenly Blu Ray doesn't look like the format of choice does it.

Mar 6, 2008, 01:20 PM	#8
EcPercy HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Iraq Posts: 1,535 Rep Power: 0	To all the people claiming prices would fall when Blue Ray won... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Sorry I had to do it. Still no regrets here for buying into HD DVD. Sadly it lost, but I will still be picking up a few more movies before moving back to SD DVD.

Mar 6, 2008, 09:48 PM	#12
Vikingod Int'l Fish Liaison Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: By the light of lamp I sit and type... Posts: 16,197 Rep Power: 112 System Specs	I don't know, it reeks of "don't hold back, get yourself a PS3 now" to me. And who can blame them, they have to take advantage of their market position. A lot of dough is wrapped up in the PS3, and it's not exactly been the biggest success as of yet. They have a corner on the High-Def market, and a huge shoe-in to gain back their market share in the gaming industry. Wise move, IMO.