There have been very similar delays for both formats, with HD DVD probably suffering more in that respect (Nov 2005 to Apr 2006). As to the high costs that isn't something I've really seen anywhere except rumours. Rumours mostly posted by the MS employees on AVS. Low yields were always expected early in a new format's life, much as with DVD, so I'm not sure why that should surprise anyone.

They were talking about higher cost of manufacturing the hardware as well. Those "rumors" have obviously come true.

Doesn't matter who said it or who they work for.

Truth is truth. Don't dismiss it as being falst just because of where they work. Again, read their posts. They're not being unfair. To dismiss them is kidding yourself (collective "you").

I've read Alex's posts on disc replication issues for ages now, and his predictions of much more expensive BD discs. The reality seems to be somewhat different. Fact is fact. Look at the prices of the early BD discs as compared to the early HD DVD discs.


In what respect? BTW equating price with cost would be a mistake.

Well, the bottom line is it costs ME 100-260% more to buy a BR player for the same PQ. That's a no sale. Do I really care what it costs manufacturers? No. I assume that it is more difficult to manufacture a BR player (at least some of them can't even play CDs) like I've read for over a year (due to lower tolerances, etc.). An HD-DVD player is closer to a DVD player and therefore it costs less to make one (so I've read). The MSRP is apparently bearing that out. Or maybe BR decks are $1000+ for fun...

You buy one or two, then tell us which is the best. I'll pick it up after it comes in below $500.

Ah, so you were equating cost with price. The pricing strategy of BD is entirely consistant with the normal practice for a new format: high initial prices help to recoup R&D expenses (ie, cost is far lower than price). Normally the price drops fairly quickly until it's closer to cost - which will itself drop as well, though more slowly. Toshiba are the odd one out here, with their computer style player being sold either at cost or below. It remains to be seen how much pain they feel they can take and whether any other CE companies feel the desire to invest in HD DVD with little chance of profit. Low numbers of players and no new announced players seem to tell their own story.

You're right... it's a good thing that BR is $1000-$1800, that they are not releasing on 50GB discs (even though they champion their higher capacity), they're so fragile that they need a durbis II coating (or they'd be in caddies), and that some (or all) of the players won't even play CDs. None of that in any way indicates that BR is more of an engineering challenge to build than HD-DVD. And, of course, none of this affects manufacturing/engineering cost.

Like I said, you go buy a couple of different units (whenever they finally get released) and report back here to let us know which one is best.

You're mixing engineering/design with production.

Indeed, BD is more of an engineering challenge to design than HD DVD. I think everyone agrees with that.

Now, once we leave engineering/design behind, is BD hardware more of a production challenge to build?

Judging by his last post I think awmurray has decided to stop talking rationally and take up a fundamentalist position: throwing everything he can think of into the mix in a vain attempt to get something to stick. What on earth he thinks durabis II on the discs has to do with the cost of manufacturing a BD player I don't know! There's still nothing to suggest BD players are much more expensive to manufacture than HD DVD players. In fact since the BD players will be SoC solutions from the off there's every chance the PC based Tosh player will be more expensive to make!

Right, and they've got to recoup the R&D costs. That's why the players are going to be uber expensive and that's why I don't think we're going to see them catch HD-DVD for a very long time.

Did you even read the article?

Here are the important parts. Note that this was 9/27/05. All of this appears to be coming to pass now. That's why I don't think all of this is MS FUD or "rumors":

Back to the topic at hand -

Black Hawk Down has been dropped from the Sony release schedule, so it won't come until September at the earliest.

Well, for one thing, the player has to be engineered to be able to read through the Durabis II coating.

Nah, the Durabis coating has to be designed to be virtually transparent to the laser.

You claimed that the MS rumours of BD players costing far more to manufacture were somehow proven by something now available to us. Then when asked what that something was you came up with Durabis II!?! And the price as if that somehow exposes cost. Sorry, but this MS rumour has been in no way verified.

Capacity has for a long time now been known to be 25Gb ROM at launch with 50Gb ROM to follow soon afterwards. It's clear these 50Gb discs are already being manufactured for R/RE (and are on sale), so the only issue is with improving yields/costs to the point they become viable for ROM usage as well. The MS spin claiming they're not happening anywhere outside the lab is nonsense.

The 2nd of Microsoft's 3 points has been pretty well disproved. "Maintaining low disc replication costs affects the consumer price for media", said Ribas Take a look at the prices of the early BD discs and compare them with the prices of HD DVDs and you'll see that the slight increase in cost to manufacture hasn't been passed on to consumers. This was always a dodgy argument, though.

God I can't wait for this fucking war to be over with.

I certainly hope the BD players cost more to manufacture than the HD-DVD players. Otherwise, the pricing of the Blu-Ray players is insane. With the competition at $500, you'd be insane to double that price unless costs kept you from lowering it.

I know we cannot tell much from pricing, but Sony cannot be silly enough to try and make a large profit on the players while Toshiba is selling them at half the price of the BD players, can they?

My guess is it all depends on how much market share the various BD companies feel Toshiba is able to corner. If they are truly concerned they may feel the need to lower their prices. BTW looking at the similar pricing across the board for BD players/recorders (excluding Pioneer) it's likely there's some collusion between BDA members in this area. Probably be impossible to ever prove though...

The long-standing rumor I've heard is that Toshiba is heavily subsidizing the cost of HD DVD hardware while Sony is heavily subsidizing the cost of Blu-ray software. I don't have any way of knowing if that's true, but from the looks of things, I wouldn't be surprised.

If that is true, in the long run, would work out well for Sony, I would think. If the PS3 is indeed a capable BD player, and the software is cheaper... that would be a good situation for Sony to be in.

But, how do you explain to the consumer the break-even point of HD vs Blu-Ray is X titles. The PS3 seems to be the only hope Sony has in the war. If it wasn't for the relative inexpensiveness of that BR player, I don't see how they'd even have a prayer to compete, honestly. Am I missing something?

I was thinking in terms of the long run, as in past this generation. I would guess the BD players will be cheaper as time goes on. And depending on how long they subsidize the software, that could work out well.

I'm just thinking in terms of my collection cost versus player cost. I (and all of us, likely) have spent a hell of a lot more money on the software versus the player.

I agree that people who post on a software forum with (sometimes multiple) links to our collections beneath every post easily would benefit from cheaper softwares costs long-run

I'm talking about the people who don't. How is Sony going to say to J6P-HD that this more expensive player is actually cheaper as soon as you buy your 600th title. I don't see that happening...

And further, if they can't convince the average consumer of that, how long before the studios start jumping ship and BR is dead?

Because the majority of retail consumers don't buy the cheapest item?

Customers buy what they perceive to be the greatest value item, not the cheapest item. This is a basic tenet of retail that is ignored in every one of these threads. Until we see the marketing, in-store kiosks, and product placement, we really cannot assume anything about how the customer will react to the BD products. In fact, as has been alluded to be elsewhere, we might discover that Toshiba seriously undervalued their players by pricing them so low, and there might be customer backlash against this when the BD players are released.

There are often unintended consequences of dumping your product on the market for less than it's worth; customers might have an innate/irrational prejudice against your item due to the "cheapness" they might come to associate with it.

I have a (admittedly anecdotal) story that should help elaborate. It was told to me during my last few days while working at Best Buy while in college. We were just rolling out the Reward Zone program. There were two initial test runs of the Reward Zone program. The first involved giving customers in Minnesota free Reward Zone cards and then tracking their purchases; response to the program was tepid at best. The company then began charging 10 bucks for a card and interest soared; by demonstrating that the card had value ($10), the customer was more likely to show interest in it. An interesting side effect occurred: too many RZ participants! Best Buy's solution was to raise the price to the threshold at which their target number of customers would participate.

To summarize, low price is not always the best option, especially when it comes to luxury items that customers buy as trophy pieces. Take a look at plasma tv stats - your best-selling brands aren't Samsung and LG, but Panasonic and Pioneer. These are being sold to customers who will never know how to set the black level on these sets, who will never be able to understand why the Panasonics and the Pioneers are better than the Samsungs. But the higher price point and the word of mouth from employees is often enough to steer people in these directions.

All this is for moot if the Toshiba winds up being a substantially better product than the BD players; however, those who say that price is a primary factor here simply do not understand retail pricing.

I must be thick because this logic doens't make sense to me.
the goal of both formats is to move software- Thats where the money is and where the return on the investment involved in R&D will be.
If Sony has to subsidize each single piece of software (due to lousy yields, etc) than that pretty much cancels out the royalty they will recieve.

If it only takes a few months for them to get beyond the problems associated with the Durabis hardcoat and the the yield issues on 50gb media, then I guess Sony will be in a good position to start reaping the rewards.
assuming of course that the $1K and up cost for hardware don't limit the base.

However, from day one, Toshiba is getting royalties from sales of HD DVDs and that is already off setting their player subsidy costs. Also, while their profit margins may not be as great as Sonys (or Panasonics, or Pioneers, or Samsungs, etc) they are pretty much the only game in town- so they don't have to share those meager profits.

Also, Sony isn't going to start making any money on hardware until August.
so they are bleeding money (in the form of software subsidies) for the next two months. And even then, with so many mfgs, and all their products priced at a premium- seems a very small pie to me, and way too many ways to slice it. I just don't see how these circumstances put Sony in a good or 'better' position.
In fact, if they can't iron out these issues related to yields and usable space, then if the PS3 does come out (which is a piece of hardware they will have to subsidize), then they are going to be bleeding revenue at both ends.

Looks to me like they have no choice but to get this to work by Sept or they are seriously screwed. And that doesn't even take into account how well the format needs to do against the other format.