Digital Home Thoughts: HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Pricing

The release on DVD of the blockbuster hit movie 300 today in North American markets had something that caught my attention. I received an email from Best Buy announcing the release of the movie in DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray. Up until now I haven't seen many high-profile movies that have had simultaneous releases on both formats, so it's been hard to compare prices. This screen shot says it all:



In my experience browsing through Blu-Ray titles, they've always struck me as being more expensive than HD-DVD discs, usually coming in around the $35 to $40 CAD mark. So imagine my surprise to see 300 being sold in Blu-Ray format for $29.99 and the HD-DVD version being $5 more expensive. Shopper psychology matters, so this is a point for Blu-Ray when Joe Consumer is looking at buying a next-gen DVD player.

Wouldn't you know it, when I went to actually purchase the HD-DVD version online, it was selling for $32.99, a bit closer to the Blu-Ray price. I also picked up a copy of the special edition with the Spartan helmet. Yes, I really enjoyed this movie! I'm going to compare the standard DVD, up-sampled to 1080i by my DVD player, with the HD-DVD version played on my Xbox 360. Should be interesting!