I’ve said it myself several times, I expect to see Blu-ray players with sub-$200 MSRPs on shelves in time for the holidays. We’ve already had sub-$300 MSRP players announced, due by mid-year. As more and more players hit shelves, especially more low-end players, the lower bound on the price will come down. I don’t know if we’ll see any sub-$100 sale prices this year, like we did on HD DVD last year, but I wouldn’t be too surprised. But I fully expect sub-$200 MSRP pricing on some low-end decks, and that we’ll see sub-$100 prices in 2009.
And I’m not alone, the Blu-ray Stats New Log had a post last week about chip makers Zoran and Mediatek planning to join Broadcom and Sigma Designs in offering chipsets for Blu-ray players. More vendors offering chipsets will help drive down component prices, leading to lower player prices. As the post states:
Ken Lowe, vice president of strategic marketing at Sigma Designs, said it’s widely expected that new Blu-ray players from China and Taiwan will be in stores at prices near $200 in time for Christmas.
And today trade-mag Dealerscope picked up on the story too.