Tosh slashes prices on HD DVD players

MICROSOFT> BIG CHEQUE> TOSHIBA> PRICE REDUCTIONS> PROLONGED HD WAR> RECONSIDERATION BY BIG PUBLISHERS.

One last gasp, eh Toshiba?

Well consumers, if you wait another 6 months, those same Toshiba players might be close to free! Of course even then you won't really want one.

Bring on the blu :)

Nothing personal, Toshiba, really. It's just that we just need a single format.

Doesn't matter how cheap a player is if there aren't movies for it.

This whole format war is getting out of hand. Really I dont care who wins. Right now. It seems Blueray is beating Hd Dvd In alot of areas. It just seems microsoft is feeding toshiba money cuzz it doesnt want the ps3 to flurish.. yada yada yada.. It would be nice if they would just stop and say .. k you won

The problem with moves like this is that people end up thinking "what's the catch?".

They might assume that it's a dead technology being got rid of by slashing the price. Either that or they don't want to be seen by their friends as buying the 'Lidl special offer' version of Bluray.

Their is always one way to beat Sony.

Intel and AMD knows this trick. So does ATI and nVidia.

Phillips killed the oppision with this the previous war. And VHS had it going for it as well.

HAMMER TIME!

If you are down on product and you cant beat the opposition, well, sell sort and kill their margin.

Drop the prices, make it a free standard with no royalties and let Sony eat that.

Poison well if you will, but Phillips won the CD war that way!

This is Toshiba's only recourse. Other than this, the war is over, content is king. But the studios that is undecided, give them free royalties and they will go for it. 

The porn industry is another yet undecided player. With HD DVD interactive capabilities, it would be a good fit for them.

So yes, gut the price of the player, get below Sony's PS3 and make the hurdles for the content providers minimal.

Given the price they are selling them in the US for. It would be nice to have some kind of equal price love in Europe.

The HD camp would have been wise to have been agressive with pricing in the rest of the world. Build up market share elsewhere, instead of getting so bent up on gaining the US market.

The HD Deals they were offering in the US were very nice, not so good here.

Even if HD DVD dies, Blu can go to hell (along with Sony)!! Sony sucks and I will not support them. Digital downloads for me.

Now Blu supporters can pay even more to Sony. Hope your happy if there is no competition.

Yes, I will want one when they are close to free. Most of them make a great upscaling DVD player. I plan on staying with DVDs for a while anyway.

It's obvious that Toshiba is clearing inventory.

Competition = lower prices FTW.

..in order to prepare ground for its own upcoming Blu-Ray products. 
HD-DVD is dead. Thanks God !
And Bill Gates can cry as much as he wants, for once he won't be able to make a fool of customers by forcing an inferior product to the market.

Just as predicted, Toshiba is holding an HD-DVD fire sale. When the major defection to Blu-Ray was announced last week I think I suggested that if Toshiba came out with hurridly reduced pricing it would essentially confirm what we all know already. HD-DVD is dead, it's all over bar the shouting and Toshiba is holding a fire sale event to clear inventory before the rest of the world realizes it's already dead.

Craig, the only reconsideration by big publishers going on is how long they should stick with this lame duck. This is the second time that HD-DVD has attempted to drive the market by slashing prices, it failed the first time and it will fail this time. This isn't about trying to make HD-DVD work it's about not having to pack a land fill with already produced Toshiba HD-DVD players.

Why is anyone in favour of Blu Ray? It just doesn't make any sense for anyone, consumers or manufacturers. Blu Ray is more difficult to produce and more expensive. That doesn't benefit anyone. There is No discernable difference between the two technologies in performance or picture. 6 of one half a dozen of another. The only thing that matters to me as a consumer is the price and Blu Ray is definitely more expensive. It will be a real loss for all consumers if Blu Ray wins the war. It should die like the loser Beta Max did. FYI... I haven't bought either technology as yet, I'm not about to jump on either bandwagon at the current prices. DVD looks just fine to me right now, especially when upscaled. I think most consumers feel same at the moment.

Then again, they probably don't care about the rest of the world as always and everyone else will still have to play ridiculous prices for the players. No thanks.

Who ever managed the HD DVD marketing is an idiot. They should have lowered the prices BEFORE CES. They should have subsidized the player for the XBox 360. 

Sony was smart about including the Blu-Ray on its PS3 systems. 

too late now for them.....bye bye HD DVD
In the words of Trump.... "You're fire!"

Bought my first DVD Player at $300. So why not HD-DVD at $150. 

Just think of it as an expensive DVD player + Occasional HD-DVD player + Possibly a collector's item. 

Just buy another SONY's money losing PS3 and I am covered!

I hope this works long enough to get Blu-ray down another $50 to 100. I think you will soon get a free Toshiba with each new chequing account or fill-up of the SUV tank.

Toshiba with the HD DVD is the best next generation out there in the market as a complete HD drive. Not a profiler like the Boo-ray is. So stop buying that crap that do not have any good feature to offer and that cost a lot more and instead buy HD DVD for is low cost and superior technology and interactivity. Sony is so crap and not reliable. I just hope that Toshiba now as the major Shareholder of the PS brand(almost the 2 Sony industries of cell cpu are owned by Toshiba) will put inside the PS3 a hybrid drive just to kill off the blu-ray format.

Long Live the HD DVD!!

This HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war is just like the VHS/Betamax war all over again. Sony, not unlike itself, overcharges for a format that is only marginally "superior" on paper. Sony's Betamax did have slightly better specs on paper, but compared to VHS, no human eye could discern the difference. History comes full circle, and once again, Blu-Ray, an overcharged format fledged by Sony, claims to have better specs than HD-DVD. Sure it does, I'm not going to lie, but no human can tell the difference between the two. HD-DVD has everything VHS had to win the war. Although it is not as good on paper, it makes up for it in its affordability to the consumer. Warner made the wrong move. Leaving camp and supporting Sony, a manufacturer of overpriced goods, does not have the "needs of the consumer" in mind. There was a reason Sony's Betamax lost. If Sony wins, we will only have supported a corporation who has already fleeced the entire world with its overpricing. It seems to me that Sony is always out for a fight. They just have to come out with their own "unique" format (betamax, umd, minidisk, memory stick, SACD) to challenge the rest. They're arrogant and can't seem to just support a format that is not of their own creation. HD-DVD had what it needed to win (lower price, availability to the consumer, video quality on par with blu-ray), but Warner's mistake may be too big a blow for HD-DVD to recover from. For the sake of our wallets, hope blu-ray doesn't win.

Look guys if you thing in two years time we are going to be plugging little silver disks into devices to view movies, then I expect you have still got floppies attached to your systems. I think its more likely that we will be using USB sticks or downloading onto our 2/4 TB disks.

Ok... How may of these zellots have bluray already?

As one who has neither, this is GREAT! I mean cheap HD!

Why is BluRay still even considered? I mean, technology wise, I think HD has a slight edge. Now the players are cheaper.... what's the problem? Better tech & cheaper prices, who's dragging this fight out again?

I will not support Sony, they are arrogant and will never lower prices. They can kiss my ass. If toshiba loses, digital downloads for me as well.

Worth mentioning, the CD was both Philips AND Sony....

As for this HD DVD fire sale, it's just that, liquidated stock. Expect to see HD DVD players on QVC any day now...

That is what MS wants and why it is continuing to fund this format war, so they can sell you downloads for your Xbork360

Latest word on the street, is that Toshiba is desperately trying to clear their inventory of HD DVD players at knock down prices, before Universal and Paramount announce going format neutral in a couple of week time.

That would be interesting fot anyone buying a bargain player right now...

I think they should just grow a sack and drop the price real low, as it is Blue Ray is owning and its winning the format war. If they say dropped the price to $50 then at least HD-DVD could put up a real good fight. Thats just my retarded opinion so what ever.