Digital Home Thoughts: Sub-$500 Blu-Ray Player to hit Stores This Month

"The BDP-S300, first announced in February, was originally planned for an MSRP of around $600, but Sony confirmed today that it slashed the price by $100, bringing it down to $499. It's the first Blu-ray player to retail for less than a Playstation 3, which remains the dominant hardware for BD sales. Toshiba is winning the price war, though, with its HD-A2 HD DVD player, currently selling for a limited-time price of around $300."[/i]

While we're finally starting to see price drops on Blu-Ray players, HD DVD is still leading the charge to the magical $199 price tag. Amazon recently had an HD DVD player for $267, and you can buy the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive for $199. Most consumers are going to walk into a store, see the HD DVD and Blu-Ray drives side by side, and ask "why should I spend twice as much?" At the moment, there's no compelling reason to pay more for Blu-Ray. What's interesting is that Sony is dropping the price to below the level of the PS3, which tells me that Blu-Ray functionality isn't helping them sell game consoles. My prediction: HD DVD players hit $199 (or less) during the holidays, and many of them end up under Christmas trees. Meanwhile Blu-Ray players end up collecting dust on store shelves.