Yup, with no competition the pricing will probably go back up until the product becomes more mainstream.

It may take a year or 2 for the market pricing to come down as most people experiencing the recession in the near future will not want to pay $600+ for a blu ray player.

Remember when VHS and Beta machines were priced like that???

That is true, however, if Toshiba drops HD DVD which now looks to be a fact, support/upgrades will at some point fall off the map as well.

That (as it does it betterr than the other players I have) as well as play the HD-DVDs I already have. No need to rush out and replace them in another format

I believe they have little incentive to keep them down lets say. I hope I am wrong though.

Got into a good disccussion regarding this on another thread. I said lets see. Well I have heard every rationalization on why I was wrong, but the fact is b) media was cheaper back last Aug than now.

I hate being right.

I sure hope not. I won't be buying a $600 player or even a $400 player. This thing has dragged on long enough. I think the mainstream thinks that while HD is nice for movies, its not a dealbreaker. I am really quite happy with my upconverted dvds. My new big screen adds a lot more wow than a little more resoution on movies. I'm willing to pay a small premium for hd, but not what is currently being charged.

Heck, I can play a windows media high def movie on my current dvd drive. I don't much care what format gets me to hd.

Fred

I just got my 5 free HD DVDs in the mail. Yessssss!

I don't think that will happen. It didn't happen when CD beat DATs and it really didn't happen when VHS beat Betamax. DVD never really had any competition and no one complained about the lack of competition. In the long run, I imagine more people will invest in Blu-ray now that there is just one format. All those people sitting on the fence will jump in sooner rather than later. This mass adoption will lead to economies of scale which should will lead to cheaper players. It's not like Sony has a lock on the blu-ray player market.

I don't know. 5 free movies and the player was under $200 to start with. By the time Netflix does away with their HD-DVD supply, I will have watched some 40-50 HD movies. Fair price of admission.

If the BD players were that price I'd have gone that route. I just guessed wrong this time. Not the first, not the last.

Scott

Waiting on mine. But I did get my 5 free b) disks the other day.

I would offer a different opinion. For about 18 months following the BetaMax demise, I saw little to no sales on VHS tapes, and about an 18% price increase where I was at.


Not sure how lack of competition promotes pricing incentives to the consumer.