Is Toshiba Giving Away The Razor To Get You To Buy The Blades?

Rumors of the high definition holy grail persist. The latest is that Toshiba will be offering their basic HD-A2 player at $99 for one week only, beginning July 22. An added bonus is three free HD-DVD's.

[Bloodmask]

for increasing the install base. Toshiba can recoup their losses through HDDVD sales.

This business model is no different than the one used on video game hardware.

The cheapest Bluray player is $500. At $99 HDDVD players would be at a price comparable to DVD9 players, consumers would be crazy to pass up this deal.

It could make HDDVD sales see a big spike.

[Also Known As]

agreed!

First the ps3 died (thanks to the $100 360 price drop) and now
bluray will die as well. Never mind the stubborn playstation devotees below us just have pitty for them cause they are suffering from a severe case of denial.

[ITR]

Actually thats not cost.
At least not for my company.

For reference our company cost for the A20(the better version with 1080p) is $119 bucks.
It retails for $399 bucks.

We currently pay just over $87 bucks for the A2. It sells for $299, but we include shipping in that price and 5 free movies coupon.

[Bloodmask]

know the actual cost ITR. So thanks. That is even better if they are selling them at around cost.

Not any losses. Just the profits of HDDVD dales.
----------------------------- ----------------

PS. Does anyone know how the hec you get your C-Rank up on this site. I counted and I have submitted 66 stories and 60 were approved and C-Rank went down to 4.

Only 6 stories not approved.... :(

[Covenant]

Brilliant? (Recoup loss through HD-DVD sales, gain market share)

Or desperate? (Last gasp?)

We'll see.

P.S. How about dropping the 360 HD drive to $99? That would also impact sales.

[bIadestar]

Sweet although im an ps3/blue-ray user i cant say no to this cheapass deal might as well ^^

[BIadestarX]

It would be nice if you make your own unique name.. so you don't have to keep using mine...

[BBsin]

sales spike vs sales spike.
Amazon.com has that PS3 for 499 that includes the bluray remote and extra Bluray movie along with the 5 mail in Bluray movies. That is sure to draw a spike, this is a move to try and counter that. What they sould have done was reduce the 360 hddvd add-on also. But it's not good for toshiba to do this, since all of the other HD-DVD manufacturers have to drop their price inorder to keep their players in the same catagory as toshiba's.

[Skynetone]

A Failed format would go nicely beside your broken xbox

but seriously aint competition great

[pwnsause]

wow, lets see how the BDA responds www.eproductwars.com/dvd

[PS3n360]

using the ps3 tactic of losing on the hardware to make it up on the software. this could work.....or not. we will see.

[TrillHeat954]

Hd dvd is like the kid who's friends have all banged a girl yet he still hasn't and wishes he could

[dragonZ28]

I own both an HD DVD player and a PS3. The HD DVD movies have better picture quality, IMO. If they make this price for the masses, then this will definitely hit the target audience's wallet. This is a low entry level price. If Toshiba sees nice sales numbers, they may even make another permanent price drop. If they can sustain a $99 price tag, and sell to the masses, then this war is over - count on that.

If the cut is permanent (something Sony would know nothing about), Fox and Disney would jump ship on Blu-Ray rather quickly because these players will sell like hot cakes. I think that Toshiba needs to do some damage control and make their HD DVD players this price permanently in order to stop Blu-Ray from selling more.

This is really going to spark something here. I hope this goes to the general public because, as I said earlier, HD DVD movies look better than Blu-Ray movies. Those who would argue against me probably own only a PS3 and think that Jesus created Blu-Ray. Why sacrifice picture and features for audio? I didn't buy an HD TV to hear HD audio - I bought it for the picture. Hell, to me, DVD9 sounds perfect.

Toshiba needs to do this permanently for everybody.

[TrillHeat954]

buddy HD DVD and Blu rays now use the same video codecs and their quality has been proven equal unlike the VERY first titles. Now that you wrote 4 paragraphs defining the kind of idiot you are, you should just stay away from this site and read the real news to gain some knowledge. I suggest you take that to heart.

[funkysolo]

Audio is just as important as video. Ask any movie collector and they'll tell you that sound is what brings the movie to life. I have a 40 inch 1080p samsung and I spend almost twice as much for my Jbl setup. From what I seen blu ray is recommended anytime you go to an electronic store. You can't even go to blockbuster and rent HDdvd anymore. If you're cost concious then you don't need to go HD, because Movies are more expensive as well. Blu ray is going to win because it's being push by the sales people and by hollywood. I want my spider man blu ray this season and that's not coming to hddvd. All the top blockbuster this year are on Blu ray. So why would you go to HDDVD when it's only being supported by a 3rd of the movie industry. I just wish this war was over already

[IBLEEDBLU]

even at 100 bucks y bother - thats 100 u could put 2wards ur bluray collection

[frostbite06]

You still get 3 free hd-movies with this deal. How can you pass that up?

[dragonZ28]

Put your PS3 down and open your eyes. I don't care what codecs they use. Not all of them use VC-1 either. A lot of BDs still use the Mpeg format, so don't try to avoid that fact. Pirates does not look anything near as good as King Kong or any of the Matrix movies. Get off your soap box and try to have an open mind and don't close it to thinking Blu-Ray is simply the best because you want to be Japanese and support Sony. Take your anime collection out of your closet and burn it. Girls aren't down with that stuff unless they themselves are busted in the face. As stated before, I have both formats, and I have seen new and old movies. I have seen Ghost Rider and the Pirates movies. They look better than Silent Hill, I'll grant you that, but they still don't look as good as the HD DVD movies. The quality is not equal between the two - HD DVD is capable of much more than Blu-Ray. Just look at the 300 coming out in a couple of weeks for that. Just keep an open mind and don't think "Hey, Sony doesn't own it, so it sucks!" Dude, Sony has done some lame things to its customers lately, as has MS, but Blu-Ray is not superior to HD DVD in any way other than storage capacity. The overall superior technology is HD DVD because of the available features that Blu-Ray can not provide. It's people like you, fanboys, that can not have an intelligent conversation or debate. It's always "you're an idiot", "MS/Sony sucks" or blah blah blah.

I bought my PS3 for Blu-Ray because of their exclusive studios but I am 100% not satisfied with the picture compared to HD DVD. Just because it uses the same codecs does not mean that the films video is compressed equally - it only means they are compressed with the same software. I can compress the same movie eityher 50% or 40% with the same software, and the one less compressed will look better. That is where I believe Blu-Ray makes its mistake - they sacrifice picture quality in favor of uncompressed sound.

[TrillHeat954]

Woah Woah slow down there. You don't know me at all yet you claim i have anime in my closet, shut the hell up until you know me dont make useless comment. Im gonna lay it out for you plain and simple without giving you a wall of text like you seem to enjoy writing. First of all I could give a damn about sony, microsoft, nintendo. Yes i only have a ps3 right now, but i got it for the games no because its sony... same way i will eventually buy an xbox when they get there hardware issues together. I would also buy hd dvd's if there was an incentive or good reason to buy them but (reality check) there isn't. So telling yourself that I'm puerto rican (damn right)who wishes he was japanese and loves sony just shows me how far Peter Moore and the president of Toshiba have been shoving their penis down your throat. Everyone even, videophiles (even bluray.highdefdigest.com reviewer: Peter Bracke) agrees that Blu-Ray titles and Hd dvd titles are visually equal. So whatever visual fidelty you don't see is in your head and obviously Peter Moore's and Bill Gates cum is blocking your vision. So to sum it up Hd Dvd or Blu ray it doesnt matter, because i could care less because if hd was winning then i would support it. But the truth is that your beloved Hd DVD is losing at the moment, you're just the only dumbass left defending it.

[TheMART-sucksdick]

Sorry about this but i did a comparison the other day between blu-ray and HD Dvd... I first played casino royal on my ps3 running at 1080p and WOW!!! It looked great, great sound and great motion (sort of) What ive found is that Blu-ray blurs abit in intense scenes. My HDTV was £2000 so its not the tv. I tested HD Dvd with my Toshiba player (£500) with casino royal and it looked pretty much the same. But in fast moving scenes it had the advantage over Blu-ray. BUT JUST BY A BIT. Both were running HDMI so it was fair. But yeppp people HD Dvd does have a tiny advantage. I dont care who wins... Aslong as i can watch movies in HD i'm happy :p

BTW people my tv is the Sony KDL40X2000U.

[TrillHeat954]

Casino royal is not on hd dvd

[Lumbo]

your claim would make sense, IF CASINO ROYAL WOULD NOT BE AN BLURAY EXCLUSIVE, retard.

on Topic: desperation does that to people, next week Toshiba will give away the players for free, with 20 HDDVD included, and still people would grab that offer, and then forget about the format cause all the good movies are on Bluray anyways.

[dragonZ28]

The PS3's games at this moment are garbage. If you fool yourself into thinking HD DVD has no incentive, you obviously can't read the above price and free movies. I will continue this debate when you learn how to spell and use proper grammar. So, I, and everyone else, knew from your original post that you only owned a PS3 as indicated in my previous comment - your bias shows through and through. Enjoy your communicationless online play - Sony knows that microphones and conversation screw up online play (sarcasm). I wonder if Xbox Live should follow in their footsteps seeing as Sony is God.?>?<>

[dragonZ28]

is not on HD DVD in the states, but it might be on HD DVD overseas where this guy is obviously from by his use of the Lira symbol and not the dollar. I don't know that it is, but I do know that some exclusives are only exclusive in certain regions.

[TrillHeat954]

I don't understand why you don't get it, I am not biased idiot!!!!!!!!! Sure it's a good deal, I NEVER SAID IT WASN'T but it isn't necessarily smart considering the lack of support HD DVD has and please don't attack me for my spelling this is the internet and I don't feel the need to write to you like I would in an essay. And Casino RoyalE (lol) exclusive to hd dvd in a specific nation? Makes sense considering it's an Sony/MGM movie. lol you really are dumb

[dragonZ28]

I did not say it was only exclusive in this region - I said "I don't know that it is". You now need to add "learn to read" to your edumaction list.

Anyone who argues with this statement is completely biased in Sony's direction - THIS IS GOOD FOR THE CONSUMER; IT IS BAD FOR SONY. If you argue against this, it isn't because you are not biased, it is because you are. It scares you that this will be bad for Sony, so you all get rude and offensive to those who get excited.

Up until now (if this happens) HD players including Blu-Ray have been too expensive for most people to consider purchasing, so the true stats are not yet available in my opinion. Once the prices are low enough for the average person to go into a store and walk out with a player, the stats will sway instantly in its favor, and it will gain more support. The format that hits the masses first, in terms of affordability, will get the largest install base and get the most support because it is mutually beneficial to all parties involved.

If Blu-Ray players had this deal, I would support them the exact same way. You feel threatened if you post negatively on this topic; it's as simple as that. I just want HD movie players to become extremely affordable. Whichever it is, I don't care.

EDIT: for those wondering, I watch movies and play games on a 60" Sony SXRD TV. It's a great tv - even for a Sony, lol...

[Lumbo]

Sorry, but the amount of bullsh*t you post in this thread is appalling.

Even a complete idiot sees that this is a clear act of desperation by Toshiba. They loose more and more money on the players and at the same time they kill the 3rd party playermarket, effectively annoying any company that was still following them on the HD-DVD market. And the movie sales show a 3:1 rate for BluRay over HD-DVD, regardless of the recent pricedrops.

The result will be Toshiba as lone manufacturer for the HD-DVD market, and considering that the protection system is already completely broken, and they can not recover against the BD+ system that the BluRay group has finalized now, the big movie companies will not jump ship. Especially Fox has hold back on HiDef till now cause of the missing effective copyprotection.

Your posts show that you are highly biased and a "Sony hater" on top. As soon as you run out of arguments you start to flame people for their spelling or grammar, way to go .. for a 10 year old.

[cdzie1]

This is a special promotion for those that attend the show only, this is not the new price in retail or anything.

My sources tell me that HD DVD is doing really well at the $299 price point and while we are likely to see $199 before the holidays, $99 is unlikely for a standalone Toshiba unit. If they did however, this would end the format war, plain and simple. There is no way Blu-ray can compete with a $99 player this holiday, not even close.

[MarioFromTexas]

Blu ray. I have not seen a hddvd player being displayed on a HDTV anywhere. Even walmart has bluray being displayed, bestbuy, circuit city and Fry's. It's hard for a consumer to purchase HDDVD when you have the salesperson pushing blu ray and everything on displayed is bluray. I think now that blu ray has such a big lead stores are going to want to force an end to the format war. Look at blockbuster and walmart now is selling bluray. HDDVD is dead and some people just don't want to except it.

[MarioFromTexas]

Hey that was a good comeback with Casino Royale. You caught his BS that he watched casino royale on bluray and hddvd, when it's exclusive to bluray. I'll tell you man some people will find anything wrong just because it's Sony and PS3. I have both an elite and a PS3 and I play games not consoles.

[hfaze]

Although this is for the 1080i model =P

There's a few movies that are HD-DVD only that I would not mind having... I guess it would depend on what movies you could pick from for the free ones...

At least that way, I would be covered if HD-DVD pulls off a serious hail-mary and wins <snicker>. And if Blu-Ray wins, I'm only out the cost of the player, and any movies I might get... Not too bad...

Regardless, I could have Fearless and The Matrix in HD...

[ReBurn]

I think $99 would be worth it whether HD-DVD succeeds or fails. I would get the Matrix trilogy, Fearless, and the first season of Heroes, which is also coming to HD-DVD in August.

I don't know why the idiots are fighting about this.

[Bolts]

This isn't enough. I don't care how cheap the player is, HD-DVD need to make a massive turn around in terms of studio support. Despite all the lip service to supporting HD-DVD it looks like the industry is slowly but surely swinging to BR side of the fence. I just bought an incredibly expensive dual format LG player and while it's difficult to tell which format is clearly better visually, on some titles the BR format just sounds better. Given the choice I would prefer BR copy of my favorite movies over the HD-DVD one based on the lure of a prestine soundtrack alone.

[dale1]

desparate in a word 10 to 1 ratio blu ray on overall systems sold these type of moves are just over stock deals rememeber betemax recorders when they started giving them away with blockbusters announcement about hddvd the consumers have started to buy bluray hddvd sales are looking embarrasing since there announcement
npd will confirm it and of course since e3 playstation sales are moving widening the gap even further

[xfrgtr]

It shows how desperate toshiba is,and bloodmask,you have absolutely no idea what youre talking about.HDDVD IS DEAD. If the price of the HDDVD player drops to 99 dollars then it will be a sign that it's over.
http://www.eproductwars.com...

[cdzie1]

Why do PS3 fans keep saying this? HD DVD has 70% of the standalone player market and 34% of high-def movie sales. That is not "dead" by any stretch of the imagination.

If these numbers mean a product is "dead" then PS3 is "dead". Compared to 360 & Wii, PS3 has worse sales percentages in the games market than HD DVD does in the movie market.

[ReBurn]

But it isn't setting the world on fire, either. It does have a higher market share in stand-alone players, but people with PS3's don't need to buy a standalone player. So I think that statistic may be a bit misleading.

I think the important thing to remember is that content is what sells entertainment technology. Blu-Ray has much more content available than HD-DVD, so that's what is going to determine the outcome of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray.

I find it interesting, however. I find it so strange that Sony is fighting so hard to make Blu-Ray a success, but it will be a year after launch before the PS3 has a steady supply of decent software. It looks to me like Blu-Ray is much more important overall to Sony than the PS3 is. And I have a PS3, so I feel it safe to say that.

[TheMART]

Nice to see how Sony fanboys get scared about this low price.

What do you think, someone that needs to buy a movieplaying format will react if he can get:

Last gen DVD without any movies, a brand quality one for 50 to 60 dollar/euro

Or a next gen format, with 3 movies, same quality as BluRay for 99 dollar/euro

And the next competitor, BluRay, sells only the player for what, 500 to 700 dollar/euro

What you think will happen?

HD-DVD will sell like hell

@ cdzie1 (above)

RIGHT ON

React on that Sony fanboys! PS3 = dead!

Wii and 360 both around or over 10 million. The PS3 only @ 3.5. Battle lost.

GREAT

@ idontcare (below)

Doesn't matter. In PS3 fans vision, the one that is the largest format now on next gen video wins. The same in that vision is for gaming then on consoles. I am not saying that vision is correct, Sony fans are.

We need to draw the line the same somewhere, don't we?

HD-DVD is dead because it sold less until now
Then PS3 is also dead because it sold and sells less

[felidae]

the ps3 isn't available as long as the 360.

[kevin1122]

themart, you are one of the biggest morons on this site. How many times do i have to tell you, the 360 hasnt hit 10 mil yet and neither has the wii. Also, blu-ray has more support which means more company's back it. Tell me this, why would someone buy hd-dvd when the movie they want isnt on it.