chanster

Sounds like patience may be a good thing for those looking for affordable blu ray player prices?

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/hig...-falling-13582

GenPion

That makes it sound like if Blu-ray doesn't sell well this holiday season it's done for.

Which is a joke. No one will want to go back to standard DVD after experiencing Blu-ray. People just need more time to cross over.

Gizmo

To be fair "no one" is a very, very small amount of people. The majority of people still buy DVD. I would never go back to DVD (purchashing) if BD died besides a few small select titles.

pro-bassoonist

O, dear. Good old Rob Enderle...yet another doom piece.

Pro-B

fumanstan

Can't imagine this holiday season being the turning point between life or death. But i'm going to need a new player when i move in November, so if it means continued drops in player prices, cool beans

JimRochester

I would agree that this year without the format war, and the extra added year to build interest, retailers I'm sure were hoping for a banner year for Blu Ray players. Whether the economy is a cause or an effect remains to be seen however either way, retailers just haven't seen the massive switch to Blu they were expecting after the demise of HDDVD. Now with the economy in the toilet (laid off for the second time this year) I'm sure sales will be tepid at best. I'm in total agreement that the failure of Blu to light up the register this Christmas in no means manufacturers will give up on the format. Even with discounting, there is just more room to play with on $200 - $300 BD machines than $40 - $80 upconverting machines.

Josh-da-man

Sony will hang onto Blu-ray like grim death.

Gizmo

Sad but true. They still make UMD movies.

Qui Gon Jim

Ah yes. Attack the messenger. Classic.

All year, all we heard was "Wait for this holiday season!" Now everyone is hedging their bets. If BD fails to move some units, you will see those Walmart sections reduce. You may see those low-end hardware players bow out. BD may very well fall victim to a bad economic cycle.

However, prices are dropping. PS3 is rumored to be getting a price drop in the coming weeks.

I agree with the sentiment that this is the make it or break it year for BD. This is the format's shot at the mainstream.

pro-bassoonist

In this specific case the messenger has been equivalent of the message. A little research on what the messenger has predicted in the past quickly reveals so.

Will or may which one is it?


Very good. Another point we do not need to debate. We will simply have to comment on your prediction a year from now. And in case it might be unclear to you or anyone else my stance on the article is that it is completely off: Blu-ray hardware and software will sell well this Christmas and we will see even better numbers in 2009.

Pro-B

tylergfoster

That is only half true. If it fails during the holidays, then I guess it would seem like that, but if it succeeds, it would make 2009 the year when we'll really see what's happening.

Gizmo

Actually its droppingto $359 at Blockbuster for the 40GB. Dunno if that includes other stores though.

vjack99

I'm skeptical that more time is the answer. I think the added cost of Blu-ray media is the main obstacle.

obidawsn

All this makes me laugh. Whether you preferred HD DVD or Blu-Ray, you have to admit that the drops in prices of the HD DVD players were the right move. Toshiba knew that in order to get the majority of people into a product, they must have lower prices. That's why they let Wal-Mart out with these $99 A2's. They were hoping to get people to buy into HD DVD. It probably would have worked had they had a lot more software to back them up (not to mention more time to see if this plan would succeed). A lot of people jumped in HD DVD when the prices came down. Then they were stuck with a limited amount of movies to watch. The majority of the big movies were being released on Blu Ray. You had a select few, such as Transformers and Bourne Ultimatum, but that was about it. Imagine if it was this year. They would have had Iron Man, Indy 4, Kung Fu Panda, Incredible Hulk, Tropic Thunder and Mummy 3 (just a partial list of the Paramount and Universal titles that made it in the top 20 this year). And since Batman Begins was only released on HD DVD, there would have been a chance that the same would have been for Dark Knight. Last year BR had the luck of having the Sony, Fox and Disney titles that were huge last year where Paramount, Dreamworks, and Universal didn't have many huge titles that were selling. That, on top of HD DVD being late in having good B1G1 sales on their movies, eventually led to BR selling more titles. Now we're stuck without HD DVD, and a format that is too expensive for the majority of people to get into.

With that said, I see BR player prices dropping. Granted they are mostly not profile 2.0, but they are dropping. They still have a way to go, but as has been mentioned many times before, previous formats have taken a few years to get down to the right price. It's just that everyone blamed HD DVD for BR not taking off, and expected BR to take off after HD DVD went away, but it hasn't. Had there not been a format war, would that given BR any more of an advantage by this point? Who knows? I mostly agree with the format war causing their to be a little competition and getting both sides to step up. We probably wouldn't have many of the features that BR is giving us, now, (at least through 2.0) had HD DVD not offered them first. And now people expect BR to fail if they don't get the prices down this year as HD DVD tried to do last year. Of course, I'm all for it. I'm sitting on an Enchanted Blu Ray (after using the $10 coupon in my DVD to get it for $15) because I really wanted it for when I got a Blu Ray player, and the coupon made it a good price being that Disney rarely marks their movies down much. Now I'm just waiting for an affordable Blu Ray player so I can play it along with other movies I want. I'm really having a hard time now, though, because I want to pick up Iron Man and other movies coming out in the next couple of months, but I don't see any reason to buy the DVD when I'll be wanting the BR in the next year or so. So if Blu Ray players come down to a decent price this holiday season, I might have to break down and get one. Right now, I'm not even sure if I'm worried about 2.0 since I don't have a great sound system, and I'm at a place where I can't hook it up to the internet, anyway (my internet is included where I live and they only give me one jack and won't let me hook a router up). Plus I don't know how many of those features I really care about, anyway. I guess it all depends on how much the players come down. But I know for sure I'll be out there if they drop one down to $100, even if it isn't 2.0. I'd be very surprised if it happened, but I would be there if it does.

tofferman

For what its worth, I'm theoretically in the market for a Blu-Ray player and have been looking at both a standalone player as well as a PS3. However, whenever I see the prices ($20-35 per title not including a sale like Amazon has from time to time) for a particular title of interest, I shake my head and walk away.

Blu-Ray players may indeed drop to $100-200 this Holiday season, but the studio pricing for individual Blu-Ray movies is a joke, and a losing proposition in these tight economic times. A vast majority of consumers out there are more concerned with making their mortgage payment, car payment, day care payment, etc...let alone worrying about whether their job is secure.

A $25-35 Blu-Ray title, for most, is a luxury. If the studios think this format can survive at these price points, they are sadly mistaken.

JimRochester

Although I'll agree with much of what was said, LD's made it at 3 times the price 20 years ago. Although it never made it beyond a niche market, it sold enough to be viable. SD DVD had the advantage of the dot com boom where websites were dying to lose money just so they could brag of clientelle for advertising dollars. I would guess Blu will go beyond niche status but will be years from displacing SD DVD at these prices. Still too many people like my father in law What the hell do I need that for my VHS tapes were fine?

Logic 7

+1

mzupeman2

I don't agree that this is a make it or break it year at all, it's not just blu-rays being affected by the economy, it's everything. Blu-ray penetration is getting better all the time, and the selection of discs is really nice already, and it's only going to continue to get better. More and more people still have to update their tv's at home, and they'll fall into the blu-ray market more and more as well. Blu-ray isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.

I, look forward to buying my first stand-alone player as soon as it's out... and I'm speaking of the Oppo.

GenPion

I agree that the prices on movies need to drop more in order to motivate people to invest in Blu-ray technology. However, if you look around these forums you should be able to find many good deals on Blu-ray's. The Columbia House B1G1 with Free Shipping that just occurred is a good example. While prices may be high at the moment decent sales are not impossible to find if you are willing to shop online. The average I have spent on Blu-ray titles (after having added up all my costs) is $13 a title. That's certainly more than what I have spent on DVD ($5 a title - including all my box sets!) but it's not so high a price for a new technology that is far superior to DVD (IMHO).

Prices will eventually drop. They always do. And when they do drop people will be ready and waiting to purchase their Blu-ray players and HDTV's.

kenbenobi

I think time WILL improve sales. But I base it on the February 29 digital TV switchover. Although people can get converter boxes, I feel many US homes will instead opt to upgrade to HDTV's this holiday season. And if they have a brand spankin' new HDTV, why not get a HD player!

But I should add that I'm anti-Blu. I bought into HD-DVD and own over 125 titles (mainly from clearance prices). If any store sells a BR player for $100, I'll jump on it, just so I can get titles I can't get on HD-DVD. But if BR fails, I won't shed a tear. However, I really don't think it will fail...

Gizmo

The switchover won't make much of a difference. If people were holding out getting a HDTV until that point, I don't see them spending the extra $200 on a BD player and $20+ on discs. Unless thy are given a free player (and even then, who says they will buy discs), the switchover won't even have an affect on BD SA or Disc sales.

Qui Gon Jim

The switchover won't make much of a difference. If people were holding out getting a HDTV until that point, I don't see them spending the extra $200 on a BD player and $20+ on discs. Unless thy are given a free player (and even then, who says they will buy discs), the switchover won't even have an affect on BD SA or Disc sales.[/QUOTE]

I agree. This is the most overplayed aspect of all of this. I also disagree that most people will be buying new sets. MOST people have nothing to worry about since they are getting the signal from cable or satellite and they need nothing new. It is only the OTA people who will be affected by this.

I don't think that a bad showing this year will mark the end of the format. I think it will relegate it to niche status, much like LD (and as I have been saying for years, that is not a bad thing).

I also agree that there are issues with the prices of media if they want to be mainstream. I really think that the studios are trying to close the barn doors after the horses are out. They have conditioned the public to expect things to eventually hit the sub-$10 mark pretty fast. I know it took DVD a long time to get there, but there were no sub-$10 bins full of VHS next to $30 versions of the same film.

Michael Corvin

This two guys have hit the nail on the head. The studios could give away Blu-ray players with a purchase of a bag of M&Ms and it wouldn't matter. As long as BD discs are nearly twice as expensive as their DVD counterparts they won't make any in-roads to success. The divide is even wider on catalog titles. The title that always comes to mind for me is I, Robot. I can get a loaded SE DVD for $5 or I can get the Blu for $30. Sure as GenPion points out below, with a little legwork I can 'find' a deal on it, but DVD succeeded because of the impulse buy. $30 is not in impulse range.

This doesn't amount to a hill of beans. If a regular consumer can't walk into any store and get a decent deal on a movie they want, the format will never succeed.

Mr. Cinema

HD DVD's #1 fanboy, Rob Enderle, is an "Independent" analyst?

Mr. Cinema

This isn't BD's make or break year. 2009 will be. Why? Because the format has only had full studio support for a whopping 3 months.

BD does need a strong Christmas going in to 2009 and I think it will be strong. The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Transformers, Indy 4, Wall-E, and others will be strong sellers throughout the year. Player prices are falling. Hopefully they reach the $200 price point on a consistent basis next year.