Sub-$200 Blu-ray Players In Time For The Holidays
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.
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March 3rd, 2008 at 23:12
It seems purely rational to me that we will see the $200 Blu-ray machine by Christmas.
While there is no longer any HD DVD “drop the retail $50 at any sign of trouble” competition, competition remains between the Blu-ray manufacturers. And also unlike HD DVD, there is a space in the price range for cheaper Taiwanese and Chinese players to fill while still being profitable for the manufacturers.
Personally I look forward to this healthy version of competition driving the price down to the point where mass adoption is possible… it just won’t be quite as rapid a drop as the artificial and unhealthy falling rate of the Toshiba player pricing.
March 3rd, 2008 at 23:20
Exactly. There is still plenty of competition between BD vendors - AND between BD and DVD. Vendors know they have to drive prices down to get mass adoption. And the low-end vendors have room in the market with BD because they’re not competing with subsidized players like Toshiba’s HD DVD decks.