Sony will drop prices for its Blu-ray DVD player as it spars with HD DVD

Sony's Blu-ray DVD player will drop 20 percent or more in price this holiday season to less than $400 from $499.99 now, Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics, said Thursday.

[gamesblow]

I'm a big time supporter of Blu-ray and have now bought over 26 movies, as of yesterday. I've had a single player Blu-ray for about 4 months now too. I wouldn't midn getting the cheaper 40 gig Ps3 for another one for downstairs, either. If it's not Direct Downloads, Blu-ray is my choice of format. Simple as that. I'll be right there to buy up any and everything blu-ray as long as we have a media to contend with. I'm still awaiting the day for everything to go download only, though. That's going to be killer.

[cuco33]

They did from the get go. The second the PS3 dropped in price, stand alones needed to shift their market strategy in terms of pricing. Why would someone pay for an obsolete 1.0 profile BD stand alone for MORE than what a soon to be 1.1 compliant PS3? To add insult to injury, entry level HD DVD players are going for super cheap now ($100 clearance of gen2, <$200 gen3, soon to come uber cheap stand alones from China and Venturer).

[jiggyjay]

@gamesblow.. Too bad your not like the 300 million americans who don't make 6 figure salaries! If most americans were like you then blu ray would've already won!

[AllanWakker]

Silly Xbots still pretending the dead HD-DVD format is relevant.

Here's the real headline(de-Xbotized):

"BluRay drive manufacturing prices continue to plummet leading to cheaper PS3 and standalone prices"

[cherdman]

Oh dear. And tell me why competition isn't a good thing?

[supermandead666]

If peoples have any brain cell just get the freakin 40gb ps3.

[aba]

I been trying to find out but have gotten mixed answers.

EDIT: Is there a date for release? Are they gonna release it separately or package it with the console?

[Fighter]

Not for North America and Europe. Only for Japan. You can probably import the controller but it will cost extra and you might end up paying double or triple. I wish we had rumble in time for the holidays but it won't happen.

Sony has to get rid of all those sixaxis controllers before they move to rumble and that sucks for us consumers.

Edit: @bladestar

Impressive. How did you get all you bubbles back? I remember you just had one bubble a few weeks back.

[Bladestar]

@gamesblow - Do you know why Blu-ray took the lead from HD DVD? do you think is because of technology or because blu-ray supports 2160P? Both formats are relative the same in terms of what they can do... at least as far as the stream consumer can tell.
But do you know why? Yes.... the PS3. The PS3 offered the cheapest entry into the HD world.... look at around now... back when the PS3 was introduced HD DVD were more expensive than the PS3 itself... today.... stand alone HD players (including blu-ray players) are starting to get cheaper than consoles... anyone wanting to buy an HD player and do not care about games... do not have to buy a console...
the PS3 is no longer a big factor in the format war...

"Silly Xbots still pretending the dead HD-DVD format is relevant." sadly... lemmings... are still pretending that $400 vs $99 is irrelevant...

[gamesblow]

Blu-ray is supported y me cause of the following reasons... The Simpsons, Sony pictures, Seinfeld... Pirates... I can go on and on and on. Sony owns every movie franchise I like and would buy and if they don't, they're backed by someone who does. Lionsgate, for instance. Blu-ray is my choice because of the movies. I could care less about 50 gb of data for my movies. I care about the movies represented on the formats. HD-dvd doesn't have what I want. Simple and clean.

[Biphter]

Is win USA and Canada. Everywhere else its completely dead already (In Denmark its never really existed from the start).

Bladestar, The PS3 has been more expensive than the Toshiba player for EVER! Where did you pull them mad facts? Toshiba released the player back in 2006 for $499 and have been steadily reducing the price to this bargain basement clearout price $99 (official $199) over that period. At the same time the PS3 has been reducing in price but its NEVER been cheaper! and it STILL outsells HD-DVD standalones by about 10 to 1.

This reduced price thing is bullsheet, they put a sale sign up for a product they have next to no stock for (or do they??)! Its attention grabbing, to make it look like the player is "Sold out in minutes". Its a desperate way to gain demand.

At the end of the day, if HD-DVD gets all the movie support and release a player over here in Denmark (never ever seen a physical player in any shop here), then i'm sold. A Cheap player with no movies I want is no good to me even if its $50. I'd rather buy an "expensive" Blu-Ray Player and know I can get most of the movies I like (the ones I can't get I just buy on DVD for now, and up to now the only HD-DVD only title I want is Transformers).

It just all smells of "Clearance" to me, and i'd be very wary paying even $99 for a HD-DVD player when you can get a good upscaling 720p/1080i DVD player for half the price.

Hey, if your not interested in 1080p, then you wont notice the difference between HD-DVD at 1080i to DVD upscaled to 1080i, right?

Go to a good Video/Hifi Shop and get them to Play a BD movie back at 1080p/24 on a 46" (minimum) HDTV and sound through a HD Receiver and compare it to Toshiba's 1080i Dolby Digital (SD) sound.... if you can't see and HEAR the difference you go ahead and buy the Toshiba, you'll be happy you saved all that money ;)

[Xwow]

if you want the dualshock3 import it from japan or wait until 2008.

[Zhuk]

Blu-Ray might be in trouble if they cant get prices down quicker

[P4KY B]

Competition is great for pricing.

[kewlkat007]

Competition is what you cheap, jobless gamers want.

In the end, we only get "cheaper products" until something becomes the standard.

[Funky Town_TX]

is what competition does. Even if you hate HD-DVD (and most of you do) you benefit from the cheaper HD-DVD players. I will sure wait for the smoke to clear. I was going to get a 40 gig PS3 but now I will wait. They will drop the price again. 3 price drops for Sony in 4 months. Maybe we will see a $300 40 gig in a few months. With Killzone 2 being the only exclusive I want ( I'm a fps/sports fan) I will just wait. I was going to get Spider Man 3 with the 40 gig, but I picked up the DVD instead. Great, news keep those prices coming down. Go Sony.

[KingJames1906]

Man it's a mad house in their. I bought 3 HD-DVD Players

1 - For me.
2 - My best Friend (Gift for Christmas he just bought an HD - TV)
3 - My Co-worker (He'll get the money on Monday.

I saw the 40GB PS3. I would have bought it but instead opted for the 348.99 Acer Laptop. Not bad for the specs (see below.)

15.4'' WXGA LCD Screen
1GB DDR2
80GB HDD
DVD/CD - RW
56k
10/100 Base T
802.11b/g
Windows Vista Basic (I might load XP)

I think I'm going to wait on the PS3. I have an Xbox360 and I'm pretty happy with it. Only games I'm looking forward to are Heavenly Sword and MSG4 possibly Uncharted. The others I can get on the 360. I think the price of the PS3 can an will go lower than 399.99 so I'm in no rush.

[HarryEtTubMan]

bLU RAY IS INTIMIDATED IN THE SMALLEST... ps3 IS GOING TO DECEIDE THE FORMAT WAR... WATCH IT HAPPEN.

[THE_JUDGE]

and I don't really see that the Blu-ray group even needed to do it. They have the lead and although HD-DVD is getting cheaper players, if the movies people want to watch aren't on it, they won't get it. Player sales don't mean much if people don't buy the dvd's to go along with it. As the industry has shown the attach rate on Blu-ray is higher than HD-DVD and a crappy non 1080p player prolly won't change that. Go Blu!

[KingJames1906]

Motion Picture Studios receive money from company's like Blockbuster, Netflix, Hollywood Video etc. I personally will not buy a DVD, HD-DVD, or Blu-Ray movie. I won't watch them again but I do rent. So what about rentals? The Super Bowl isn't broadcast in 1080p nor any major soccer events. No NBA, No MLB, No Tennis, No Golf, No News, No Broadcast TV/ Cable send out a 1080p signal (it's 720P upscaled to 1080i.) So I assume the only content YOU watch would be those 200 available blu-ray movies as there's on other content to enjoy in 1080P outside of your blu-Ray player.

[JosefTor]

For the first poster... if you've purchased 26 Blu-ray discs... I understand why you don't think they need to lower the price. For all us poor bastards though... $99 is the sweet spot.

[midgard229]

this war is useless. seriously, we all know blue ray is better over all except for the price range, but truthfully blueray's enourmous amount of space cud be used for less disks for boxsets and such, only problem is it cost to much if ur making just one movie, but i dunno, this is such a dumb war, hd dvd is fine for movies, nothin wrong, but i think blueray is mainly good for games since it has so much space, dont really need that much for movies

[Salvadore]

Are they referring to the PS3 or a standalone player?

[level 360]

We all know what that means, another price drop for the PS3 console will follow suit...

[feejo]

I buy a Dvd player in 2003 150$, a year after they where 100$. I will just wait, blu-ray is just comming in nov on my video store. Since electronic exist price are dropping and quality are increasing while you wait.
Just be patient.