Toshiba has had a rough year as they’ve watched HD DVD rather quickly fall to the bottom and eventually get discontinued. February 9th was the day that they made the official announcement that they were going to stop development, manufacturing, and marketing of HD DVD players and recorders. It’s been about a month and now we’re learning what kind of loss HD DVD actually was for Toshiba, and it’s huge.
There are not that many things in this world that there are a billion of. Offhand I can think of the fact that there are several billion people in the World and there are probably billions of blades of grass or granules of sand, but a billion of something is a huge number. It’s almost impossible to imagine a billion of anything, especially money. A billion dollars is a number that Toshiba will have stuck in their minds for quite a while because that’s how much they lost on HD DVD. They took a risk, and as it turns out, the risk wasn’t worth it and Blu-ray won the format war.
Speaking of Blu-ray, now that they don’t have any competition, prices of the players are going up. Here most of us were just wanting the “format-war” to end yet it was the competition that was helping to keep prices in check. Here’s what I mean:
- The Samsung BD-P1400 player was selling for $318 on January 1st. It is now selling at $374 (an increase of $56).
- The Sony BDP-S300 was selling at $307 on January first and is now selling at $403 (an increase of $96).
- The Sharp BD-HP20U was selling at $386 on January 1st and is now selling at $440 (an increase of $54).
- Panasonic has their DMP-BD30K player which was selling at $401 on January 1st but is now selling at $480 (an increase of $79).
One example of a player that hasn’t gone up is the LG BH200 which was selling at $999 on January 1st but is now selling at $666. The others have gone up pretty significantly and we can only imagine they will continue to go up now that there is no competition to help keep the prices down. Consumers are not going to be happy.
@Ashley:
“The only example of a player that hasn’t gone up is the LG BH200 which was selling at $999 on January 1st but is not selling at $666.”
Oops! I think what you meant is “…..on January 1st but is NOW selling at $666.”
Regards,
Omar.-
Correction- the PS3’s price didn’t go up either.
You probably meant the only standalone player whose price didn’t go up.
Whoops! Thanks for point out the error.
@Max: It looks like the PS3 still remains a big bang for your buck! If I were going to get a Blu-ray player, I’d definitely for for the PS3 even though I wouldn’t have any intention of using it to play games.
It may not be just the lack of competition. The demand for Blu-ray players has increased now that the “format war” is over. If production hasn’t keep up with demand then you’re going to see a rise in price.
CoryC has a great point and I am sure that is the case. However, what will happen once the demand for Blu-ray players can be met and sustained with units always on the shelves, you will see the prices steadily decrease. Once there are a lot of players out there and more and more people are buying Blu-ray movies, you will see those prices decline as well.
last weekend I found about 9 Blu-ray movies that were at $19.99 and I bought one movies that I wanted.
What I expect to happen is that there will be a huge demand for the PS3 once people realize what a great deal it is. Not only for movies, but streaming of video files as well as a gaming system. if Sony can’t keep up with the demand, you will see the PS3 back on eBay for large profits.
I bought my PS3 right after the announcement that Blu-ray won. I am loving it especially for the video streaming. I also was excited for one once Time Crisis 4 came out for it too.
The PS3 beat out the Xbox 360 for the second month in a row last month, which is huge. I know Microsoft has been having troubles keeping the shelves full (personally we had troubles finding a store with them in stock a few weeks ago), but I suspect people are picking up the PS3 now that the format war is really dead.